The Best Way to See New England's North Forest Canoe Trail

Can the NFCT Save Northern Forest Economies?
by Ed Winchester
In the fall of 1949, Central Maine Power diverted the swift-moving Dead River to satisfy the state's growing appetite for electrical power. Progress, however, is seldom painless. Rising waters from the Long Falls Dam swallowed the town of Flagstaff, displacing residents and transforming its eponymous pond into the largest man-made lake in the state.

Today, paddlers on Flagstaff Lake can still make out the otherworldly sight of chimneys and foundations lurking beneath the surface. It may not be Lake Mead, but for Northern Forest Canoe Trail co-founder Rob Center, this shallow, 30-mile-long body of water in Maine's rugged western mountains region represents the water trail's vast potential as both a model for local stewardship and an engine of economic development. The 740-mile trail passes above the submerged frontier town creating a potent confluence of history and recreation that Center hopes will inject much-needed economic activity into the region.

"People think of themselves as living in tiny community north of where anyone is," says Center, who founded the trail with wife Kay Henry. "They don't realize what they have."

Just as communities in the Northeast benefit by their proximity to ski areas, national forests, and other recreation hotspots, NFCT organizers envision a cash influx to communities along the route as out-of-town paddlers open their wallets for food, guide services, and gear. Communities throughout the Northern Forest, reeling from the collapse of the timber industry, have put their faith in similar models of sustainable economic development, with varying degrees of success.

Towns like Bethel, Maine—home to Sunday River Ski area—have made the transition, while those such as Berlin, New Hampshire have seen tourism-based hopes falter. But there are signs the NFCT's blue-sky scenarios may not be so farfetched.

A 2006 University of Vermont-led study estimated total NFCT paddler expenditures at $12 million, based on 90,000 paddler visitors at six sites along the route. The net effect of this economic activity works out to $4.1 million in personal income and upwards of 280 jobs in rural communities. Even better, those doing the spending aren't locals; boaters from away counted for 80 percent of total sales. Center expects this number to grow as the water trail's promotional apparatus matures. "We are debunking the myth that paddlers don't spend any money," he says.

The stewardship piece is harder to quantify. The NFCT travels through some of the most spectacular landscape in the Northeast—and some of the most threatened. A quarter of the U.S. population lives within a day's drive of the 26-million-acre Northern Forest, the largest remaining contiguous forest in the Northeast. A shift from traditional land ownership to investor-owned lands in the region has unearthed a host of environmental concerns, from forest fragmentation and loss of habitat to the decline of forest-based economies. In Maine, the unremitting pace of development threatens to undermine the state's remote character. Plum Creek, the nation's largest private landowner, owns nearly 1 million acres of forestland in the state. Its plans call for the development of hundreds of house lots in the region, many along shorelines of Maine's isolated lakes. For the conservation-minded, the stakes have never been higher.

The NFCT's approach to stewardship is simple: Turn local communities on to the natural resources running through their backyards, and those communities will want to take care of them. Conservation organizations throughout the Northeast pursue similar models, but the NFCT's decentralized structure allows for greater local participation.

NFCT organizers also learned from the Appalachian Trail's painful and protracted land acquisition process. The National Park Service exercised eminent-domain authority to force private landowners to sell lands for an expanded AT corridor. In contrast, the NFCT is almost entirely dependent upon the goodwill of local landowners for access to campsites and portages. Ninety percent of the land the water trail passes through is privately held.

Center places this firmly in the win column. But these are still early days for the water trail. With much of the infrastructure in place, the focus now shifts to strengthening relationships with local entrepreneurs, chambers of commerce, and tourism associations to help elevate the NFCT into one of the nation's premier water trail destinations. "Appealing to paddlers about the opportunities to rediscover America's frontier and the connections between people and place," says Center, "this is where it will make a difference."