Sunday, October 1, 2000
A walk beyond the border
Copyright © 2000 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
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Trail name: International Appalachian Trail Nearest town: Mount Katahdin, Maine to Cap Gaspe, Canada Region: Aroostook Length: 650 miles Difficulty: Intermediate Other: For more on the International Appalachian Trail, visit the official Web site. Directions:
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MOUNT JACQUES CARTIER, Quebec — Four woodland caribou grazed on moss as we made our final climb across a plateau of arctic tundra atop the highest Canadian peak on the International Appalachian Trail.
A large male eyed us briefly as we walked by, then returned to his munching.
Only a two-hour walk from the parking lot, the flat, 4,160-foot summit of Mount Jacques Cartier is a virtual desert, where harsh winds and 10 months of snow each year keep plants from growing higher than the scattered chunks of lichen-encrusted granite that provide the only cover.
Before they were hunted nearly to extinction, caribou like these, with their heavy rust-colored coats and curved antlers, migrated to Maine each winter. Now they stay protected in a provincial park in Quebec. But their old route is being used again, this time by humans.
As of this summer, the International Appalachian Trail, also known as the Sentier International des Appalaches, is complete — a continuous foot path that connects Mount Katahdin, deep in the Maine woods, with Cap Gaspe, Quebec, the narrow peninsula where the Appalachian Mountains tumble into the sea.
Patterned after the 75-year-old Appalachian Trail, which leads hundreds of hikers each year on a 2,130-mile journey from Springer Mountain, Ga., to Katahdin, the new trail allows hikers to follow the mountain range another 650 miles to its geological conclusion.
So far, only about 30 people have hiked the whole IAT, now completing its first official season. Following a route that is sometimes faint and other times nonexistent, these pioneers are spreading the word about the IAT in the almost tribal world of long-distance hikers, ensuring that there will be many more people following their footsteps in the years to come.
The Maine Sunday Telegram sent photographer Gregory Rec and me out on the new trail in September. For eight days we hiked choice sections, following the blue and white IAT blazes over seven mountains, along brooks, gorges and across steep ridges. Along the way we talked with the people who are building the trail, hiking it or watching it pass by their homes.
We walked until our muscles were stiff, drove until we were bleary-eyed and survived on junk food. Our goal was to experience what some of the through-hikers are experiencing and to find out where this new trail is leading.
What we found is a trail that, in many places, is more of a notion than a real mark on the landscape. Because private landowners have refused access to their land in Maine and New Brunswick, much of the new trail follows isolated roads and rural highways. Baxter State Park, home of Mount Katahdin, the trail's southern terminus, refuses to accommodate IAT hikers or even acknowledge the trail's existence in its maps and literature.
But even with these obstacles, the IAT we saw has more strengths than weaknesses. There's the dream landscape of Parc Forillon, where the Appalachians end at a 300-foot cliff, surrounded on three sides by water; the summit of Mount Jaques Cartier and the craggy New Brunswick peaks of 2,550-foot Mount Carleton and the slightly smaller Sagamook.
There are more bear and moose footprints than human ones, and solitude unknown on the heavily traveled parts of the AT.
Hikers are not the only ones benefitting from the trail. Those who live on the IAT route, including a newspaper editor in Fort Fairfield, a canoe maker in New Brunswick and a Quebec innkeeper, are excited about the people the trail brings into their communities. They open their homes and collect through-hiker sightings the way birdwatchers keep their life lists.
The trail represents "the philosophical idea of looking beyond borders," said Dick Anderson, a former commissioner of Maine's Department of Conservation, who originated the idea for the IAT. "Nothing respects borders but us. Forests blow seeds from one side to another, birds fly back and forth. The idea is to get people to think of this as one place on the Earth."
It was in the heat of Maine political campaign that the IAT was born. In 1994, former Gov. Joseph Brennan was running in a five-way Democratic primary for his old job. He called on Anderson, his friend and former Cabinet officer, to give him something to say on Earth Day.
Anderson advised Brennan to propose extending the Appalachian Trail from northern Maine into Canada as a way to recognize the biological, geological and cultural connections between the two countries.
The day before Earth Day, Brennan unveiled the idea at a press conference. The next day, the announcement ran on Canadian newscasts.
Brennan won the primary, but narrowly lost the general election to independent Angus King.
But the idea of an international trail survived on both sides of the border.
A ROAD TOWARD ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
When the hikers come, Matapedia, Quebec, population 750, will be ready.
The start of the trail in Quebec and the midway point between Katahdin and Cap Gaspe, Matapedia is poised to become a "trail town" — a place where hikers can replace broken gear, waterproof their boots, find a comfortable bed in a hotel or eat dinner in a restaurant.
