ALLAGASH – The first campsite on a historic 740-mile-long Northern Forest Canoe Trail was dedicated Saturday morning along the Allagash River amid flying snowflakes and temperatures hovering near freezing.

After the ceremonies, 13 diehards made a symbolic canoe run from the site of the Michaud Inn Campsite to the confluence of the Allagash and St. John rivers, 45 minutes away.

The trip was a cold one, undertaken in low water with paddlers surrounded by leaf-free autumn trees. The canoes left paint marks on several rocks along the trip, which ended shortly after canoeists went under the Allagash River Bridge on Route 161.

About 30 people attended the dedication in a temperature of 34 degrees Fahrenheit. They were warmed by the camaraderie of the effort, along with the coffee, hot cider and homemade doughnuts.

Constructed on the site of a historic, late 1800s riverside hotel, the campsite has two covered picnic tables, tenting areas, a wooden outhouse, and a panoramic view of the Allagash River where its waters gently round a bend.

The Michaud Inn, located about three miles from the confluence of the two major northern Maine rivers, was established as a supply depot for horse-drawn towboats bringing supplies to lumbering operations at Michaud Farm, both owned by J.T. Michaud, about 14 miles southwest of the town of Allagash.

“Establishing a campsite here was a neat project,” said Sean Lizotte, co-chairman of the Fort Kent Committee of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail. “Our committee has been working for several years to get to this day.

“It all happened because of dedicated volunteer time and materials,” he said. “Next year, we will erect a kiosk at Fort Kent, the terminus of the canoe trail.”

The Northern Forest Canoe Trail, a 740-mile waterway once used by American Indians and woodsmen, crosses New York, Vermont, Quebec, New Hampshire and Maine as it roams from Old Forge, N.Y., to Fort Kent.

Most of the trail is within a day’s travel for about 70 million people in the northeast United States and Canada and could be an economic boost for more than 40 towns along the trail.

Danny Mullen of St. George traveled the entire route. It took him 56 days.

Organizers hope the trail will renew the bond of people to the river while re-establishing a long-distance recreational water trail along American Indian travel routes.

“This is kind of staggering, realizing what this trail might be,” Rob Center of Vermont, NFCT executive director, said at the dedication.

“The canoe trail is an exciting concept, bringing up much history,” he said, standing in front of an open fire at the site. “This trail, this campsite, connects the past and present.”

Roger Kelly, 72, a former logger and a resident of Allagash, remembered the famed inn.

“I saw the inn in its heyday, and it was a beautiful place,” he said Saturday morning while starting a campfire at the new campsite. “It looked liked a castle to me when I was very young.

“It had high, big pillars in the front,” he said. “That was in the 1940s.”

Kelly said people, including his father and brothers, walked through the area on their way to Churchill Dam and Big Eagle Lake for the spring log drives.

The Michaud Inn was given to its caretakers, Bill and Gertie Leslie, by J.T. Michaud after his Saint John Lumber Co. went bankrupt in 1925. Michaud lost everything he owned but the inn.

The 1.6-acre site, high on a rise above the river, was given to the town by Great Northern Paper Co. before GNP sold its land in the area to Irving Woodlands, according to Danny Pelletier of Allagash, a former GNP employee and municipal official at Allagash who was instrumental in gaining the site for the town.

Over the years, the inn, destroyed by an arsonist in 1993, served not only as a hotel, but also a private home. Clifford Brownell lived there for years.

Local historian and author Faye Hafford remembered the Michaud Inn’s past for people at the dedication.

“It was a beautiful building covered with cedar shingles and a knotty pine interior,” she said. “People came from everywhere for overnight stays at the inn,” she said.

The Fort Kent committee was able to get grant money from the Northern Forest Canoe Trail Committee’s Stewardship Awards program and the National Park Service for the construction of the campsite.

Center called the trail project an “exciting concept.” The Michaud Inn Campsite is the first campsite along the trail, and it stands, Center said, on a “very historical site.”

“This site is returning to its former use, a refuge for river travelers,” he said.