Canaan

Perched at Vermont's northeastern tip where the Connecticut River meets the Canadian border, Canaan is about as far from Montpelier as you can get and still be in the state. The town was chartered in 1782 and settled by families drawn to the timber trade along the upper Connecticut. Beecher Falls, the main village, takes its name from a cascade on the river and for many years hosted a large furniture factory that was one of the region's biggest employers.

With fewer than a thousand residents, Canaan is part of Essex County, Vermont's most rural and least populated county. The landscape is boreal — spruce, fir, and birch dominate — and winters are long and serious. Despite its remoteness, Canaan maintains its own elementary school and town government. Residents gather for Town Meeting each March to set budgets and elect officers, keeping alive the direct-democracy tradition that connects even the most far-flung Vermont communities to the rest of the state.