The 40-acre park is managed by The Nature Museum, where information and maps are available. The trails are open to the public year round and are located behind The Nature Museum. They can be accessed from Townshend Road, or from Fire Pond Road.

Volunteers For Peace Blitz Grafton Trails

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Volunteers For Peace -- a non-profit membership organization founded in 1982 and based in Belmont, Vermont -- aims for a more peaceful world through the promotion of International Voluntary Service (also called International Workcamps) "as an effective means of intercultural education, service learning and community development." VFP partners with like-minded organizations around the globe to provide projects, such as the one in Grafton, where people from diverse backgrounds join together to help communities meet local needs and improve life on the Earth. As participants work and live together, almost like a family, they share daily life with each other and the communities in which they are working. Workers come to appreciate each other and other peoples, places, and cultures. Working together toward a common goal and finding solutions to daily problems or tasks at hand, they resolve conflicts and build a better foundation for reason and peace through this learning and serving experience. Meanwhile they are also forming some amazing and lasting friendships, with Nature as the great leveler and facilitator.

Read the full story (PDF).

Thank You!

Thanks go to the many businesses, organizations, and people who provided amenities and contributed in other ways to make the daily lives of the volunteers cleaner, more delicious, and more interesting. Kim and Edward Bank, Janet and John Bramley, Maggie Stewart, Chris Wallace, and Suzi and Bob Youatt offered shower facilities. Laurie and Will Danforth, Lisa Defresne, Grafton Cares, Phil Morgan, Melissa Post, Joy Wah Chinese Restaurant in Bellows Falls, Lois and Dick Sippel, Sandy Stevens, and Chris Wallace provided meals and/or help with them. Lisai's Market in Chester and Mark and Sue Rushton provided meat. Harlow's in Westminster, Debe Plummer, Joe Plummer,
Mark and Sue Rushton, and Camilla and Silos Roberts gave vegetables, eggs, or other produce. Thanks also go to Mack's Place for its gift card, to the Grafton Grocery Market for a line of credit, and to the Old Tavern for dessert and a concert the first week and flat bread pizzas the next.

Monetary contributions from Cheryl Cox, the Fenton/Wu Family, Audrie Haag, Sue and George Nostrand, Chester Hardware, and Village Printers helped finance necessary supplies. Kim Bank, Melissa and Irwin Post, and Wendell Rogers helped Museum staff with transportation. Ivor Stevens donated his four-wheel, dump-body Gator to haul dirt supplied by the Windham Foundation to fill holes on the Red Trail at the Village Park. We are grateful to all of them.

The Nature Museum staffs the Fish Ladder and Watershed Visitor Center in Bellows Falls, Vermont. The facility is owned and operated by TransCanada Corporation, which also owns the hydroelectric facility. The Nature Museum has added displays and exhibits to the Fish Ladder Center that focus on the plants and animals of the Connecticut River watershed. The operation of the Center is made possible by a grant from TransCanada Corporation, and through the cooperation and support of Matthew Cole, the External Affairs Officer for TransCanada Corporation. The Fish Ladder is located in the village of Bellows Falls, Vermont, next to the post office building on Bridge Street. If you would like more information, please call 802-843-2111.

Open weekends from Memorial Day to Labor Day

While the visitor center is open all summer, the water does not run through the fish ladder throughout the open season. TransCanada Corporation, is instructed to open the ladder by the Fish and Wildlife Service when the Atlantic Salmon has been spotted passing through the Vernon facility. The ladder is most likely to be open between Memorial Day and the 4th of July. Dates vary widely year to year. Call The Nature Museum for more information at 802-843-2111.

Visitation Hours
Saturdays 10 AM-4 PM
Sundays 12 PM-4 PM

If you are interested in the "Fish Passage schedule" information, the Fish and Wildlife Service has a website that lists the fish that pass through the various sites along the Connecticut River.

A new rock and mineral exhibit, which includes a dinosaur footprint from the Connecticut River Watershed, was installed by the beginning of July 2011. The exhibit was designed by Sue Hadden of the Vermont Museum of Mining and Minerals on Pleasant Street in Grafton, Vermont. In addition to its Connecticut River Watershed specimens, the Mining Museum contains the finest collection of Vermont minerals in existence. That museum is open Saturdays and Sundays 10-12 and 1-4 each day through the end of October or by appointment by calling Sue Hadden at 802-875-3562.

The new two-case exhibit at the Fish Ladder features impressive minerals and fossils from the Connecticut River Watershed. According to Ms. Hadden, "The geology of the Connecticut River Valley Watershed is quite complex, but extremely important in understanding mountain building and subsequent glacial erosion, not only in relation to farmland, but to quarrying and mining as well."

While there are many large and colorful examples of various minerals displayed at the Center, some might say that the very unsparkly "jewels" of the collection are the footprints of a Grallator dinosaur and the various concretions that formed around fossilized leaves.

The Grallator was a bipedal, carnivorous dinosaur from the late Triassic to early Jurassic period (about 200 million years ago). Its name means "stilt walker." The herding dinosaur is known from its fossilized, large-clawed, three-toed footprints about 7" in length. It weighed about 75-100 pounds and has been found in parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Canada, and Europe. It looked a lot like the Velociraptor portrayed in Jurassic Park.

The Village Park is a wooded trail system that is located behind the Museum and is a wonderful place to amble through the forest. Maps are available at the Museum.

Volunteers For Peace Blitz Grafton Trails On August 8, 2010 ten extraordinary international volunteers from Volunteers For Peace [VFP] arrived in Grafton on a work mission to improve trails at the Village Park and the Grafton Ponds Outdoor Center. The VFP project in Grafton was a collaboration between The Nature Museum and the Windham Foundation which involved two teachers from Spain and eight college-age students: two young men from South Korea, one from Italy, and five young women -- one each from France, Germany, Japan, Spain, and Taiwan.

Read more about the Volunteers For Peace visit

The Bellows Falls Fish Ladder and Watershed Visitor Center is owned by TransCanada Corporation and the educational aspect of the facility is managed by The Nature Museum.

The Fish Ladder houses exhibits, displays and activities focusing on the Connecticut River and its watershed.