Links to External Web Sites

GIS

Vermont Interactive Map Viewer: The Vermont Interactive Map Viewer is designed to provide basemap information that you can use to explore Vermont's geography, locate a specific feature or area, and make custom maps (including maps with your own uploaded data).
USGS Geographic Names Information System: This is a query form for the United States and its territories. Enter a place name, such as a town name, and learn tid-bits about it such as the location (latitude, longitude) and elevation.
USGS calculator for magnetic declination: This calculator uses numeric modeling to calculate the magnetic declination for a given point on the globe and elevation. Magnetic declination is the angle difference for a geographic location between magnetic North and geographic North. This difference is due to the fact that the earth's geographic North and South poles (the axis on which the earth rotates) does not coincide with the earth's North and South magnetic poles. To make things even a little more interesting, the magnetic field (and poles) shifts slowly with time, making it necessary to make corrections to road surveyors' angles, which have been collected over a span of many years. This calculator requires Java 2 runtime environment on your computer.
Surveying units of measure Chain, Rod, and Link: Wikipedia entries for the surveyor's units of measure Chain, Rod, and Link are very interesting, and include a lot of historical information as to their origins and uses through the years. For the rod, there is even mention of Vermont using it as the measure of road width.

Miscellaneous

Long and Winding Ancient Roads Discussion Comes to End: This is a very good discussion from a Vermont League of Cities and Towns newsletter. It describes in very readable terms the background reasons for the Vermont Ancient Roads legislation, as well as the process of determining what is an "unidentified corridor", and of reaching a final disposition of each corridor by the final 1 July 2015 deadline.
Yahoo discussion group — Vermont Unmaintained Roads Recreation: The purpose of this email group is to give all Vermont unmaintained public road recreational enthusiasts a common forum to discuss various uses of Vermont unmaintained roads and byways, including so-called "ancient highways" and "unidentified corridors." The group is open to all facets of Vermont backcountry recreation, whether it be hiking, biking, hunting, snowmobiling, ATV riding, motorcycling, jeeping, etc. Whatever your brand of backcountry recreation, if it involves the use of Vermont historic and beautiful unmaintained roads, we want to hear your thoughts and opinions on how these roads should be protected, utilized, maintained, not maintained, etc.
LISTSERV 15.0 - ANCIENTROADS List at LIST.UVM.EDU: This is an on-line discussion and collaboration forum for citizens throughout Vermont who, just like you, are working to identify and determine the fate of unidentified corridors in their towns. This is an excellent place to see what problems others are running into, and in some cases, the solutions. If you have a question or problem, this is the place to post it. Perhaps someone else has the information that you need.
The Vermont Legislative Bill Tracking System: Link to the background information and full text of the "unidentified corridors" legislation
Vermont Dept. of Housing & Community Affairs: Vermont Department of Housing and Community Affairs - Planning Division - Ancient Roads Research and Mapping Municipal Grant Program
Vermont Center for Geographic Information (VCGI): Your source for Vermont GIS data, information, and events
Vermont Agency of Transportation - Online Map Center: State-wide repository of maps available on-line from the Vermont Agency of Transportation
Citizens Guides: General guides to local government and governance in Vermont