Draft: Getting from There to Here

There has never been an attempt at a formal history of the North Country National Scenic Trail, or the North Country Trail Association, and this isn't one, either. This is more a recounting of the history of the association as I understand it, sometimes based on documentation, sometimes based on personal experience, sometimes based on what I've casually learned from others, and should not be considered the authoritative document, which is yet to be written by someone. This was originally written to provide some guidance of the background of the organization to new board members, and others new to the organization. If I've missed or slighted someone, or am in error on one point or another, the fault is mine alone. Any additions, corrections, comments, questions, quibbles or beefs should be addressed to me. -- WB You can E-mail me.

If there is a genesis of the North Country National Scenic Trail, it probably came in 1948, when the Appalachian Trail Conference perceived the need to have a governmentally-protected trail corridor. In that year, legislation was first introduced into congress that would create the AT as a national trail. The AT, conceived of in 1921 and first finished end to end in 1937, had suffered enormously from land development and conflicting uses; during World War II, several hundred miles of the trail had been lost, and the trail would not be complete again until 1951.

The legislation failed; and, at intervals over the next twenty years, it was re-introduced. By the mid-sixties, it had become obvious that broader support would be needed to ever get passage of the legislation, so wording was added that would also create the Pacific Crest Trail as a National Scenic Trail, and authorized studies for the creation of other national scenic trails.

Someone -- who it is is forgotten, although recently speculation has centered around Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson's office, in the early 1960's -- could see the direction the legislation was taking. As far as anyone can tell, the concept of a North Country Trail, a trail spanning the northern boreal forests from Maine to Minnesota was first proposed by the Forest Service (USDA) in its 1965 "Nationwide System of Trails Study". It was then called the "Northern Country Trail". That proposal was included in a 1966 Department of the Interior publication, "Trails for America", which set the stage for the passage of the National Trails System Act in 1968, and ultimately signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson.

As the concept was studied, it was noted that there were some existing trails, or trails under construction, that might be worked into the concept. Among them were the Finger Lakes Trail in New York, which got under way in 1961, and the Buckeye Trail in Ohio, dating from the 1950s. There was also a trail in the Chequamegon National Forest in Wisconsin that would eventually lend its name to the whole enterprise -- the North Country Trail.

When Benton MacKaye first conceived of the Appalachian Trail, sometime around the turn of the century, he visualized it as a central vertebrae, that would have many side trails connecting to it. This thought lead to an early desire to connect what would become the North Country Trail to the Appalachian Trail -- a side trail that would become longer than the parent.

The former Bureau of Outdoor Recreation (reorganized as the Heritage, Conservation and Recreation Service in 1978, and subsequently consolidated into the National Park Service in 1981) was assigned responsibility for studying most of the fourteen potential trails identified in the Act, including the North Country Trail. The study was coordinated by the Bureau's Lake Central Regional Office in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where in 1972 a young staff member named Tom Gilbert first heard of the concept. A committee composed of appropriate Federal, state, local and private sector representatives was formed in each state to recommend a route for the trail. Their work was coordinated to ensure connections between states so that one continuous trail route was developed.

At that point, the trail was mostly a broad line on a map, narrowing at a few choke points, and occasionally following existing pathways. In some respects, the general route of the trail was considerably different that what finally developed; for instance, in Michigan's lower peninsula, the trail generally followed the Lake Michigan shoreline, rather than the route fifty miles inland that finally developed. At one time, routing the trail across the northeastern corner of Indiana was considered, as was routing the trail through Ohio on the northern segment of the Buckeye trail, rather than the southern.

Responsibility for the trail was eventually laid on the Midwest Region of the National Park Service, in Omaha, Nebraska, along with the responsibility for the Ice Age trail in Wisconsin and the Lewis and Clark National Historical Trail, which stretched from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean. One park service employee, Bob Martin, was saddled with the responsibility of trying to develop a final comprehensive plan for the trail, along with similar duties on the Lewis and Clark and Ice Age Trails, along with other duties. It was a learning process, and the learning curve was slow. The Comprehensive Plan for the North Country National Scenic Trail was not, in fact, completed until 1982, and then largely due to the fact that it was completed by Bureau of Outdoor Recreation refugee Tom Gilbert, who assumed responsibility from Martin.

The legislation authorizing the NCT stated that it would generally follow the route shown in the 1975 conceptual study of the trail. Using the ten mile wide corridor as a base, eight public workshops were conducted between August 30, 1981, and March 7, 1982, to gather input for identifying a more specific route. Some of the considerations that guided discussions at the workshops were that the route should incorporate existing trails to the maximum extent possible, that it should make maximum use of public lands, and that it should incorporate as many scenic and other points of interest as possible. A limited amount of field reconnaissance of potential routes was carried out in connection with the workshops.

