Katahdin Area Access Group to Discuss Land Use at Meeting

By NICK SAMBIDES JR.; OF THE NEWS STAFF

MILLINOCKET – Maintenance of traditional land use. Creation of new snowmobile and ATV trails. Increasing public access to area ponds and lakes.

Designed to give the Katahdin region and the state’s sportsmen a say in shaping state government’s land-use policies, the Katahdin Area Access Working Group will meet at the Northern Timber Cruisers club from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday to consider these issues.

About 30 people, including landowners, user groups, sportsmen and community leaders, have been invited to join the group, said John Raymond, a resident and leader in the effort to improve ATV access in the Katahdin region who will be a group member.

The group will address a variety of problems, Raymond said.

“One problem we have right here is that all the snowsled trails are [maintained] on handshake deals,” Raymond said after a Town Council meeting Thursday. “So you have no guarantee that you can have a trail open tomorrow.”

Town Manager Eugene Conlogue has been invited to join the group, he told the council. A list of group members was not available late Thursday.

The group is forming in response to the angry local response to state lawmakers’ and Department of Conservation officials’ creation of an 8,000-acre land deal that was key to adding Katahdin Lake to Baxter State Park last year.

Katahdin region officials felt the deal among the Gardner family, which owns several logging and land management businesses in the Katahdin and Lincoln Lakes regions, conservationist Roxanne Quimby and Augusta-based state officials was a fait accompli, arranged before or without their participation or consent because it was mostly negotiated in the legal secrecy afforded pending land transactions.

Quimby is an unapologetic believer in wilderness protection who has purchased tens of thousands of acres in the Katahdin region and elsewhere. Quimby’s prohibition of hunting, trapping, mechanized recreation and timber harvesting on her land has earned her a rough reputation among tradition-minded sportsmen in the North Woods, who for decades have enjoyed access to lands they haven’t owned.

Some of the anger at Quimby and the deal was still evident at the council meeting Thursday. Councilor Jimmy Busque, an ardent foe of Quimby’s, said she has blocked access to land along the old Sandy Stream trail near the new Sandy Stream Bridge.

Quimby’s action “clearly shows the two extremes we have faced here,” Busque said.

Previous landowner H.C. Haynes Co. “totally stripped the parcel of land there [of trees],” Busque said. “It should never have happened and he used our tax dollars to do it, to strip it, rape it, and sold it to somebody who will never allow access or management of it again.”

Quimby and Haynes company representatives could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

The group’s focus is broad, especially since Tuesday’s meeting will be its first, Conlogue said. Councilor Scott Gonya said he hoped the group would address improving public access to lakes.

“We have several large lakes in this area and I don’t believe we have enough access points,” he said.

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