Boquet River Delta

The Boquet River Delta is an area of coarse, shifting sands forming a long narrow beach–one of the relatively rare swimmer’s beaches on Lake Champlain. The delta area covers a wide fan of sand, clay, drift wood, and other alluvial material deposited by the Boquet River several thousand feet out into the lake, extending to a depth of several hundred feet. A recent study of the delta materials found fragments of wood (possibly from the past saw milling and paper pulp industries) and garnet particles (possibly from years of Wollastonite milling and use of the mine tailings as road covering).

Over the years, as water levels on the lake rise and fall, the shoreline along the river continues to develop strips of high, narrow banks called levees, behind which wetlands and beaver ponds form. Inevitably trees and other vegetation take root on these levees. Their network of roots form a mat that resists the erosive forces of the river and the levees continue to grow higher.