Following the workshops, the input received was used to plot a route on 1:250,000 topographic maps. Copies of these maps were sent out in April, 1982, to approximately 425 individuals and public officials for a preliminary review of the route, and refinements in the route resulted from the comments received. A draft of this plan, containing maps with this refined route was sent out for public review in July, 1982, to approximately 800 individuals and public officials.

Much of the enthusiasm that the National Park Service had for the trail in the early '80s came from the North Country National Scenic Trail Advisory Council, and the infant North Country Trail Association.

The North Country National Scenic Trail Advisory Council was established by the 1980 legislation, with a sunset date of 1990. Representatives to the Council were to be named by the governors of the various states involved, and not all states actually named representatives. However, in the early years, some of the representatives, notably Pennsylvania's Tom Thwaites, had a significant input on the development of the plans of the NCNST. However, after only a few years, the Advisory Council was to become less of a force, and when the authorization expired in 1990, it had not met for several years.

The North Country Trail Association was built by Lance Feild upon the ruins of the International Backpacker's Association. In the late '70s, Feild had arranged to have the Association given an abandoned schoolhouse in White Cloud, Michigan, as its headquarters, and it was here that the North Country Trail Association held its first meeting in 1980. In the year previous to that first meeting, Feild had been able to identify a small number of volunteers interested in the concept of the North Country Trail, and the passage of the legislation in 1980 moved him to action.

Only eight people attended that first meeting; three of them were to be central figures in the Association for the next dozen years and more. Those first eight members at that meeting included Feild, who was to become the Association's first president; Ken Gackler, who was to become the Association's first Treasurer (and would keep the job for a dozen years); Virginia Wunsch, a township official in the White Cloud area, who was to become the Headquarters Manager, and John Hipps, who volunteered to do a newsletter for the association.

Early on, the group decided to have two meetings a year; one, annually, in White Cloud, and the other to move among the seven states of the trail. A constitution and bylaws was established. In the first year, only representatives of Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were on the North Country Trail Association board of directors, as the Finger Lakes Trail Association of New York was still not sure how or if it wanted to be associated with the trail. In that first year, Ohio's Buckeye Trail Association, developers of the trail of the same name in that state, and American Youth Hostels Pittsburgh Conference, developers of the Baker Trail, a short portion of which was to be used by the NCNST, came aboard as affiliates.

The group was hardly larger at the meeting the next year, when the fall meeting was held in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania. Feild still lived in Maine, and could have little opportunity for hands-on development of the trail. In addition to an ailing wife, Feild was a somewhat difficult individual; in the early years, he made enemies that the Association and the trail would be years in overcoming.

The final split between Feild and the Association came in November of 1982, when Gackler was the only officer present at the annual meeting, held at Glen Helen Outdoor Education Center in Yellow Springs, Ohio, with Hipps being the only other board member present out of the ten people that attended the meeting. The ten people there elected Larry Lemanski president, and Joyce Harlukowicz secretary. They were to last in the post for a year and a half. The 1983 annual meeting was held in April at Marienville Area Civic Association Park, Pennsylvania, and again had a small turnout; the expected turnout was so low for the 1994 spring meeting -- which was to have been at the White Cloud Schoolhouse -- that it was cancelled ahead of time.

In a mail ballot, Wisconsin's Bob Dries was named president, commencing in April of 1984. Dries' years as president gave the organization the opportunity to stabilize and grow into a basically credible organization with a sense of direction and objectives, healing some wounds inflicted in the early years; the upturn could be seen in the increased attendance in the annual meeting in at the schoolhouse in the spring of 1995, and at the fall meeting that fall in Ashland, Wisconsin.

The National Park Service finally adopted the Comprehensive Plan for the North Country National Scenic Trail, in September, 1982. The Comprehensive Plan, as it was adopted, gave several key directions to the trail. Most importantly, it gave the trail direction as being more than a hiking trail, but a "non-motorized multiple use trail," specifically authorized to allow non-motorized use other than hiking, if the local managing authority for a piece of land approved. At the same time, the trail was intentionally set to be an off-road trail, and location of the trail off roads was a key point in the decision to make a trail segment a "full member" of the trail.

At the same time, it was made clear that the trail was to be a cooperative effort between federal, state and local governments, and private organizations and landowners, giving mechanisms to carry this out. One notable feature that the plan noted was that the National Park Service did not have the authorization to acquire lands for the trail, through either condemnation or purchase. Unlike the Appalachian Trail, where land was acquired for the trail, it would have to be acquired by other government authorities, or by private groups, using their own funding sources. In practice, however, both the "non-motorized multiple use" provision and the lack of land purchase authority were to be points of trouble in the years to come.

