Houses, resorts planned for North Woods
GREENVILLE, Maine -- The land rush is officially on for the North Woods, the sprawling timberlands where Henry David Thoreau found ''bear-haunted mountains" and ''great wooded slopes," a place where hunters even today can trek for days without encountering another soul.
One of the nation's largest landowners plans to file a proposal with state officials today to subdivide 426,000 acres in the Moosehead Lake region to develop about 1,000 houses and two resorts. The proposal by
The announcement is fueling fears among Maine officials and environmentalists that the remote beauty of the forest, considered the last true wilderness in New England, could fall prey to the same private development pressures that Maine's rocky coast has. The timber companies that have owned and cut the North Woods for generations and allowed the public to use it as a vast park have put more than 50 percent of the land on the auction block in the last seven years. But most of that land was traded to other timber firms and so didn't prompt fears that it would be developed in the near future.
''We've never seen anything like this before," said Cathy Johnson, North Woods project director for the Natural Resources Council of Maine, an advocacy group. ''The North Woods is at a tipping point. This isn't the Wal-Marts or
In meetings with residents, businesses, and state and local officials over the last three months, officials with Plum Creek, a company based in Seattle, have offered few details about their plans, but enough to win the support of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine, Greenville selectmen, the Piscataquis County economic development council, and others. Company officials promise to set aside 55 lakes as conservation areas, create affordable housing and a business zone, provide a permanent 74-mile snowmobile trail and about 55 miles of hiking trails, and maintain most of the land as a working forest for at least 30 years. Phased in over more than 10 years, lakefront lots will be about 3 acres, while backlots will be about 5 acres. It's unclear what kind of resorts would be built.
While only about 3 percent of the land in the tract targeted for development would be directly affected, environmentalists fear that Plum Creek will build on the most attractive lots, which could impede public access and fragment the forest, which is mostly spruce, fir, and northern hardwood.
''The key is this is not a big change," said Jim Lehner, general manager for Plum Creek's Northeast region. The company owns about another 520,000 acres in the state that is not included in the plan. ''What people don't realize is 97 percent is going to stay the same. It is not going to change the character."
Usually, only the most adventurous tourists enter the North Woods, part of the 26-million-acre Northern Forest stretching from Eastern Maine to New York's Adirondack Mountains. The North Woods are famous for their rustic appeal, black flies, and frigid winter temperatures. But as oceanfront land has become saturated with vacation houses, buyers have begun looking inland. And in the North Woods, the lands that are unsuitable for logging, lakefronts, are the very properties desired for second homes. The Moosehead Lake region, with breathtaking views of the sheer rockface of Mount Kineo and celebrated fishing and hunting, is less than a six-hour drive from Boston.
Landowners in the North Woods stand to gain enormous profits if the region is developed. Plum Creek bought much of the land it wants to subdivide for less than $200 an acre in 1998. If local real estate prices are any indication, lakefront lots will go for at least $70,000 and probably much more. Already, several separate large private lots, called kingdom lots in local parlance, have been sold in the area by timber companies and others, with one businessman building a 4,500-square-foot house and 2,100-foot airstrip near Moosehead Lake.
''The pressure is here and it's never going to lessen," said Bob Guethlen, who lives north of Greenville with his wife, Diane.
The Guethlens, along with eight others, have petitioned the state to place a six-month moratorium on all North Woods development until a blueprint of its future uses can be developed. The state Land Use Regulation Commission, which oversees North Woods construction, is reviewing the request.
Even for those who have never ridden a logging road, the North Woods is the stuff of legend.
Thoreau once paddled Moosehead Lake and trekked to Mount Katahdin to document the fierce primitiveness of this area, part of the largest unbroken forest east of the Mississippi. Lumberjacks brought 100-foot-long felled trees in massive log drives down Maine's rivers. Viewed from a plane, the region seems remote even today: Paved roads are few in forest that stretches unending to the horizon, a patchwork of green trees and cleared swaths, with the occasional dust cloud kicked up from logging trucks. The gateway to the North Woods is Greenville, home to 1,600 year-round residents, which has struggled to attract tourism and full-time residents since logging jobs began to disappear about 15 years ago.
For generations, the North woodlands were privately held by timber families or companies, which traditionally -- and graciously, many Mainers say -- allowed the public to hunt, canoe, fish, ski, camp, and snowmobile on their lands. That protected the land from development, allowing many to grow up canoeing on its lakes or tracking their first deer in the forest.
Seven years ago, timber companies began divesting land holdings, selling them to management investment firms, some of which have cut more trees faster in order to return quicker profits. Other acreage was sold to private owners who put up no-trespassing signs or closed off roads to the public.
Plum Creek represents a new type of manager in the timber industry, one that is a hybrid of timber management and real estate development. Many see its proposal as an indicator of the future of the North Woods.
The company has a good reputation in Maine, and sportsmen praise its policy of maintaining public access to the woods. The company has already sold the state 29 miles of shoreline conservation land on the east side of Moosehead Lake, among other shorefront land, and is in discussions with officials to possibly conserve more.
Maine officials and environmentalists are not against the proposal, nor development. But they say they want to see it occur in an appropriate place, with a balance of conservation. A 30-year promise not to develop the land isn't good enough, some say. If development is permanent, they want conservation to be, too.
Beth Daley can be reached at bdaley@globe.com.
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
