Upper Valley Connections Weekly Digest - Issue #9
Upper Valley Connections
Issue No. 9 · May 21, 2026
Your weekly guide to life along the Connecticut River
Memorial Day weekend arrives with a full card: raptor feedings and ambassador birthdays at VINS, Dartmouth's wind ensemble Saturday night, Green Day's American Idiot running all week at the Hop, and Molly Tuttle at the Lebanon Opera House Friday night. This week's feature looks at how the towns of the Upper Valley have marked Memorial Day for generations -- and why the tradition hits a little differently here.
— The Upper Valley Connections Team
This week's digest is proudly sponsored by Upper Valley Solutions — never miss a call from a neighbor again.
Memorial Day Weekend Note: Howe Library and Norwich Public Library are closed Sunday, May 24 and Monday, May 25 in observance of Memorial Day. Most outdoor attractions remain open.
This Weekend
[Music · Ticketed]
Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble
Sat May 23 · 7:30 PM · Spaulding Auditorium, Hanover, NH
Dartmouth's wind ensemble closes out the spring season at Spaulding. Pre-show talk at 6 PM is free; the main concert is ticketed. A genuine send-off for the academic year, and one of the Hop's better rooms for wind music.
[Kids & Family · Free]
HopStop Family Show: Mister Chris & Friends
Sat May 23 · 11:00 AM · Hopkins Center for the Arts, Hanover, NH
Free Saturday morning family music at the Hop. Mister Chris is a perennial favorite for the preschool-and-under crowd, and the Hop stage is a genuinely lovely setting for it.
[Outdoors & Nature · Admission]
Ambassador Birthday Bash at VINS
Sat May 23 · 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM · VINS Nature Center, Quechee, VT
VINS is throwing a birthday party for its animal ambassadors -- the resident raptors and reptiles who serve as the center's public face year-round. Included with general admission. A great reason to finally take the kids to Quechee Gorge.
[Arts & Culture · Admission]
Exhibition on Screen: Frida Kahlo
Sat May 23 · 4:00 PM · Loew Auditorium, Hanover, NH
The Exhibition on Screen series brings major museum retrospectives to cinema, and Frida Kahlo is one of the stronger entries. Ticketed.
[Music · Free]
A Little Lunch Music: Allison Pollard and Will Ogmundson
Fri May 22 · 12:00 PM · Upper Valley Music Center, Lebanon, NH
Free Friday lunch concert at UVMC. Allison Pollard and Will Ogmundson bring acoustic chamber music to an intimate space. Worth a long lunch break.
[Film · Free admission]
DFS: Borders and Belonging -- Cycle of Love
Fri May 22 · 7:00 PM · Loew Auditorium, Hanover, NH
The Dartmouth Film Society screens "Cycle of Love" as part of its Borders and Belonging series. Free admission; ticketed.
[Community · Free]
Pride Game Night at The Fourth Place
Sat May 23 · 6:00 PM · The Fourth Place, Hanover, NH
Pride-themed game night at the Fourth Place. $10 day pass donation. Bring friends.
[Workshop · $45–$50]
Herbal Medicine Workshop at Enfield Shaker Museum
Sat May 23 · 2:00 PM · Enfield Shaker Museum, Enfield, NH
The Shakers were serious herbalists. A three-hour hands-on workshop at the museum grounds, drawing on that tradition. $45–$50.
See All 134 Events This Week →
Later in the Week
[Music · Ticketed]
Molly Tuttle at Lebanon Opera House
Thu May 28 · 7:30 PM · Lebanon Opera House, Lebanon, NH
Molly Tuttle is one of the sharpest acoustic guitarists working today -- Grammy-winning, relentlessly inventive, and genuinely worth the drive. Limit of 8 tickets per order; prices include all fees. Don't sit on this one.
[Music · Ticketed]
Samantha Fish at Lebanon Opera House
Fri May 29 · 7:30 PM · Lebanon Opera House, Lebanon, NH
Samantha Fish plays blues-rock the way it's meant to be played -- loud, technical, and deeply felt. The Opera House is a great room for it.
[Music/Theater · Ticketed]
Green Day's American Idiot at the Hop
Wed–Fri May 27–29 · 7:30 PM · Hopkins Center for the Arts, Hanover, NH
Dartmouth's Department of Theater runs Green Day's American Idiot through the end of the week. The rock musical draws on the full album and tends to generate outsized energy from college casts. Worth catching before it closes.
[Literary · Free]
Catherine Tudish: A Thousand Souls
Tue May 26 · 7:00 PM · Norwich Bookstore, Norwich, VT
Catherine Tudish reads from her new novel at Norwich Bookstore. Tudish is a Vermont writer with a quiet, exacting prose style -- the kind of event the Bookstore does better than almost anywhere.