Approval of the Comprehensive Plan allowed for the 1983 certification of 654.57 miles of the projected 3,259 mile length of the North Country Trail. Included in the first certification were 119.65 miles in Pennsylvania, mostly in the Allegany National Forest and Cook State Forest; 250.57 miles in Ohio, almost all of which was off-road miles of the Buckeye Trail; 215.55 miles in Michigan, scattered around the state, and including trail on the Michigan Shore-to-Shore Riding-Hiking Trail, the Hiawatha National Forest, Tahquameon Falls State Park, the Lake Superior State Forest, the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, and in the Ottawa National Forest. 67.8 miles of trail were certified in Wisconsin, including the "North Country Trail" in the Chequamegon National Forest, which gave the whole trail its name, and in Copper Falls State Park. One lonely mile, far to the west, was certified in North Dakota, with none in Minnesota or New York.

New York's Finger Lakes Trail Conference had yet to decide whether it wanted to participate in the NCNST. The Finger Lakes Trail, which crosses the southern tier of New York, had about 350 miles identified as being usable for the NCNST, but concern about the rights of landowners that provided land for the trail to the Finger Lakes Trail Conference led them to be wary about becoming a part of the project. In fact, they did not decide to do so until 1985, then came in with both feet, becoming an affiliate of the association, and bringing several members with much experience and interest in trail administration. The depth of organization and experience provided by the Finger Lakes Trail Conference proved to be a real strength to the North Country Trail Association in the years following.

However, even the FLTC's strengths couldn't solve a serious problem in New York: the Comprehensive Plan called for a proposed new route through the Adirondack Mountains of northeastern New York, on an alignment that penetrated the High Peaks wilderness area. Wary of increased use, this proposed route was fought by state interests and the Adirondack Mountain Club so vehemently that no progress was made on the route there for fifteen years.

Elsewhere, other segments of the trail were identified as being eligible for certification, but were not certified for one reason or another. At the same time, several other segments of trail were under construction, with the idea of eventual inclusion in the trail. Most notable of these, all of the National Forests along the route of the North Country Trail had active trail development programs, and the National Forest Service has long been one of the most active, if not the most active, government supporter of the development of the trail.

Ten years after the approval of the comprehensive plan, only a few scattered segments on National Forest Service Land had not yet had trail developed on them, and plans were under way to complete these. Some of the more notable of these segments were that in North Dakota's Sheyenne National Grasslands, which was certified in 1990; Minnesota's Chippewa National Forest, where trail was certified through the forest in 1988; Michigan's Ottawa and Hiawatha National Forests, where most trail was completed by 1988, and certified by 1992; Michigan's Manistee National Forest, where trail development was slowed by land acquisition problems, and a usable trail through the forest not completed until 1992; and Ohio's Wayne National Forest, where scattered federal land ownership meant slow trail development. The Wayne National Forest would ultimately be the only National Forest along the route of the North Country Trail where usable trail was not complete by 1993.

Final approval of the Comprehensive Plan in 1983 proved to be one of the spurs that got the trail up and moving. Though no more trail was certified in 1984, and only 15 miles in 1985, things were on the upswing.

By the mid 1980s, several trail development projects were coming along nicely outside of the National Forests, led by state, local, or private efforts. Several major projects were under way that would come to fruition by the end of the decade. Some of these included the filling in of gaps along the Finger Lakes Trail, a project that would continue until its completion in 1991; continued development of the Little Miami Scenic Park, a rail-trail project east of the Cincinnati, Ohio, area; and trail in Michigan's Rogue River State Game Area.

In Omaha, Tom Gilbert was a busy man, with responsibility for two scenic trails, one historic trail, and other duties, such as the administration of the region's Wild and Scenic Rivers. For one reason and another -- political pressure being only a part -- the North Country Trail, which he often called his first love, tended to be his third job priority, behind the longer-established Ice Age and Lewis and Clark Trails. Still, he managed to keep some activity alive during this period; for example, in 1985 and 1986, with the connivance of Michigan member Pat Allen, Gilbert managed to get a slide show about the trail produced, and was working on a Park Service brochure for the trail, which did not receive funding to be printed until 1990.

Gilbert was responsible for the development of the eight-pointed star, the North Country NST logo. These first became available in 1985, after an earlier misstep, when Gilbert ordered some huge number of trail signs from the federal prison system. When the order, consisting of boxes and boxes of plastic markers, arrived in Omaha, Gilbert opened one and was shocked. Of five words on the sign -- "North Country National Scenic Trail" -- three were misspelled. The whole job had to be done over.

