- Hiker Today: 19 miles
- Stevie Allagash /Quebec National Trail Alternate (163.9 – 182.9)
- Sentier NB & Méruimticook Trail
- Stevie Allagash /Quebec National Trail Alternate (163.9 – 182.9)
- Total Hiked: 4,223.1 miles
- Total Paddled: 191.2 miles
Weather: 45-73°F, sunny and clear with few whispy clouds, occasional light breeze, splendid
US Route 1 North End to Sisson Shelter
Awake early, I stayed in bed and worked on phone things. When I heard dad moving around in the kitchen, I got up to say good morning and get some coffee. He was already at it making breakfast again. I’ve been spoiled having him around. It’s back to reality today though. The plan is to both cross the border into Canada, him in his truck and me via walking, and then he’ll start his drive back to Michigan while I’ll just continue trekking.
Before that though, we enjoyed a nice send off breakfast of bacon, eggs, buttered toast, and orange juice. As always, it was delicious.
No, not mimosas, but having our OJ in the wine glasses created an even more refreshing beverage I felt.
Afterwards, I got to finalizing my packing. We were out the door a little before 8:00 am and headed down the road a short ways to the grocery store. I had most of the food I needed for the next stretch, but wanted to top it off, so to speak, with a few additional snacky items.
New shoes! My gear seems to be holding up pretty good. Bruce Banner (my pack), Donna (my tent), and all the other items are in good condition. I did misplace my tent stake bag along the Allagash somewhere though, so using the ones for dads tent going forward.
I also found out that my phone charger, the cube part that plugs into the outlet, got damaged during our last day on the Allagash. Whether it was rain water or river water, I’m not sure, but it no longer charged my phone. After the grocery store, we stopped at Walgreens and I found a replacement, so hopefully all is well.
I laughed at this mural because although I think it’s to represent the areas interest in the Biathlon, to me it kind of looks like the guy is shooting across the river at the Canadians.
Around 8:30 am I was all ready to go. We parked near the bridge that crosses the St. John River and the border and I set to walking, starting where I left off yesterday.
Crossing the bridge was yet another big milestone of this journey. The ole Buoy to Bama to Baxter to Border was now complete. I was a tad nervous how customs would go, but also excited to have made it here on this mega long trip regardless of how things went next!
Before, when scheming for this alternate, I tried to visualize what it would look like here. Is it a big town? Are there vehicles backed up waiting to cross? Do they even let you walk across the bridge? The reality was there was a nice sidewalk for me and also much less busy than I imagined. The only vehicle crossing the bridge while I did was dad in his truck. He got to the window first and was being let through right when I walked up.
Handing the very serious looking man my passport, I answered as he asked me the basic questions you’d expect. Things were going fine. Then he started digging into my story more and the whole long-distance hiking thing and asking whether I had a job or a house or a spouse to go back to. What was keeping me from trying to stay in Canada? That sort of thing. Well sir, I don’t really have any of those haha.
I guess my answers weren’t satisfactory enough because he asked me to wait a bit while they checked things out. I was pointed to a bench to sit on. Maybe 5-10 minutes passed and then he came out and said I was good to go! New Brunswick, here Sumi and I come!
Dad had pulled into a parking space. It was once again a parting of the ways. I am so thankful to have gotten this experience together. Not only was it a ton of fun to have him as a comrade on the adventure, he was a huge help in making it a success. In fact, I felt I did very little of the planning and logistics of this trip and instead he got the brunt of it. Twas a ton of fun. Til the next time Master Trailsman!
I got to walking right away. It was around 9:00 am by this time and I had around a 20 mile day planned. My trek started in town with a surprisingly tiny bit of road. Pretty quickly I cut off the main highway and onto a side street. From there, I found what was labeled on my app as “Sentier NB Trail.” It looked much like the St. Francis Valley Heritage Trail that I hiked yesterday on the Maine side, a wide gravel path. This one was full of puddles, but I was able to dodge and stay dry. I cruised on it for a little over two and a half miles.
When I decided to veer of the Eastern Continental Trail and go my own way, the biggest draw and reason for doing so was the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. The ECT follows the International Appalachian Trail which kind of goes northeast before shooting west. When thinking of how to connect back with it, I tried to research both what was somewhat efficient, but also looked for different trails and highlights that I might want to include.
That sounds nice and everything, but I know going into this next section that there’s going to be a lot of road walking and paved paths too. I’m hopeful the journey will still be an interesting one. I suspect it’s going to have a unique feel to it, more of a “frontcountry” vibe. And so, I’m going into it with an open mind and also the understanding and acceptance that I chose to do it this way, for better or worse.
The nice country setting with a super wide pathway was a pleasant way to kick it off…
I liked all the signs. I don’t understand any French, but it’s fun to guess at what they’re saying.
Creepy scarecrow. The face was a Halloween mask and it was quite terrifying.
I think the abundance of signs is because these are basically roads for the ATV’ers.
In that spirit of embracing the open road, today, included about 6-7 miles of roadside walking to get to Lake Baker. Reaching this big lake, I wrapped around its southeastern shore to a cut off I hoped was trail. See, that’s the thing with this whole strategy of going your own way, even when you research, you never know for sure what’s ahead!
I stumbled across The Méruimticook Trail early on and it looked interesting to me. In total, I think it’s almost 33 miles and connects the town of Edmundston to Lake Baker. I plan to follow around 22 or so miles of that before splitting off. This info. all came from a nice website I found about the trail. As I approached though, doubts began to creep in. Was this a real thing? What are the trail conditions going to be like? Is it even trail?
Lake Baker
Curving up along is southeastern side, there were nice houses and looking across I could see beautiful farm fields.
So, when I got to the spot and all I saw was a two track leading up the hill and into the forest with no signage, I grew even more worried. Was this private property or the public trail I was hoping for?
I decided to check it out. The website provides a GPS track of the trail and having uploaded that file to CalTopo, I could see my little dot on the map as well as a line representing the trail to follow; my dot was following along perfectly. So, I just kept going and headed north up and away from the lake. It was pretty, a nice green forest tunnel…
A real, live, Canadian Maple Leaf!?
At the time I thought these were fake raspberries, but seeing the photo I wondered if they might be unripe blackberries?
At the top of the first rise, I found a bench and some signs. One had a little turtle and the trail name on it and this confirmed to me that I was on the right track! Another told me there was cell coverage and a third even provided me with some instructions for stretching. Hooray!
Sentier means “trail” in French. I did not find any translation for Méruimticook, but it seems connected with Madawaska Maliseet First Nation and maybe has to do with a tortoise base on my limited research and the trail icon/symbol.
The rest of the day would be a mix of some single track trail (not a lot of this), double track trail (a decent amount of this), and wider gravel paths and roads (lots of this). There were some neat wetland areas and other kind of fun features, but overall it was a forest walk today. I was happy the route was always clear and free of brush and downed trees!
There’s some tasty raspberries.
Although I didn’t stay, a nice little campsite along a stream.
This trail has the combined white and red blazes. It was marked quite well throughout.
As far as I know the trail offers one shelter for users and when I contacted the Facebook group administrator, was told there’s no charge or reservation required. Sure enough, after filling up water at what I believe is called Sisson Stream, I found it, and it looked absolutely top notch.
With the place to myself (I actually didn’t see anybody else on the trail today), I settled right in. After eating one of the remaining freeze dried meals from our Allagash trip, I got all cozy inside. The wood bunks, the dust, the smell of it even, all reminded me of my grandparents old cabin. “The Cabin” as we always called it, is one the most special places in my life, so having this resemble it brought me to a place of peace and contentment. A pretty good start to life north of the border, eh?
