Situated at the far northern end of Lake Champlain, the Isle La Motte is a haunting terrain of sparse forest and windswept solitude. It must have seemed all the more desolate in 1666, when the first settlement in Vermont, Fort St. Anne, was built by French explorers under command of Pierre de St. Paul, Sieur La Motte. They took solace in a shrine built to St. Anne, staffed by Jesuit priests who accompanied the expedition.

Four hundred years later, St. Anne’s Shrine (Isle La Motte, 802/928-3362, www.saintannesshrine.org, 9 a.m.–7 p.m. daily mid-May–mid-Oct., tours every half hour, $2 adults) still exists as a Catholic pilgrimage site, though the current building dates only from the late 19th century. In addition to the main building, where mass is still said regularly in season, the picturesque lakeshore is dotted by various grottoes filled with religious statues, including a 15-foot gold-leaf statue of the Virgin Mary rescued from a Burlington cathedral.

Up the hill, a rectory and cafeteria has a small museum full of relics dating back to the French occupation in the 17th century. The lake itself is fittingly graced by a statue of the man who discovered it in 1609, explorer Samuel de Champlain, sculpted by F. L. Weber for the Montreal Expo in 1967.