Under the administration of Dries, from 1984 through 1987, the North Country Trail Association continued to grow, and when Tom Reimers of the Finger Lakes Trail Conference took over the reins of the organization in 1987, the NCTA had shaken off some of its early problems, and was turning from a hiking club into a trail organization. In these years, membership slowly but surely increased, and many individuals became significant members by way of their meaningful contributions to trail building and maintenance, programmed hikes, and regular attendance at meetings.

During this period, the trail association had but one chapter, the Western Michigan Chapter of the NCTA, located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and during these years, there was a lot of overlap in duties between the chapter and the association.

One of the ways that the Western Michigan Chapter helped to contribute to the Association was in the restoration of "the schoolhouse", the NCTA headquarters and hostel at White Cloud. Virginia Wunsch, an activist in the chapter, was responsible for much of the restoration herself. As money was lacking in those days, much of the work had to be done by her own two hands, including some heavy shovel work. Occasionally, there would be volunteer help to work on the schoolhouse, with people such as Wally Doane and Peter Wolfe pitching in to help out.

The Chapter was a busy group in those years, and remains so. In the early '80s, Chapter Member and Association Board Member Art Holland organized a series of 100-mile hikes in various spots around Michigan. Popular in their early years, these hikes allowed the participants to day hike as much as 25 miles per day, with auto pickup at the end. These hikes had a great reputation with an energetic group of retirees, who acquired the reputation for walking their younger comrades into the ground.

1990 brought a great watershed for the Park Service in its relationship with the trail, as well. Up until this time, Tom Gilbert had been trying to struggle with the trail at a distance, with many other duties. However, political pressure from Wisconsin caused the Park Service to open a separate trails office in Madison, Wisconsin. Other political work, from many people, brought about the eventual authorization of staff members to specialize in each trail. Though it would be 1992 before Bill Menke, a former District Ranger for the Forest Service in Michigan's Manistee National Forest would become the trail specialist for the NCT under Gilbert's guidance, park service work on the trail increased steadily after the move to Madison.

During this period, as well, the Association and the Park Service were able to negotiate a formal arrangement where the Association could receive direct funding for certian tasks from the Park Service. The first funding under the Cooperative Agreement was not large, reflecting funds available to the Madison office, but the amount involved was to grow steadily over the years, and allow much more rapid growth of the association. In addition, other funding, such as Challenge Cost Share Grants, began to be routed through the Association from the park service directly to trail projects on the ground.

By the early 1990s, much trail had been developed over what was under way a few years before, and many projects were under way. Due to the limited time the park service had available for administration, certification of new trail segments had fallen way behind accomplishments, and this would prove to be one of the first projects Menke would have to take on. By the early 1990s, trail would be completed across all of the National Forests on the trail route, except for Ohio's Wayne National Forest, where public lands were highly scattered.

Michigan was not the only place where private efforts were building trail. In Minnesota, Rod MacRae had been instrumental in the completion of the trail in the Chippewa National Forest, and found himself in contact with a property owner's group in western Minnesota, west of Lake Itasca, the Bad Medicine Lake Owner's Association. Though the project took a while to get under way, the club had completed about 10 miles of trail by 1993. The project also caused the NCTA's first Minnesota chapter, the Headwaters Chapter, to coalesce.

By the early nineties, other club and local projects were flourishing. For example, the Finger Lakes Trail would finally be complete, thirty years after the project had started. Extension of the trail in Pennsylvania's McConnel's Mill was under way, by the Keystone Trails Association and a local group, the Shenango Outing Club. Another local group, based in Columbiana County, Ohio, was endeavoring to connect the Buckeye Trail to Pennsylvania along the route of the old Sandy and Beaver Canal, and along a railroad grade operated by a scenic railroad. In Michigan, new trail was in place in Hillsdale County, in a unique project spearheaded by a city-owned electric utility. The city of Mellen, Wisconsin, was also involved in connecting the trail in Copper Falls State Park to the trail in the Chequamegon National Forest.

A survey by the NCTA Newsletter in 1991 showed slightly under a thousand miles of trail certified, almost double that of 1983; another thousand miles of trail were "usable", or had projects under way. In but a few years, a lot had been done, and potential trail projects on public lands were getting increasingly scarce.

The 1991 fall meeting of the Association, held in Fargo, North Dakota, was a memorable one, organized by the NCTA's first board member in the state, Linda Mieke. Through the courtesy of the Park Service, the board members at the meeting spent a day aboard a bus touring segments of the trail in North Dakota, which was pretty much unknown territory to most of them. It was memorable, too, for being the first opportunity for most board members to meet their new executive director, April Scholtz, who came to the Association from the Nature Conservancy.

