March 28, 2024
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Group planning hikers festival in Millinocket

MILLINOCKET – It takes about 5 million footsteps to walk the entire 2,175-mile Appalachian Trail from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin, and Paul and Jaime Renaud want the most memorable portion to be the Maine end of that monumental journey.

That’s why the Renauds and the husband-wife team of Wayne Curlew and Marsha Donahue are organizing the Trail’s End Festival in downtown for Sept. 13-14, they said Friday.

The town business owners are working with the Katahdin Area Chamber of Commerce, which is sponsoring the new event, to celebrate the Katahdin region’s rich hiking heritage while highlighting the area’s sports, cultural and historical offerings.

“We would like to see people come here and celebrate hiking – on the trail, in Baxter State Park, on area trails,” Jaime Renaud said Friday. “We feel like the area offers so much more than the Appalachian Trail, and we would like people to see that.”

Trail’s End will cover downtown from Millinocket Stream to the gazebo and will be the Katahdin area’s only event targeting the hiking experience and the thousands of people it draws, Marsha Donahue said.

“The goal of it is to promote the outdoors,” Donahue said. “It really came about because Jaime was talking about having a festival where hikers could meet and come back and reconvene and celebrate together, and it just sort of grew.

“The town has really wanted a festival in downtown ever since the Wooden Canoe Festival went down to Medway years ago,” she added.

More than 9,000 people have reported hiking the length of the trail, with tens of thousands more walking portions of it annually. Most of Maine’s trail is not recommended for novice hikers; Maine’s 281 miles are generally considered the most difficult of all 14 states, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.

The festival will offer a mix of activities related to outdoor sports vendors and enthusiasts, including cycling, watercraft, water sports, fishing, climbing and camping. The arts, including music, crafters, fine art, writing and different kinds of food, also will be featured, said Donahue, who owns North Light Gallery on Penobscot Avenue.

If all goes well, Trail’s End may eventually mirror other successful hiking festivals along the trail. They include Trail Days, a May celebration in Damascus, Va., that draws as many as 30,000 people annually, and The Gathering, a Columbus Day weekend celebration in Gettysburg, Pa., that draws about 4,000, said Jaime Renaud, who owns Appalachian Trail Cafe and Lodge, which is also on the Penobscot.

The organizers are lining up corporate sponsorship, designing a logo, seeking seed money and vendors for the 10-by-10-foot booths they will be renting and also looking for artists, craftspeople and others interested in helping organize or participate in the event. Anyone interested is asked to e-mail northlight@maine.com or contact the Renauds at 723-4321 or pj6150@gmail.com.

Baxter State Park officials already have offered to lend space to the festival and co-sponsor appropriate outdoor activities at their venues. The Maine Arts Commission is helping the festival seek authors, historic impersonators and other artists interested in participating.

“I am just hoping that it will bring a lot of people to the area and that everybody will have a really nice time,” Donahue said.

nsambides@bangordailynews.net

794-8215


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