https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/northern-forest-canoe-trail-ancient-native-waterway
By Freddie Wilkinson, Photographs byAmy Toensing, April 15, 2025. National Geographic. The rain came down in sheets, roiling the surface of Fourth Lake, an oblong crescent in the heart of New York’s Adirondack Mountains and the largest of eight lakes in the Fulton chain. I laid my paddle on my knees and looked around. Our small flotilla of canoes and kayaks, containing a dozen or so paddlers, was spread out over a half mile, though the downpour obscured many of my companions. We were hustling toward the closest takeout, a mile away on Fifth Lake.
Only a few hours earlier, I had shoved off from the tiny hamlet of Old Forge, in upstate New York, pushing east with a group of Native American paddlers along a portion of an ancient route that runs for 740 miles to Maine. The Northern Forest Canoe Trail (NFCT) is made up of a network of more than 80 lakes, ponds, rivers, and streams that snake from Old Forge across the heart of the Northeast, through Vermont, Québec, and New Hampshire, before finally ending with more than 300 miles of travel deep in the woods of Maine. Unlike a lot of canoe trips, this is not a strictly downstream affair but an overland journey too. Many of these waterways are not connected, and so extensive portaging—of one’s canoe, camping gear, and food—is mandatory. Read the full story.