Being able to acquire an executive director gave the association the opportunity to take much critical work from the hands of volunteers, and put it into the hands of someone who could concentrate on the job on a full-time basis. Funds for the executive director position were initially provided in the Cooperative Agreement with the Park Service, but one of the tasks that would face the executive director would be to find funding sources elsewhere that would allow the position to continue. In the event, sufficient funding was not found, and in the summer of 1992, the job was reduced from a full-time to a part-time position, on Scholtz's recommendation. She would continue in the post until June of 1993, to be replaced by Pat Allen, a long-time NCTA member, trail guide author, and former legislative staffer whose legislative contacts in Michigan and Washington had allowed much favorable legislation for the trail to be passed.

Even before the 1991 fall meeting, it was becoming obvious that the structure that had served the Association for its childhood was growing cumbersome, and the advent of an executive director meant that changes would have to be made. In addition, meetings were becoming cumbersome, with a board too large to be able to make decisions efficiently, and insufficient time was available at the regular meetings to deal with all the issues involved. At the spring 1991 meeting, a committee consisting of Derek Blount and Arden Johnson was named to make streamlining proposals.

The initial report of the committee was received at Fargo, but there was not time to fully consider the issues and there were many questions to be answered. With things still hanging following the Annual meeting in the spring of 1992, when Derek Blount was elected the new president of the Association, it was decided to hold a special board meeting in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in September, 1992, to deal with some of the issues involved. At that meeting, which was long and tiring, it was decided, among other things, to reduce the board from the 35 members that it had grown to, to a peak of 17. Board members would now be elected through a mail ballot, and there would be only one annual membership meeting a year, to be moved from place to place. A complicated plan to ensure representation from all areas of the trail was agreed to, and the concept of a number of changes to the Association's bylaws was agreed upon. When the regular fall meeting rolled around, held in Butler, Pennsylvania the next month, the board still had to spend most of the weekend ironing out these issues, and new bylaws were adopted.

Overhaul of the structure called for three board meetings a year. The first of these new winter meetings was held outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan, in February of 1993, and the regular Annual meeting was held in May of that year at White Cloud, the end of a 12-year tradition of the spring meetings held at White Cloud. In that time, the membership had grown from eight to six hundred, and the annual budget of the association from a few hundred dollars to over $50,000 annually.

One long-standing trail problem began to move toward solution in 1993. Though the Comprehensive Plan had shown a general route running westerly from the vicinity of Duluth, Minnesota, no one familiar with the region was very happy with it; large amounts of private lands and wetlands would make it a difficult route, at best. Even back in the mid-eighties there had been calls to come up with a better route, taking advantages of several changes in the Minnesota trail map that had occurred since the writing of the Plan. There were three developments that made a better route possible:

The first of these was the development of the Superior Hiking Trail, along the northern Lake Superior shoreline northeast of Duluth, in what's called "The Arrowhead District". Nearly 200 miles long, this trail didn't get under way until the mid-eighties, but well funded and backed, it soon established itself as one of the premier hiking trails in the nation.

The second factor was the development of the Border Route Trail, which follows near the US-Canada west to the heart of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Though under development in the early eighties by the Minnesota Rovers, it was a rather low-profile thing at the time and didn't get noticed by NCNST planners.

Finally, 200 yards from where the Border Route ends, a third trail, the long established Kekekabic, picks up and continues westward. At the time of the writing of the Comprehensive Plan, the Kek had been abandoned by Superior National Forest citing budget and manpower restraints, but an active hiking group, the Kekekabic Trail Club, began the restoration of the trail in 1990.

The three trails fit together as an obvious alternative, but only so far. It was necessary to come up with a route back down to the Chippewa National Forest; over the years, several have been examined, but no firm settlement has been made, and an entirely new route on public lands will probably be needed. The "Arrowhead Route" as it has come to be called, would add about 400 miles to the NCNST -- but 400 miles of its most scenic. The plan was discussed at a NPS-called "summit meeting" on Minnesota in 1993, and further discussed at the NCTA's annual meeting in 1994, held at Maplelag Lodge near Callaway, MN. The Superior Hiking Trail Association was initially reluctant to join the project, but soon joined in. Further work on the old route west of Duluth was dropped, but final authorization of the project wea delayed over concerns about the legal ramifications such a huge deviation from the Comprehensive Plan, then by a decision to put the whole thing on the back burner to avoid a political dispute in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Since then, though the decision has been made to work toward inclusion of the Arrowhead, details remain to be firmed up; but, in 1998, serious work began on the project, coordinated by Dirk Mason, a NCTA planner stationed in the Park Service office in Madison.

