As part of the Art and Land Conservation Symposium portion of the Appalachian Trail 2017 Conference at Colby College in Maine, a number of field trips were offered for symposium participants.  Deb Carroll, Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust volunteer, has contributed a trip report on an outing she led to Katahdin for a two-day art history expedition into the world of Frederic Church.  Church traveled the world but so loved the Katahdin area that he built his summer camps there on Millinocket Lake. His camps were a base from which he worked. The last of his studio works, Katahdin from Millinocket Lake (1895), is perhaps the most well-known of his Millinocket Lake pieces. Church would also paint at other vantage points in the region, most famously perhaps at the remote and beautiful Katahdin Lake. Many other artists followed Church to Katahdin Lake, including Marsden Hartley. Today, Katahdin Lake is part of Baxter State Park and is still visited by working artists.

By Deborah Carroll

We met on August 5, 2017, just a few miles outside of the southern gate of Baxter State Park, to begin a 2-day adventure through art history.

Frederic Church was an American landscape painter who built a summer camp on Millinocket Lake.  During the morning hours, we were given a tour of Church’s property, which still bears many artifacts from that age including furnishings, the original structure with its vertical log wall (though it’s been renovated to some degree), and a marvelous stone fireplace with a mosaic that was thought to depict Church’s beloved canoe, but which I thought resembled a sailboat.  And they gave us cookies!

By 1:00 our group of 11 artists and art historians were shouldering out backpacks for the 3.5 mile walk to Katahdin Lake Wilderness Camps, a frequent haunt of Frederic Church and his large entourage of artists and friends.

Katahdin Lake Wilderness Camps is perched on the shore of Katahdin Lake and affords one both a sandy beach and spectacular views stretching from Pamola to Hamlin Peak and beyond.

The Camp also features wonderful home cooked meals prepared by Holly and her crew, as well as comfortable cabins and bunks (complete with pounding rain on the roof and lightning during our visit), and fish that bite your toes when you dangle them in the water off the dock (which seriously cracked us up – and what’s a MATLT adventure without something seriously cracking us up?). (Editor’s note:  Gross!)

Our group was co-led by Maine watercolorist Evelyn Dunphy, who introduced us to individuals who were well versed in the rich story of Church’s activities in the area.  Dunphy also entertained us with stories and her own insights regarding Church era exploits.  Speaking only for myself, I was left richer for the experience.  I believe that sentiment was shared by all.

Saturday afternoon, and briefly Sunday morning, found us swimming, kayaking, sketching, and taking photographs by the lake.

The hike, a short “out and back,” was comfortable, with little elevation gain, and our group handled it nicely.  As I walked, I thought about the artists who carried their tools with them through those woods and set up their easels on the shore and dock to create pieces that would then travel the world and positively impact the work of conservationists globally, and for years to come.  This adventure was so much more than a walk in the woods, and yet it was, simply, just that as well.

The Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust recently received a $5,000 grant in support of the Appalachian Trail Maine: Next Century program.  The program was launched in 2016 with three facets:
1. Next Century Priorities. Prioritization via GIS mapping and application of the lands along Maine’s Appalachian Trail.
2. Next Century Land Protection. New conservation projects along the A.T. in response to NPS Scaling Up Initiative.
3. Next Century Outreach: Bringing national attention – from the public, elected officials, foundations and other conservation organizations – to the Appalachian Trail in Maine.

ATMNC is well underway and expected to be completed in early 2018.

Horizon Foundation was founded in 1997 to support non-profit organizations that aspire to create and maintain sustainable, vibrant and resilient communities by

• Enabling children and adults to lead their communities in creative, healthy and thoughtful ways;
• Educating citizens to be good stewards of the environment;
• Conserving land and water resources;
• Encouraging service to others;
• Promoting visual arts and music, and
• Teaching appreciation of and preserving historic assets

Thanks you to Horizon Foundation!