The prospect excites David Leblanc, the volunteer leader of the local trail association. "One guy told me he spent more money here in three days than he had in the last six months on the AT," he said.
Leblanc is a university-educated biologist who has climbed some of the highest mountains in North and South America. Since the local economy was devastated by the decline of the cod fishery, many young people have left the Gaspe Peninsula to look for work. But Leblanc says he wants to stay in his hometown and plans to build a life here for himself and his 4-month old daughter, India.
"I like Matapedia, my girlfriend likes Matapedia," he said. "Both our families are here. I want to stay in Matapedia."
Leblanc sells canoe trips on the local rivers. He believes the trail will be a similar attraction for outdoor tourists. He foresees shuttling hikers out for three-day backpacking trips. He wants to offer a dog-packing service; his specially bred Alaskan malamutes would carry all of the hiker's gear.
This fall, Leblanc is supervising a crew of seven men and two women who are cutting trail and building a cabin for hikers, at the lip of a canyon over Clark's Brook and the farming village of St. Andre, 15 miles from Matapedia.
The government of Quebec is paying for the job. It is part of $1.7 million the government will spend this year on trail development and services throughout the Gaspe. A crew of 95 people is currently building a trail along the north coast.
The project has two economic benefits, Leblanc said. Many of the workers were unemployed, so the 14-week job will qualify them for welfare benefits all winter. In the long term, tourists coming into town will create more dependable jobs.
Pete Dube, the owner of the Matapedia Motel, offers a through-hiker discount and said the development of the trail is very important for the future of the town, already famous for its salmon fishing. He is trying to convince his neighbors that the skinny, ragged hikers will bring real money into the community.
Dube said the Appalachian Mountains in the Gaspe, known locally by the Indian name, the Chic Chocs, are still largely unknown, even in Canada.
"By bringing this Appalachian Trail up here, we are letting people know what we've got, the Rockies of the East," he said.
A TRAIL THAT'S 'PRETTY HARD TO FOLLOW'
Tall and wiry, Jon Leuschel, 26, began hiking in January in Key West, Fla. He hiked all of the Appalachian Trail, plus its northern and southern extensions. By the time he finishes the IAT he will have traversed 4,500 miles.
While on the trail, through-hikers use aliases. Leuschel was given the trail name Class Five by the legendary through-hiker Nimblewill Nomad for his skill at whitewater canoeing.
With his long, forked red beard, Leuschel resembles a daguerreotype of a Civil War soldier, made skinny and strong by long marches on hardtack and bacon.
Greg and I ran into him near the summit of Mount Nicole Albert, in the heart of the Matane Reserve, deep in the Chic Choc range. We were almost certainly the only three people on the mountain that day, and it had been two days since Leuschel had talked with anyone.
Pausing in a steep gorge, where a waterfall cascades down steel gray granite cliffs into deep green pools, he reflected on the work done so far.
"It's going to be a nice trail when it gets done, but it needs some work," he said.
For one thing, Leuschel said, the trail is poorly marked. "It goes straight up and straight down, and you can get lost pretty easily," he said. "Even on the road it's pretty hard to follow."
Class Five is the third person to cover the entire trail from Key West to Cap Gaspe, but he didn't hike all of it. He bicycled much of the route in northern Maine and New Brunswick, and canoed rivers that paralleled the trail. He has come too far, however, to hear any complaints that he didn't walk the entire way.
Long-distance hikers, he said, can become obsessive about how many miles they walk, or in their refusal to follow side trails. "Some people forget why they came here in the first place," he said. "It's supposed to be a vacation, but they make it seem like work."
The word vacation has an odd ring to it when describing Class Five's journey. But talking to him, and to other hikers, it's easy to forget how remarkable they are. Walking 100 miles a week, managing food, shelter and survival seems like a light load to these through-hikers. What happens when they stop? Will they find it more difficult to keep their cars inspected, schedule a dentist appointment or balance a checkbook than to walk the length of a continent?
A HIKE WITH HUMAN LANDMARKS
As the trail leaves its impression on the through-hikers, they are leaving their impression on the people who live along the route. Through-hikers are welcome visitors in towns that rarely have them.
Bill Miller III builds canoes in Nictau, New Brunswick, in the same shop used by his father, Bill Miller II, and grandfather, Bill Miller I. The IAT runs right by his front door, and Miller stops every hiker he sees to ask if they need anything.
"I'll give 'em a drink of water or a meal or a place to camp," he said. "I've got an e-mail machine if they want to send an e-mail, or use the telephone. If they're going south, I've got a canoe they can use to go down the Tobique River to Plaster Rock."