The decision to include the Arrowhead came in time to generate a number that revised a lot of people's thinking about the North Country Trail. The number came from a Maryland hiker, Ed Talone. Talone had long considered an end-to-end of the NCNST, and in March of 1994, he set out to do it. He and a friend, Sue Lockwood, of Missouri, started eastward from Cincinnati. Lockwood, being blind and severly diabetic, needed daily kidney dialysis, so the two were followed in a van containing their gear and a portable dialysis unit, driven by Lockwood's brother, Gordon Smith. Lockwood and Smith had to part company from Talone in eastern New York, due to the need for hospital treatment for Sue; he continued to Crown Point, took Amtrak back to Cincinnati, and started north. Smith and Lockwood rejoined him in southern Michigan, and they continued westward reaching Lake Sakakawea in November. Talone hiked the whole thing, and even added side trips. In spite of hospitalization and severe personal difficulties, Lockwood and Mac, her elderly black Labrador lead dog, completed 2800 miles.

Before leaving, the National Park Service had provided Talone with a small grant to report on what he found along the trail; it was the first single-observer, single-year report on the trail in the sixteen years since Carolyn Hoffman. Talone found much that was good, but much that also needed work. But, what he also found was that the trail was much longer than anyone had suspected.

Since the 1982 Comprehensive Plan, a number around 3250 miles for the completed trail was frequently used, although many suspected this was too low, and thought a number around 3700 or 3800 miles was more likely. When Talone totaled his logbook, including the Arrowhead relocation, at a figure of nearly 4600 miles, it was a surprise to all concerned. Though Talone's figure has been revised slightly downward (he deviated from the expected route in some places), the current National Park Service anticipated figure (which includes some new additions) of 4150 miles is more than twice the length of the Appachian National Scenic Trail -- and that doesn't even include the 400 miles of the Arrowhead. It would not surprise anyone now to ultimately reach the number of 5000 miles.

One of the things that Talone also found was that the number for existing trail was higher than anyone had expected. Though certified trail existing at the end of that year was just shy of 1300 miles, Talone's figure for existing off-road trails (some uncertifiable, such as snowmobile trails) was nearly 3200 -- an number about 600 miles higher than estimated. Though there was more to do than anyone had realized, there was also more that had been done.

Since Talone's hike, there has been one more end-to-end of the trail: a four-year trip by Chet Fromm, of Port Orange, Florida. Fromm, who served as an NCTA Board member for a period, started his hike in 1992, but was forced out early due to injuries. He completed his hike over the next three years, adding the North Country Trail to his list of the Appalachian, Pacific Crest and Florida NSTs in his quest to be the first to end-to-end all eight.

As the trail began to run out of public lands to expand upon, it became more and more clear that work in areas of predominantly private ownership was going to have to be more carefully planned and organized. In 1992, the National Park Service began to take the first steps in this direction, when the Madison office undertook formal route plan processes in Kent County, Michigan, and Columbiana County, Ohio.

Work on the Kent County plan soon surged ahead of the Ohio plan, partly because of the existance of the NCTA headquarters staff in Grand Rapids and the Western Michigan Chapter there, but it was a knotty problem. There really wasn't an obvious route through Kent County; a number of proposals for possible routes had been made, but many involved the penetration of the downtown part of the city. Over a number of years, through many public meetings and studies, the route finally evolved into one that came close to following the Comprehensive Plan, albeit with the removal of one dogleg. The plan was finally published in 1995, though relatively little follow-up work has been done on it to date.

The Columbiana County Plan languished in the shade of the Kent County Plan for years, and did not really get rolling until the NCTA hired a full-time planner, Kim Bair, using Park Service funding, and stationed her in the NPS Madison Office to try and take some of the planning load off of Bill Menke. Bair finally was able to finish up the Columbiana County plan in early 1997, and some follow-up work is under way.

In 1994, Menke's attention was once again turned toward the long-stalled Adirondack problem. With the two planning processes under way, and given the distance between Madison and eastern New York, Menke enlisted the help of the NPS's Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Unit in New York to examine some of the proposals that had cropped up over the years to get around the problem in the High Peaks. Their report, by Karl Beard and Robin Snyder, was first presented to the public at the 1995 NCTA Annual Meeting at Watson Homestead Center, Coopers Plain, New York. Though the report made no firm recommendations, it did detail eight possible routes that might be used. Most of the routes were south of the Adirondacks, although only one there -- along the old Erie Canal towpath -- seemed to be without serious route problems, although it lacked in scenic potential. However, the report did note that there was a potential route through the southern Adirondacks, avoiding the High Peaks area, that seemed to hold potential. "What do we want?" the report asked. "A route we can achieve easily, or a really great trail?" Public comment over the next few months leaned strongly toward the latter; while the High Peaks weren't an imperative, it was clear that any route that didn't somehow include the Adirondacks was less than optimum.

