Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 39F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph..
Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 39F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph.
Reggie Tschorn of Sandgate, a man of the people (and animals and wildlife).
Reggie Tschorn outside his hilltop cabin in Sandgate. The sign is from his father’s practice.
In his living room, 500 hats adorn the ceiling. Why? “I like hats,” says Reggie Tschorn.
Reggie Tschorn of Sandgate, a man of the people (and animals and wildlife).
Reggie Tschorn outside his hilltop cabin in Sandgate. The sign is from his father’s practice.
In his living room, 500 hats adorn the ceiling. Why? “I like hats,” says Reggie Tschorn.
As he tells the story, Dr. Reginald Tschorn entered the world dramatically.
“I was born November 18 — I won’t tell you the year. November 18th is right in the middle of deer season. And my father was here (in the family hunting home in Sandgate) with a bunch of his friends, when my mother announced, ‘I’m having your son.’ And my father said, ‘Good, you better get to the hospital, ‘cause we’re hunting.’”
So Reggie’s mother got out the wood-paneled station wagon, started down 313 and was hit by a drunk driver. Since there were no guardrails then, the car ended up pushed into the river.
“Ambulance got there. Took her. On the way down to Bennington she said, ‘Can you do me a favor? I’d like to call my husband. He’s a physician.’ And everybody went, ‘Uh, oh — we don’t want to fool around with this lady.”
They arranged to have her brought to the hospital where Reggie’s father practiced in Mount Kisco, N.Y. And there Reggie entered the world, deprived of being born a Vermonter.
His parents perhaps not surprisingly divorced, and he frequently found his way back to Sandgate, even attending school in the District 2 Schoolhouse during deer season and being bullied by the Skidmore brothers. His high school yearbook predicted his future: veterinarian in Vermont. To become a vet, he went to Kansas State, completed his education, entered military service and, while stationed in Hagerstown, Md., in 1976-78, he coincidently found himself researching a monkey virus. It had the name COVID.
After the service he set up a small and large animal practice in Arlington and settled into Sandgate. His father had bought 500 acres for $500. Over the years, the total has grown to about 1,000 acres. He feels blessed to be a part of this land. He recently gave me a tour in his John Deere Gator, jouncing over a rutted road, chainsaw bouncing in the back (in case of fallen trees blocking the road).
Imagine a deep green canopy overhead, glimpses of sky and mountains, a waterfall slicing through the hillside. Reggie explained various plantings — a couple of acres of corn to draw down the bears (all the better to shoot them and prevent their killing the usual five to seven fawns, yearly). Sorghum feeds the deer. Whitetail clover — also for deer — needs reseeding. Along our rocking ride, he pointed out sunflowers, marveling at the way the whole field shifts and follows the sun coursing through the sky. Sunflowers feed the deer.
A hilltop opens into a meadow fronting a rustic cabin. It was a project of Building Wild, a show that aired on National Geographic in 2014. (Getting permits to build the cabin is a funny story itself. At a hearing, as Reggie tells it, recent arrivals raised objections — noise, traffic, hazard to children. After hearing a litany of grousing, the chair asked Reggie if he had anything to say. Reggie said no. “Approved,” said the chair.) In six days the crew built the cabin, using wood from the property Reggie had milled on his LT 40. The cabin features live-edge planking, a sauna, a gas-powered generator and a cistern-based water supply. Its outlook has a bright beauty that cries out for a poet. At night, the cabin is bathed in near darkness: Only in distant New York does a lone light flicker.
His 1,000-acre land now has two structures, hardly a harbinger of urban density.
The property is under the care of a forester who develops a plan for tree cutting, personally marking each tree to be cut. Reggie harvests some trees that have naturally fallen. He mills them into planks of maple, spalted maple, oak, butternut and ash, which he sells in small batches below market rate. In an agreement with the state, the land will be conserved, a home to wildlife in perpetuity.
Although he tended to all animals as a vet, his first love was horses. His equine practice developed a reputation, which led to his most memorable encounter. One day years ago, “I get a call: ‘I understand you’re a pilot and an excellent equine veterinarian. I’ve got a lameness problem with a horse that Gunther gave me.’ … Gunther did not ring a bell with me at the time. So anyways I flew alone to an airstrip in the Adirondacks, and there’s a big black limousine waiting for me. And I’m going, ‘What is this all about?’”
Two big guys escort him to the limo, he gets in and discovers he’s locked into the back seat. He is driven down a long driveway and up to a house with huge columns and two guys standing there with AR-14s. And Reggie is thinking, “They are going to find my body at the bottom of a lake in a hundred years.”
One of the guys asks, “You know who you’re working for?” He said, “No.” Did he know the woman who made the first call? He said, “No.”
“You’re working for Shania Twain.”
And moments later, there she was in the barn, pitchfork in hand, cleaning stalls. The would-be cold-blooded criminal mastermind was instead a beautiful 5-foot, 4-inch pop singer and horse lover.
Reggie’s life includes longstanding commitments. He’s a leader of Ducks Unlimited, an organization formed in 1927 to preserve wetland habitat and promote the well-being of wood ducks, first endangered in drought conditions a hundred years ago. He teaches gun safety to young people, bringing them to his property to learn first-hand.
Vermont almost lost him to Alaska a few years back. After his beloved second wife, Edie, died, he received a call about a job in Barrow that would involve flying and tending to animals. Set to embrace a change, he agreed, only to find that the Alaska vet decided to stay put after all. So Reggie remained in Sandgate.
Asked what is special about Vermont, he replies, “Without a doubt the number one thing is the foliage in the fall. I don’t think there is anyplace other than Vermont that has these intense colors. … We’ve got the sugar maples, the oaks, the ashes. Everybody said the color in New Hampshire is gorgeous, the color in Colorado is gorgeous. … They don’t have the vibrant reds that we have.”
I would add, too, that colorful people make Vermont special. Reggie Tschorn is one.
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