Visit Derby Line in Vermont

Travel with Bennett-Watt and discover the border town of Derby Line in Vermont.

Visit Derby Line in Vermont Male: Vermont’s Derby Line is a unique and interesting little community that sits right on Canadian boarder, actually many buildings straddle the boarder. Nancy Rumery: What we have here is the Haskell Free Library and Opera House. We’re located in the Northern part of Vermont in Derby Line just—actually we kind of run in to the boarder a little bit of the building spills over into the town that stands between Quebec. But as far as we know, we’re the only librarian in the world that straddles the boarder. Well, people come here to borrow a book. They come here for cultural events in the theater that’s located on the upper floors of the building. Since this stage is located on the Canadian side of the boarder, the board runs diagonally through the building. Anybody you have a choice that sitting in the United States or sitting in Canada when you come to see a show but all of the performers are in Canada. Other things that go on in the library we have meetings, we’ve had wedding here, we’ve had law enforcement that come use us for a place to take that positions and some information from people who weren’t terribly interested in crossing the boarder shall we say. The only door into the building is on the US side, so our Canadian visitors are able to come in and go and they pretend they never actually left Canada. We’re pretty fortunate that way it's not terribly complicated for us yet. Male: In the small rural village of Williamstown what maybe one of the most unusual business in America. Will and Terry Knight came up from Brooklyn about 40 years ago. Had full time jobs but also started a small cabinet business. They found purely by accident that spiders were their real business. Will Knight: Welcome to the Spider Web Farm. All walls of webs has been the favorite… Male: We just turn them up and stick them on wood. Will Knight: Well, I stick them on wood before I tell you, you can't touch the web. Male: The Knight’s have found a way to share a spider art, its web by collecting them on lacquered plats. At first they collected from neighbors barns their own sheds and barns and anywhere else they could find spider webs. They’ve now sophisticated the process that allows them to collect several hundred each season. Will built window lash which he hangs in their barn and it’s here the little arachnids do their work. He sprays the lightness to paint on the frames to find and color the webs. Will Knight: Once the layers start dropping, you’ll know its cold. We had a frost last night. It was 25 degrees this morning. Oh, I think they sense it they do have a brain, it just might be the end—cell you'll love because they do figure things out. We have some kids up there one day that had just come from the NASA like a college kids and they have done a little thing at NASA for six weeks, they checked out the behavior of things in the vacuum. And among the things—the animals that they test it was spiders. You know spiders depend a great deal on gravity to get their web constructed. They dropped which requires gravity and I'm going to get him now. Male: Did you find one? Will Knight: Yeah, I think I've found one in here. I'm not sure I see something. Oh yeah, there is web. It’s funny how little things as skinny as they are to have their front in their back. Okay, we’re getting pretty close. Now this is the glue. Okay and here we go. Now I'll get on the other side in here. People always asked me what is a perfect web is. Well, anything that a spider does is perfect because he’s the master of webs but in my mind a perfect web is when I get in on the board, where it is in the center so to speak. Where you can see all of the tie lines where you can find places where his hook up to something to give it that resistance and all of them are clearly visible as being orbital or radial parts of the web. And this figures no extra silk hanging around from yesterday or any of that kind of stuff. Male: The Knight’s accidental business started when Terry collected a couple of webs to use as an element in her paintings. Terry Knight: When we first started—everybody was, “Oh, spiders yuck!” And this was spiders. But now I think with Charlotte's Web and with a lot of things that you can see on television there's a different feeling without it. So I like to think that we've done something good for the spider. Male: Several thousand visit the Knight’s Spider Web Farm each year and they keep track with pins on their map. International visitors go around the edge on printed cards and they have a guest book with signatures on all over the world. Will Knight: 20 years ago before they—I know everything that but anyway is customer is store and they said to me, you should be on the internet. Knowing not what if—of what he spoke right. Okay, good what time does it go through? Anyhow, these are from and said, “If you get on the internet and you get yourself a website” and I said, “Why do I need the website? This is the home of the original website.” But she thought it was quite that and have nothing to do with—concluded that he thought it was cleaver so they put that on our sign, home of the original website and seems to be a good joke. One of the few.