Then, in the spring of 1997, nearly two decades of patience paid off as the Adirondack door finally opened. The Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) had been considering a new cross-Adirondack hiking trail, and invited NPS and NCTA representatives to a Symposium to discuss it. The symposium was attended by NCTA President Derek Blount, Trail Management VP Gaylord Yost, New York State Coordinator Howard Beye, a long-time FLTC member who had been keeping an eye on Adirondack developments for years, Bill Coffin of the new Central New York chapter of the NCTA, and by Tom Gilbert of the Madison NPS office. (Menke was unavailable due to other commitments.) As it turned out, the proposed Wilderness Backcountry Trail was nearly perpendicular to the route the NCNST had to follow, but a southern route proposed by the Adirondack Forest Preserve Advisory Committee, avoiding the High Peaks, was promising, and quickly became more promising when it was realized that the route avoided all of the old objections. Following the meeting, Menke moved to nail down the route by taking an extensive trip through the area, reporting that not only was it a good route, it was an achieveable one, with some existing trail that could be incorporated into the North Country Trail.

In 1995, with the Kent County plan finished and the Columbiana County plan well under way, Menke and Bair, along with NCTA Trails VP Gaylord Yost, a retired USFS Trails manager, opened up a new planning project, in northwestern Wisconsin. In order to follow up on the Arrowhead route, a better Minnesota/Wisconsin border crossing was needed; the 1982 route had proven to be unachieveable. In contrast to the other two planning projects, with results that had proven to be somewhat sterile by comparison, this one immediately generated a lot of interest, so much so that three new chapters formed within a year: the Heritage and Chequamegon chapters, which received their charters at the 1996 Annual Meeting at Hunt Hill Conference Center near Sarona, Wisconsin, and the Brule-St. Croix chapter, which formed the following spring. The trail in Wisconsin, lingering in the shadows of the Ice Age Trail there for so long, suddenly became the biggest hotbed of development on the whole NCNST.

Another troublesome state border crossing problem was solved in late 1996. The route envisioned by the Comprehensive Plan for the Michigan-Ohio border crossing on an abandoned railroad grade had long been lost. However, in the years since the Comprehensive Plan more rail closures had led to new possibilities on a somewhat longer route in Ohio that parallels the Michigan border for several miles. First certification on this route, called the Wabash Cannonball Trail, came in early 1997, and with it, the NCTA's first new affiliate in twelve years, the Northwest Ohio Rails to Trails Association (NORTA).

As the trail evolved in the mid-nineties, the Association evolved along with it. Blount's tenure as President saw the Association continue its change from a small trail club to a major trail overseer with national responsibilities.

One of Blount's focuses was to have the Association play a part on the national trails scene. As such, ties were strengthened with organizations like the American Hiking Society and American Trails, and delegations from the NCTA attended national trail meetings as far away as Alaska. Along with this, the Association was one of the key players in the development of the Partnership for National Scenic and Historic Trails, headed by Gary Werner, a former Ice Age NST Executive Director. As the Partnership has developed, NCTA has taken a leadership role in many functions, including efforts to influence federal legislation and regulatory efforts pertaining to the trail community. Among these issues has been control of invasive use of mountain bicycles as a result of the explosive development of this sport, something else unforseen in the Comprehensive Plan, and a touchy issue in many quarters, especially after a forest manager overruled his planning staff and opened much of the NCNST in the Manistee National Forest to this use.

Another development aimed at the dwindling amount of public lands available for trail expansion was the creation of a Land Trust Fund for purchase of easements or titles of critical pieces of land. The Land Trust Fund was given its inital start in 1994 with memorial donations for Alfred E. Borsum, a Middleville, MI businessman who had not previously had contact with the Association. The fund, named in his honor, has grown slowly since its inception.

Development of regional chapters of the NCTA was another focus during this period. In the mid-ninties, many attempts at forming new chapters were made. Some were stillborn, or of limited success, but several grew into booming groups, culminating in 1996-97, when five new chapters (Central New York, Chief Noonday in Berry County, Michigan, and Heritage, Chequamegon and Brule-St. Croix in Wisconsin) joined NCTA in an eight-month period. Over the next year, the total number of chapters was to rise to 15, with several potential new ones in the formative stage. The chapters varied in the amount of activity, but all were involved with building and maintaining trail, holding events on the trail, and trying to raise the profile of the NCNST in the local regions.

Chapters had not been a major issue when the 1992 reorganization plan was effected, but by 1997 their limited representation had become a sticking point. The answer was to tweak the 1992 reorganization by adding a Trail Conference structure to the Association's organization. The regional trail conferences, with representatives from Chapters, Affiliates and other groups offers a greater focus on trail development and management; however, at this writing, how these changes will work out remains to be seen.

