Outdoors
The BDN outdoors section brings readers into the woods, waters and wild places of Maine. It features stories on hunting, fishing, wildlife, conservation and recreation, told by people who live these experiences. This section emphasizes hands-on knowledge, field reports, issues, trends and the traditions that define life outside in Maine. Read more Outdoors stories here.
For much of this summer, ATV riders traveling between Howland and Lincoln had to take a longer route because of trail closures, dust complaints, landowner concerns and a bridge closure.
Getting the route back open required cooperation among ATV clubs, landowners, state officials, legislators and the Maine Department of Transportation.
The connection now includes three trail sections: a reopened section along Mattamiscontis Road in Howland, the reopened Greywolf Trail and the newly developed Veterans Memorial Trail in Lincoln.
The Mattamiscontis Road section is three-eighths of a mile long and was closed at the beginning of the season while the club waited for Maine Department of Transportation approval. It has now reopened with an added scenic stop overlooking the Penobscot River in Howland.
The route crosses the Penobscot River on an approximately 1,100-foot bridge that Maine DOT barred ATVs from using in the spring because of concerns about its width and the safety of mixing recreational vehicles with other traffic.
The bridge closure created a problem because the distance between the Mattamiscontis trailhead and the next trail connection was more than 1,750 feet. Under state law, trailheads can generally be no more than 1,500 feet apart, so the club needed a variance.
“These trails help the whole community, not just ATVers,” said Herman Voisine, trailmaster of the Seboeis Stream ATV Club in Howland. “The ribbon-cutting for that little section of trail was a big deal because access to Lincoln was shut down for three months.”
From the bridge, the route continues onto the Greywolf Trail, which leads into downtown Lincoln and connects with the Veterans Memorial Trail. The Greywolf Trail was closed by a landowner because of concerns about unethical behavior by some ATV riders.
“Our director went and met every day for two weeks with the landowner who had shut the trail down and he came around and reopened it,” said David Neal, assistant trailmaster of the Penobscot Off-Road Riders ATV Club.
The Veterans Memorial Trail was developed after the former Glacier Rock Trail was closed by landowners who had become frustrated with dust created by ATV traffic and other issues involving private property rights.
ATV clubs tried to address the problem, including purchasing woodchips to control the dust. But the proximity of a nearby house made it difficult to eliminate the problem, particularly during the driest parts of summer.
The Veterans Memorial Trail is part of the 92-mile trail system maintained by the Penobscot Off-Road Riders ATV Club. The club will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the trail at 10 a.m. Sept. 12 at the trailhead on Weatherbee Point Road in Lincoln.
When the connection between Howland and Lincoln was closed, riders traveling between the two areas had to take a much longer route through Brownville.
“It is certainly going to be beneficial for anyone traveling in the area on our trails,” said Keenan Joy, owner of Lincoln Powersports. “Trail access is extremely important to the economy of Maine. If we didn’t have trail access, we wouldn’t have anything.”
The work on the Lincoln trails was funded through the Maine Trails Program, created by the Maine Legislature in 2024 and administered by the Bureau of Parks and Lands within the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry.
The program has $30 million in state funding available through 2034 to support motorized, nonmotorized and multiuse trails throughout Maine.