The hikers inspire his generosity. "Anybody that can walk to Nictau, New Brunswick, is all right by me," he said. "It doesn't matter which direction you are going, when you get to Nictau, you are a long way from home."
Only 18 people live in Nictau now, but it was once a tourist destination. American sportsmen, including Babe Ruth and John D. Rockefeller, joined exclusive fishing clubs and pulled salmon out of the Tobique. But when the river was dammed for power in the 1950s, the fish stopped coming back and so did the sportsmen.
As the first generation of hikers find their way along the trail, they are identifying the landmarks for future hikers. Miller is one of them, proving that some landmarks are human, not geological.
Miller was in his shop one day in 1998 when the first hiker came by. John Brinda, fueled with handfuls of Grapenuts cereal and his own version of trail mix, walked from Key West to Cap Gaspe to celebrate his college graduation.
Miller was coating a canoe with fiberglass at the time and had just put the hardener into the resin, so he couldn't run outside.
He missed Brinda, but he hasn't missed many hikers since. Some camp in his yard, others sleep in his house, or in his camp on the Tobique. One fixed a leak in his roof. And others accept his offer to paddle to Plaster Rock in one of his canoes.
Although he's not a hiker himself, Miller says he understands why these people backpack such long distances. "Trail walking is an adventure," he said. "It's a real challenge. Some of these people have these high-pressure lives and they just need to get away."
Miller's mother, Wilma, keeps a journal for the hikers to sign, and gives them advice to help them along the way. She once hunted bear and deer in these woods, but she will leave the long-distance hiking to others.
"I'd just as soon sit in the corner with a ball of yarn and knit," she said. "But any little thing we can do to help them, we do. Maybe if we don't, the next guy won't either."
Another early mainstay is Marcia Reed, of Fort Fairfield, Maine, who has housed a few hikers herself. As editor of the Fort Fairfield Review, she has written front-page stories on most of the hikers who pass through this small Aroostook County town.
"I think this is a great thing, I absolutely love it," Reed said of the trail. "We are going to get all these wonderful people coming through. It's very exciting."
Reed said she doesn't understand why hikers do what they do. But she does find them interesting. So do her readers, judging by the response she gets when one of her stories appears.
Few car-borne tourists will set out for Nictau or Fort Fairfield. The ones who do are usually hurrying to get to their destination and don't stick around to talk.
But hikers on foot move slowly and see everything. They buy supplies in the local store, eat at the cafe and occasionally spring for a bed in the local motel.
"People are interested in other people," Reed said. "This trail has allowed us to learn about people that we otherwise wouldn't meet."
The through-hikers also play another important role. Without them, the long-distance trail is just a collection of fragments, said Anderson, who first proposed the IAT. Millions of people hike stretches of the Appalachian Trail every year, but the hundreds who walk the whole thing, he said, make it the world's longest continuous foot path.
"If people don't walk it, it's not really a trail at all," he said.
Today's hikers are aware of the significance of their role.
"I feel we are here at the birth of a new trail," said Chris Bagby, an Atlanta hardware store owner whose trail name is Spur. He hiked the AT last year with his girlfriend, Alexandria Staab, also known as Silver Moon. He hiked the AT again this year, and was joined by Silver Moon in Maine to hike the IAT.
"Although we are not really building it, we are making it a reality," Spur said. "Every footprint is an important one."
A TREK THAT'S NOT WITHOUT TRIALS
We met up with Spur and Silver Moon near Kedgwick, New Brunswick, and watched them pack their 2-pound tent and tiny stove into their backpacks for the difficult trek along the Restigouche River.
The river flows north across a series of ridges that run east to west. Using their hiking poles, Spur and Sliver Moon pulled themselves up and slid down the faint path cut crudely through the corrugated muddy hills.
This section of the trail was clearly marked, but still hard to follow. The trail's builders were clearly not hikers themselves, and cut no switchbacks over steep climbs or descents, or a level path for traversing slopes.
It was hard going, even for hardened through-hikers like Spur and Silver Moon, and sweat soaked through their clothes on the cool morning. They had five more days on this trail, and other hikers had told them that the easiest part came first. Still, they appreciated the trail builders' efforts.
"It's hard to criticize," Spur said. "They have taken nothing and created something."
As rough as the trail is in New Brunswick, for a combination of political and bureaucratic reasons, it barely exists in Maine.
For the IAT hiker, the problems start at Baxter State Park, where park officials refuse to acknowledge the top of Mount Katahdin as southern terminus of the IAT.
It is impossible for a hiker to cross Baxter in a single day, and on most nights in the summer, hikers can't enter the park without a camping reservation. Since choice campsites fill up months before the hiking season, IAT through-hikers are forced to wait outside the park until someone cancels, or walk all the way around Baxter on roads outside the park's boundaries.