The most recent of our Next Century Hikes was held this past Saturday on a section of Maine’s Appalachian Trail that is not so well traveled: the area between Flagstaff Lake and the Kennebec River, more specifically the Carry Ponds.  There are no high mountains on the A.T. here, and no side trails that go to other peaks.  There is, however, a really interesting side trail that was completed just a few years ago – the Great Carrying Place Portage Trail.

In the fall of 1775, Benedict Arnold – then a rising star in the Continental Army, and years away from becoming the traitor we think of today – led an army of about 1,100 men by sea from Cambridge, Massachusetts and then up the Kennebec River to the Great Carrying Place in what is today Bingham, Maine (on Route 201).  The army’s destination was Quebec, then held by the British, but first the army had to reach the city by the inland route since the St. Lawrence was heavily defended.  The route was comprised of portages from the river to the Carry Ponds trips in bateaux, flat-bottomed boats that were hastily made for the expedition, and from there up the Dead River to Lake Megantic in Quebec.  Unfortunately, the expedition was beset by trouble from the start.  There was a late-season hurricane, the route was arduous, the men were exhausted and eventually many deserted.  The eventual Christmas Day assault on Quebec ended in failure.

Fortunately for hikers today, the Arnold Expedition Historical Society has recreated the trail with 95% certainty up to West Carry Pond.  The route is orange-blazed and has a number of signs along the way.  There are a number of roads and camps in the area of the ponds and the route needs to be followed carefully, but it’s easily done for most of the route.  The Appalachian Trail runs with the Arnold Trail from West Carry Pond to near Long Falls Dam Road.

For the Maine A.T. Land Trust hike, we were planning to cover the route from the Great Carrying Place on the Kennebec River to Arnold Point on West Carry Pond.  We were accompanied on the hike by Norm Kalloch, a volunteer for AEHS who owns a camp in the area.  Despite his protestations to the contrary, Norm knows everything about the Arnold expedition and the land along the route.  As soon as we set out, he told us about the challenges the men faced, the context of what they were doing, and how the landscape we were seeing related to what Arnold’s men saw and experienced.  There were places where historic artifacts have been found, sites where Arnold’s men camped, hauled and even where they died, and much more.  Hikers can get used to seeing the A.T. and its environment a certain way, but with Norm’s help we were able to look at the landscape differently.  This is one of the things that makes Maine’s A.T. so special: the existence of trails, history, recreation and heritage all in one place.

The total distance we covered was about 13.5 miles, but this included a number of detours and anybody can hike any distance of the Arnold Trail depending on how far they want to go.  We didn’t quite make it to Arnold Point, but it was a wonderful hike nonetheless!

If you are interested in hiking the Arnold Trail in Maine, head over to http://www.arnoldsmarch.com/ for more information.  See you out on our next hike!

The Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust conserved the land on the east side of Saddleback Mountain in 2004, and there’s a recently-opened trail through the property to the Appalachian Trail in the section between Saddleback and The Horn (two of Maine’s 4,000-footers in the High Peaks region).  As part of the land trust’s stewardship duties, we send volunteers to help maintain the trail under the leadership of Maine Appalachian Trail Club.  MATC maintainers maintain and manager 267 miles of the A.T. in Maine.  Many of the land trust’s members, directors and staff are members of MATC.  Some maintain sections of the A.T. in their own right.

Maintenance trips are usually done 2-3 times per year, depending on the condition of the trail.  Both the A.T. (white blazes) and official A.T. side trails (blue blazes) are maintained by these volunteers.  Being a relatively new trail, the Berry Pickers Trail did not require much maintenance this year – just a few blowdowns and encroaching spruce branches.  The land trust will have another trip in September to tackle low-growing vegetation and generally check in the trail.

If you are interested in maintaining a section of the A.T. or a side trail, or in corridor boundary monitoring, you can find more info at matc.org.  This article is a pretty good summary, too.