| Fast Facts |
location
near Baxter State Park; 2 hours from Bangor
ecoregion
Northern Appalachian-Boreal Forest
project size
240,000 acres
preserves
Trout Mountain, 40,000-acre core preserve
public lands
Baxter State Park, Nahmakanta Public Lands Unit, Allagash Wilderness Waterway, Seboeis Public Lands Unit, lands held under Pingree Partnership easement
partners
Great Northern Paper, John Hancock Financial Services, State of Maine, The Wilderness Society, Sierra Club, Northern Forest Alliance
natural events
foliage peak, late September–early October; blueberries, blackberries and raspberries fruit, summer | |
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At the foot of Mt. Katahdin, scattered throughout Acadian forest that has not been logged for generations, dozens of wilderness lakes are the crown jewels of Maine’s North Woods. |
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Bull moose, Baxter State Park.
© Thomas Mark Szelog |
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Near the end of their 2,100-mile journey from Georgia to Maine, "end-to-end" hikers on the Appalachian Trail thread their way among dozens of lakes approaching Mt. Katahdin, their holy grail. These wilderness lakes, deep- blue and fringed in gnarled spruce and fir, are considered some of the most beautiful in the lake-filled state. Native Americans long ago created a network of portage sites here as they carried their birchbark canoes between lakes and across waterfalls and rapids, and the Debsconeag Lakes still bear their ancient name for "carrying place."
Some 12,000 years ago, the glacial ice sheet that covered Mt. Katahdin and the Debsconeag Lakes began to melt northward. For the next thousand years, tundra of scrub and lichens prevailed around the newly carved lakes. But as the climate warmed, trees took root and the forest grew steadily, shifting from boreal forest to Acadian forest of red spruce, balsam fir, birch, maples, white pine and hemlock. Left behind in the wake of the retreating glaciers were landlocked arctic char, a relict of the far north. Native salmon, blueback trout and native brook trout are abundant in the 80-odd lakes and ponds of Debsconeag—the most remote and pristine waters in the North Woods.
Much of this landscape has not been logged for more than 70 years—highly unusual in timber-producing Maine—and the resulting mature forests provide some of the best wildlife habitat in New England. But with current changes in the forest products industry, many corporate forestlands have come up for sale (16 percent of the state changed hands in less than eight months in 1999), making forests like this one at the foot of Mt. Katahdin vulnerable.
Three years later, in 2002, The Nature Conservancy protected more than 240,000 acres of Maine’s North Woods, including the Debsconeag Lakes wilderness, through fee acquisition and easements. The project binds together Baxter State Park, the Allagash Wilderness Waterway and other lands into a 400-square-mile wilderness block of protected reserves and sustainably harvested working forests.
Learn more about The Nature Conservancy's work in Maine. |
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| Conservation Profile |
targets
native salmon, arctic char, blueback trout, native brook trout, bald eagle, golden eagle, moose, black bear, bobcat, rare plants like purple clematis and northern woodsia, lakes, ponds
stresses
corporate forestlands for sale because of downturn in paper industry, development pressures
strategies
acquire land, secure conservation easements, promote ecologically compatible forestry practices, encourage conservation management of private and public land
results
240,000 acres in conservation management, connecting to six existing conservation lands | | | | |