[Outdoors & Nature · Free]
Anthony D'Amato & Paul Catanzaro: Tending Your Forest
Thu May 28 · 7:00 PM · Norwich Bookstore, Norwich, VT
Two foresters talk about what it actually means to care for a woodlot in New England -- covering ecology, timber, and the long view. Free. A good bookend to Memorial Day weekend.
[Music · Free]
Double Treble at Lebanon Opera House
Tue May 26 · 6:30 PM · Lebanon Opera House, Lebanon, NH
Free choral concert from Double Treble at the Opera House. Good Tuesday evening option for the whole family.
[Education · Free]
Celebrating the 250th: The Spirit of '76
Thu May 28 · 6:30 PM · Howe Library, Hanover, NH
Part of Howe Library's ongoing series on the American founding: "Can the People Rule?" Free and open to the public.
[Film · Free]
Hop Film: The AI Doc
Thu May 28 · 7:30 PM · Loew Auditorium, Hanover, NH
The Hopkins Center screens a documentary on artificial intelligence. Free. The Upper Valley has thoughts on this subject.
This Week in Upper Valley History
The Day They Brought the Town to the Green
Every town in the Upper Valley has a green -- Norwich, Woodstock, Hanover, Lebanon -- and on Memorial Day, for most of the past century and a half, those greens have served the same purpose: a place for a town to gather and count its losses.
The tradition started just a few years after the Civil War. In 1868, a Union general named John Logan issued General Order No. 11 designating May 30 as a day to decorate the graves of fallen soldiers with flowers. By 1870, most New England towns had already developed their own variations -- processions from the town hall to the cemetery, speeches from the bandstand, local militia members in wool uniforms that were already too warm for late May.
In the Upper Valley, the scale of loss from the Civil War was not small. Towns like Norwich, Thetford, and Cornish sent a substantial fraction of their young men to the war. Vermont and New Hampshire both exceeded their draft quotas. The Dartmouth contingent alone -- faculty, students, and recent graduates -- lost dozens. Many of those names are still legible on the monuments that stand in these same town greens today.
What makes the Upper Valley's Memorial Day tradition somewhat distinctive is the Connecticut River itself. For most of the 19th century, the river divided not just two states but two slightly different communities: New Hampshire's larger towns clustered around commerce, Vermont's smaller agricultural villages spread along the hillsides. Memorial Day, more than almost any other occasion, brought those communities into shared grief. The Windsor-Cornish covered bridge, the oldest in the country, saw regular processional traffic -- families crossing to honor the dead on both sides.
By the early 20th century, the ceremonies had shifted somewhat. The veterans' groups -- Grand Army of the Republic posts in the 1870s through the 1890s, then American Legion posts after World War I -- became the organizing force. The speeches got more formal. The bands got better. The parades grew longer. In Woodstock, the town's unusually intact 19th-century streetscape meant that the processional route remained almost unchanged for decades: up Elm Street, around the green, down Central, out to the Woodstock Union High cemetery.
After World War II, the nature of the day shifted again. The casualty lists were longer and reached every corner of every town. In Lebanon, the new park on the riverfront was dedicated partly as a memorial to the war dead. Norwich lost men in Korea and Vietnam who are listed now on the same stones as their great-grandfathers.
What persists -- and what you can still see this Monday if you find the right town green at the right hour -- is the impulse behind it: to make the loss legible, to say the names out loud, to stand in the same place where people have stood before. Some years the band is good. Some years the speaker is forgettable. Some years it rains. None of that changes what the day is for.
If you're looking for a Memorial Day ceremony this weekend, Norwich, Woodstock, and Hanover all typically hold observances. Check your local town notices for times.
Farmers' Markets This Week:
- Lebanon Farmers Market -- Tonight, Thursday May 21 -- 4--7pm -- Colburn Park, Lebanon NH -- Produce, baked goods, maple, meat, flowers, live music. Rain or shine. SNAP/EBT accepted.
- Norwich Farmers Market -- Saturday May 23 -- 9am--1pm -- Route 5 South, Norwich VT -- 55+ vendors, live music, rain or shine. SNAP/EBT accepted.
Opening Soon: - Hartland Farmers Market (VT) -- First market Friday May 29, 4--6:30pm -- 153 Route 5, Hartland VT - Hanover Farmers Market (NH) -- Opens Wednesday June 7, 3--6pm -- The Green, 1 Wheelock St, Hanover NH - Market on the Green (Woodstock VT) -- Opens Wednesday June 3
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