Appalachian Trail through-hikers are allowed to camp without reservations in a special campground at Daicey Pond. But no similar arrangement has been made for IAT hikers in the northern part of the park. Park Supervisor Buzz Caverly said he doesn't consider Baxter to be part of the IAT.
"We are not interested in extending a trail north from Baxter Peak because it would open a sensitive area to more use than it can handle," Caverly said.
Park officials say the reason they limit the number of people in Baxter is to preserve the park's wilderness. During the summer 1,000 people a night are camped out in Baxter, and another 1,100 visit for day use. Any more could destroy the outdoor experience.
"The wilderness is in short supply, and demand keeps increasing," said Chief Ranger Chris Drew. "We would like to keep it so you can camp at Russell Pond and still catch a fish or eat a blueberry."
A half dozen IAT hikers have been caught camping illegally in Baxter this year, Caverly said. They were issued warnings and forced to pay a camping fee, but that alone doesn't address the park's problem.
"Our complaint is not with the lost revenue, but with the impact they caused," he explained. "With 2,100 people in the park, we have the better part of eight townships on any single day. We aren't going to increase our camping facilities and still live up to Gov. Baxter's first mandate — to protect the resource."
The problems don't end at the park's gates. Much of the preferred route for the trail crosses land owned by the Irving Woodlands Corporation, which will not give the IAT access. The company is afraid that if it grants an easement to the IAT now, the federal government over time will place restrictions on the use of their land around the trail.
The concern is not unfounded. Much of the land the AT falls on was privately owned but over time has come under federal protection. The controversial expansion of a privately-owned ski area on Saddleback Mountain has been delayed, in part, because a ski lift would be visible to hikers on the AT.
"Through-hikers become increasingly intolerant to all other forms of human activity," said Chuck Gadzik, an Irving spokesman. "The history is there. It's not an idle fear."
Gadzik said the company will continue to grant hunters, fishermen and snowmobilers access to its property, but does not expect to see any movement regarding the trail, which now follows small public roads and railroad rights-of-way through Aroostook County.
Dick Anderson remains undeterred. "We're not in any hurry," he said. "We've made enormous progress in the last six years."
The hikers share his optimism, and for the most part are not complaining about the inconveniences. We found Beth Lawson, the first woman to hike the IAT, stuck outside the north gate of Baxter, waiting for a camping reservation.
Lawson and her boyfriend, Bryant Bennett, set out from Georgia in May to walk the AT, but after hearing stories of a new trail in the north, they changed course, drove a rented car to Canada, and started hiking south on the IAT.
"It's a baby trail," said Lawson, a former nanny. "I don't mean that it's a trail for babies. The Canadians are tough people and they have made a hard trail, I'll tell you that."
They began hiking at a lighthouse on Cap Gaspe. They watched whales and dolphins offshore as they walked through a series of French-speaking fishing villages along the mouth of the St. Lawrence River.
They were often lost. They walked for miles where they never saw a blue and white blaze and they struggled with information that was either wrong or out of date.
They were chased by bees and a huge male deer. They walked through snow in the summer, were blown by 50-mph winds, and learned the hard way what quicksand looks like.
"It was all part of the adventure," Bennett said. "On the AT, you never have to guess about anything. If you are looking for food or a place to camp, it's all in the guide book. Here you had to make some choices. It was more liberating."
A WALK BEYOND THE BORDER
After descending Mount Jacques Cartier, Greg and I drove south to the Maine border town of Mars Hill to climb Mars Hill Mountain. At 2,100 feet, it was to be the last peak on our eight-day journey.
Starting in the parking lot of the Big Rock ski area, the IAT leaves the road and climbs following the J-bar tow line. After a short climb, we came to a three-way intersection, unmarked by blazes.
Trail number one followed a ski trail up the mountain. Number two was a brutal climb on slippery gravel, wading through chest-high maples and wild strawberry bushes.
But the trail on the right led into the woods, and a series of switchbacks lovingly cut by a local Boy Scout troop led us back and forth up the steep slope to the summit, where a three-sided shelter has been built for hikers to rest.
To the west, Katahdin's blue mass was silhouetted in a streaked sky. Locals claim that Mars Hill is where the sun first strikes the United States each morning, and this small trail speaks of a future for the IAT in Maine.
One step at a time. One little mountain, one contract with a company, one landowner who says, "Sure, cross my property."
For the people who build the IAT, who walk it, or just watch it go by, these are the steps that will complete the journey.
Staff Writer Gregory Kesich can be contacted at 282-8227 or at: gkesich@pressherald.com
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