The Association's Headquarters also changed significantly during this period. After a shaky period of trying to work out responsibilities during April Scholtz's year as Executive Director, she was replaced in 1992 with old NCTA hand Pat Allen as Executive Director. Allen first worked out of her home, but soon outgrew it. She was able to arrange for cheap office space in southeast Grand Rapids, and brought Claudia Day on board as Office Manager, and began the task to defining what functions were to be done by office staff, and what functions by volunteers. It was with real sadness that Allen had to leave the post in late 1995 in order to return to work for the state of Michigan to protect her retirement benefits package.

After a long search, Allen was replaced by Bob Papp, a former executive director of the Grand Rapids Nature Center, but a newcomer to trails and the Association. However, his extensive background in membership development and nonprofit organization merchandising quickly made positive changes to these areas, and he quickly learned his way around trail issues.

One of the first challenges that Papp faced was the loss of the sublease on the Executive Offices then occupied. After a search, he came up with new and much improved office space, for less money, albeit on a second floor at 49 Monroe Center in the heart of downtown Grand Rapids, and was able to arrange a long-term lease.

Budgeting was another issue faced by Papp and the NCTA in this period. Hitherto, budgeting had been rather haphazard, since there was sufficient money available for most projects, and the annual budget by now topped the six-figure mark. However, adding Bair to the staff and other issues had tightened things up considerably. Papp and the board put the Association on a tight budget, and the Association embarked on a program to increase income so that the Association's core functions would be separate from funding from the NPS Cooperative Agreement, which had provided much of the Association's funds during the early executive director period. To accomplish this involved an intensive membership expansion campaign, development of the North Country Trail Store, an Association function selling trail information and memorabilia, and other items including tight budget control.

One of the programs that Papp initiated was the development of detailed color trail maps for the trail, the sale of which promised to eventually be a mainstay of core funding for the Association.

Another function Papp assumed more responsibility for was the Annual Meeting. Though the 1996 meeting had been a programmatic success, it had been a financial disaster due to poor administration by the meeting host. After this, it was decided that the Association would have to have closer control over the meetings, and the work fell mostly on Papp. The 1997 meeting, held at Hervida 4-H Camp in Beverly, Ohio, was much lower key than the three preceding ones, but financially a success.

The Association's newsletter continued its growth during this period. In 1994, it was increased from four issues a year to five, in order to give more rapid coverage during the active summer months, and it grew in size from a usual 16 pages to 24 and sometimes more, with the circulation doubling with the growth of the organization. In 1995, it was renamed from the stogy "Newsletter of the North Country Trail Association" to the flashier "North Star". In 1997, a redesign expanded the North Star to a standard 32 pages, and brought color printing to the magazine for the first time. Despite a conservative appearance, it slowly gained the reputation of being second to none for content among national scenic trail association publications.

At the same time, the NCTA went electronic, with pages on the World Wide Web. After a shaky start in 1995 on a server with poor reliability, the page was moved to a different server in 1996, and by mid-1997 was generating 800 hits per month. In 1998, the page was moved again, to a domain named server, and an extensive redesign was undertaken.

In 1997, Blount had reached his term limit as president, and was replaced in the position by Werner Veit, a retired Grand Rapids publishing executive. Veit and Papp were able to find a grant that would allow development of a membership enhancement program, and brought in a consultant, Amy O'Conner, from Utah, to work on the program. Limited funding delayed putting the program into effect, but in mid-1998, membership topped the 1000 mark for the first time, at least partly a reflection of the intense growth in chapters.

The spring of 1998 also saw the biggest single certification on the trail since the 1983 initial certifications, when 115 miles on North Dakota's Garrison Diversion Project where added in a single action. Trail on the Garrison (a Bureau of Reclamation project) had long been seen as perhaps the only possible route through North Dakota; when added to existing trail in North Dakota's Lonetree Wildlife Management Area, and trail certified in 1997 at the western end of the trail at Lake Sakakawea, and other trail in the state, it brought North Dakota to third place in the list of total miles certified, and brought the total certification of the trail to near the 1500 mile level.

The annual meeting returned to Michigan, still the largest membership state, in 1998, held at the Lake Ann Baptist Camp near Traverse City, Michigan. In spite of shaky weather, it was a good meeting, where several new chapters and affiliates made their appearance at an annual meeting for the first time. The largest delegation was from Michigan, as was to be expected, but the second largest was from Pennsylvania, where intensive organizational and trail development efforts were under way, led by Pennsylvania Coordinator Bob Tait. The focus of the meeting was on what had long been seen as the next major trail issue: getting the trail off-road across private lands. Much of the program was led by the Chief Noonday Chapter, which has had notable success in southern Michigan with the problem. The 1999 meeting was planned for the last weekend of August in Butler, PA, with the 2000 meeting tentatively scheduled for May in Two Harbors, MN.

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