A new ATV trail was threatened with closure before it even opened when the Trust for Public Land announced a plan to help the Penobscot Nation acquire ancestral grounds.
The problem was that the 12.2-mile trail from Millinocket to Medway runs through the southern edge of the 30,000-acre parcel the Penobscot Nation is expected to receive, said John Raymond, president of the Northern Timber Cruisers ATV and Snowmobile Club in Millinocket.
But an easement arrangement between the trust and the state announced Thursday ensures the club can finish its trail and connect it to the 17 miles it already maintains. It was the only way the trail could stay viable, Raymond said.
The club has spent $100,000 so far to build the trail, which will be completed with an 80-foot bridge now that the easement is secured.
The 30,000 acres of land, which is near the southern end of the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, was taken from the Penobscot Nation in the 1800s. Returning it is part of a larger effort to restore control of ancestral lands to indigenous people, according to a Maine Public story BDN published in November.
The Trust for Public Land, which is a national nonprofit that still owns the land, worked with the state on the easement to allow motorized and non-motorized use of the Katahdin Multi-use Trail the ATV club is building, Betsy Cook, state program director for the trust, said Thursday.
The state Bureau of Parks and Lands closed on that easement Wednesday, securing the east-west connection on the property for the club, according to Jim Britt, spokesman for the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry.
Now the club needs permits from the state’s Land Use Planning Commission to build the $200,000 bridge, Raymond said.
Pelletier Manufacturing will build the bridge this winter once the LUPC determines what type of structure will be and issues the permits. The largest bridge in the club’s trail system should be installed by this summer and the trail will be opened immediately after, he said.
Trust for Public Lands purchased approximately 31,000 acres between Millinocket and the national monument in December 2022, Cook said.
Besides helping the Penobscot Nation acquire 30,000 acres of it, the group also wants to secure an easement or outright ownership for the national monument to use the Huber Road as a southern access point.
That effort is stalled until Congress decides whether it will approve an expansion of the national monument’s land to include the Huber Road. If Congress declines that proposal, the trust will seek an easement instead, Cook said.