For most of 2025, Heidi Bartley fielded questions from friends and community members about the future of the Nordic Heritage Outdoor Center and its more than 700 acres of public trails.
The expansive Presque Isle venue, made famous by hosting international biathlon championships and locally beloved by outdoor sports enthusiasts, was shuttered by its owners, the Portland-based Libra Foundation, in late 2024.
Bartley, a longtime volunteer, ski coach and proponent of the facility, was among the core group trying to save it.
“What’s going on?” “What can I do?” “How can I help?” “What do we need to make this happen?” people asked her.
Now, as she leans against the doorframe of the facility’s welcome center and greets visitors, she’s begun to hear a new refrain.
“They’ll walk right up here and say, ‘I’m so glad you guys are open,’” Bartley said. So is she.
Northern Maine Community Trails, a new nonprofit led by former United Insurance president and CEO Chris Condon, bought the property for $1 million in early December. Less than a week later, some of the trails reopened to the public.
“It was Thanksgiving of 2024 the last time I stood on this porch,” Bartley, the nonprofit’s volunteer coordinator, said. “I just had chills, tears in my eyes driving [back] up the driveway.”
On a recent Saturday, Olivia Lord walked up to the welcome center, snowshoes in hand. An emergency room nurse at Houlton Regional Hospital, Lord said she was looking to decompress from a job that can be “really demanding,” so Bartley pointed her in the direction of Eric’s Around the Mountain, a popular, roughly 2-mile loop.
“To get outside and relax and get fresh air is everything,” Lord said. “It’s just nice to have a nice place that’s well used and well kept.”
A couple of hours later, Mark and Faith Royer came to snowshoe with their two children, Miles and Lily. The Royers moved to Presque Isle four years ago and had visited the outdoor center before, but not since it opened under a new name.
“This facility, I think, is one of the shining gems of the area,” Mark Royer said. “We were extremely disappointed when it was closed last year, but we were elated when we found out that people were able to work out a deal to make it available to the community.”
They headed out on the Moose Trail, a mile-long jaunt south of the main lodge.
Freezing rain overnight had slowed traffic to the trails, but by midafternoon, a steady trickle of cars ventured into the lot.
Local ski teams that had long practiced and raced at the facility can also hit the trails again. The Presque Isle High School and middle school Nordic ski teams are back practicing at the facility and will host the first races there under new ownership on Jan. 20 and 21.
Amid the jubilation of reopening, the trail group’s board still has a lot to figure out — chiefly how to obtain the $1 million it committed to pay for the property. The nonprofit now has less than a year to pay Pineland Farms of New Gloucester — the Libra Foundation-owned company that legally owned the facility — under the terms of a one-year mortgage agreement signed on Dec. 4, 2025.
“Our biggest goal was to take it off the market and then figure it out after,” Bartley said. “Our fear was that if somebody came in and purchased it but decided to keep it private or not open access to the trails, then we would have lost it in our community indefinitely.”
The nonprofit had roughly $110,000 in “firm commitments” on Dec. 5, Condon told the Bangor Daily News after the sale, and it hopes to win federal, state and local grants as part of a capital funding campaign seeking to raise $1.5 million to cover the sale price and future operating costs.
In signing a liability waiver to use the property, visitors are given the option to donate and support that campaign. But the nonprofit asks only for a $5 donation for single-day access.
Besides the trail system, the property contains other buildings, notably a 7,000-square-foot lodge that overlooks the parking lot. The group doesn’t have the capacity to staff it, and has yet to decide whether it will rent it out.
“I think what we realized after about six months of not having the facility was that what we really wanted to preserve was the trail system and the [750]-plus acres of land,” Bartley said. “Secondarily, we have a lot of facilities and infrastructure with buildings, and now that we’ve actually purchased it, we’re trying to figure out how we can incorporate both.”
The nonprofit also faces equipment challenges. Left without machinery to groom or maintain the 15 miles of Nordic ski trails and 5 miles of snowshoe and fat bike trails, volunteers have relied on donations and their own ingenuity.
Bartley and her husband built a handmade drag to attach to a 25-year-old snowmobile, donated by the Ashland Nordic Ski Club, to prepare roughly 5 miles of ski trails that are open this winter. Workers are also using a snowmobile on loan from Madawaska’s Four Seasons Trail Association.
The next-door Quoggy Jo Ski Center and local businesses have lent them sleds, groomers and other equipment.
It’s not a permanent solution, but widespread community support has helped the board get off the ground, and is helping them bridge the gap as they begin to determine how various aspects of the facility will function.
“I have a list of 500 people that want to help,” Bartley said. “Now that we have something to organize, we need to organize it.”
Northern Maine Community Trails will not return to its status as a world-class competitive skiing and biathlon venue — at least in the near future — board members say. Instead, they want to market it to everyday Mainers as a jewel of outdoor recreation in their backyard.
“I think at first it was seen as this like elite athlete training ground, and people weren’t sure if it was a place they could come and ski or snowshoe or run or mountain bike,” Bartley said. “[We] changed the name enough to make it all encompassing … that it is a community trail system and just letting people know that it’s open to everyone.”