By Noah Diedrich

Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship.

ADDISON — Spectators mingled amid camp chairs and canopies as they gathered at Chimney Point last weekend, primed for views of the Adirondacks across Lake Champlain from the state historic site.

Suddenly a light fwoosh and a dull thunk punctured the serene afternoon as one giant arrow, then another, punched into a black-and-white target affixed to the side of a bale of hay.

Husband and wife Stephen Gatesy and Maryann Davis, emeriti professors at two New England colleges in paleontology and clinical psychiatry, respectively, walked toward the target to retrieve their arrows. A man with a clipboard showed them their scores. 

“That’s a new record by one point,” Gatesy said.

Gatesy and Davis were participants in the 29th annual Open Northeastern Atlatl Championship, the premier event of the state Division for Historic Preservation’s Vermont Archaeology Month, held at Chimney Point on Sept. 21.

An atlatl is an ancient spear-throwing tool that predates the bow and arrow and was used by Indigenous people all over the world for hunting. It’s a rod-like device with a handle on one end and a notch for spears on the other. It lets someone launch the spear like a mini-catapult.  

Atlatlist Greg Maurer, a retired dentist from Vergennes, said the tool is believed to have been used to hunt waterfowl. 

“It’s like giving you another forearm and another elbow,” Maurer said. “You’re throwing it faster, and it goes further.”

Demonstrating his throwing technique, Maurer held his atlatl behind his shoulder like a football and, with the arrow parallel to the ground, whipped the atlatl forward in a straight line. 

“It’s a little bit like bowling,” he said. “Easy to do but hard to do well.”

Maurer has been throwing atlatl for 23 years and competing in the Chimney Point championship just as long. 

Since beginning with the sport in 2001, Maurer said he’s become part of a large community that boasts enthusiasts from around the world. 

“You buy a motorcycle, and you meet everyone that’s into motorcycles,” he said. “After you’ve been with it for a while, you meet some people and it becomes like a second family.”

The Chimney Point atlatl championship, the only of its kind in Vermont, draws competitors in from all over New England, Mauer said. 

“Last night we had 10 people sleeping in my house from Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire,” he said. “When this happens, it’s an event.”

Held on a Saturday, the championship was part of a three-day event known as Atlatl Weekend, which began the day before with an atlatl-making workshop and ended Sunday with a smaller, more specialized competition.

In that latter competition, more experienced contestants could throw at a target whose specifications complied with the World Atlatl Association’s international standards for competition. The standards allow for throwers to compare their abilities with atlatlists across the globe.

Bob Berg, founder of atlatl manufacturer Thunderbird Atlatl, led the Friday workshop teaching attendees how to construct atlatls and the spears, often referred to as darts or arrows, from wood. 

He fashions the spears from the wood of ash trees, which is soft and easy to straighten. 

Berg began making the spear-throwers in 1994, and he said his Candor, New York, company has since become the world’s largest atlatl manufacturer. 

Despite this, Berg said atlatl throwing is still something of an esoteric hobby. 

“It’s a niche market,” he said. “Not everyone’s going to have an atlatl.”

Allison Stetzel, who runs the competition, said her experience with the event began years ago when she was a senior at Rutland High School completing an assignment for her anthropology class. 

“Our project was to build an atlatl and come here and compete. And so I did that, never imagining that, 20-something years later, I’d run the competition,” she said.

Atlatl-throwing is a lifelong pursuit. A boy there named Theo, 8, said he has been throwing for almost a year and that his favorite part is how far he can launch the dart. 

Cindy Defeo, 65, traveled from New Hampshire to compete in what was her sixth competition at Chimney Point. 

Defeo, who has multiple sclerosis, has been throwing atlatl for 10 years and uses her walker to hold her extra darts while she throws. Her best advice for burgeoning atlatlists is to “aim small, miss small.”

Elsa Gilbertson, the regional historic site administrator for Chimney Point, said the peninsula was an important gathering place for the three earliest cultures in the region — Native Americans, French colonists and early Americans. 

For Gilbertson, the event is more than a competition — it is a part of Chimney Point’s mission to connect people with the region’s storied past.

“It’s a great way to appreciate what people had to do thousands of years ago just to survive,” she said. “The past is often more understandable if you can actually see and do things.”

The World Atlatl Association board approved holding their annual meeting in Vermont for the very first time in September 2025, said Debbie Andrews, the group’s executive secretary.