[United States Statutes at Large, Volume 130, 114th Congress, 2nd Session]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

 
Proclamation 9476 of August 24, 2016

Establishment of the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

In north central Maine lies an area of the North Woods known in recent
years as the Katahdin Woods and Waters Recreation Area (Katahdin Woods
and Waters), approximately 87,500 acres within a larger landscape
already conserved by public and private efforts starting a century ago.
Katahdin Woods and Waters contains a significant piece of this
extraordinary natural and cultural landscape: the mountains, woods, and
waters east of Baxter State Park (home of Mount Katahdin, the northern
terminus of the Appalachian Trail), where the East Branch of the
Penobscot River and its tributaries, including the Wassataquoik Stream
and the Seboeis River, run freely. Since the glaciers retreated 12,000
years ago, these waterways and associated resources--the scenery,
geology, flora and fauna, night skies, and more--have attracted people
to this area. Native Americans still cherish these resources.
Lumberjacks, river drivers, and timber owners have earned their livings
here. Artists, authors, scientists, conservationists, recreationists,
and others have drawn knowledge and inspiration from this landscape.
Katahdin Woods and Waters contains objects of significant scientific and
historic interest. For some 11,000 years, Native peoples have inhabited
the area, depending on its waterways and woods for sustenance. They
traveled during the year from the upper reaches of the

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East Branch of the Penobscot River and its tributaries to coastal
destinations like Frenchman and Penobscot Bays. Native peoples have
traditionally used the rivers as a vast transportation network,
seasonally searching for food, furs, medicines, and many other
resources. Based on the results of archeological research performed in
nearby areas, researchers believe that much of the archeological record
of this long Native American presence in Katahdin Woods and Waters
remains to be discovered, creating significant opportunity for
scientific investigation. What is known is that the Wabanaki people, in
particular the Penobscot Indian Nation, consider the Penobscot River
(including the East Branch watershed) a centerpiece of their culture and
spiritual values.
The first documented Euro-American exploration of the Katahdin region
dates to a 1793 survey commissioned by the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts. After Maine achieved statehood in 1820, Major Joseph
Treat, guided by John Neptune of the Penobscot Tribe, produced the first
detailed maps of the region. The Maine Boundary Commission authorized a
survey of the new State in 1825, for which surveyor Joseph C. Norris,
Sr., and his son established the ``Monument Line,'' which runs through
Katahdin Woods and Waters and serves as the State's east-west baseline
from which township boundaries are drawn.
By the early 19th century until the late 20th century, logging was a way
of life throughout the area, as exemplified by the history of logging
along the Wassataquoik Stream. To access the upstream forests, a tote
road was built on the Wassataquoik's north bank around 1841; traces of
the old road can still be seen in places. The earliest loggers felled
enormous white pines and then ``drove'' them down the tumultuous stream.
Beginning in the 1880s, after the choice pines were gone, the loggers
switched to spruce long logs, and built camps, depots, and many dams on
the Wassataquoik to control its flow for the log drives. Remnants of the
Dacey and Robar Dams have been found, and discovery of more logging
remnants and historic artifacts is likely. Log driving was dangerous,
and many men died on the river and were buried nearby. A large fire in
1884 damaged logging operations on the Wassataquoik, and an even larger
fire in 1903 put an end to the long log operations. Pulpwood operations
resumed in 1910 but ceased in 1915. Other streams, like Sandy Stream,
have similar logging histories.
The East Branch of the Penobscot River and its major tributaries served
as a thoroughfare for huge log drives headed toward Bangor. Log drives
ended (based primarily on environmental concerns) in the 1970s, after
which the timber companies relied on trucking and a network of private
roads they started to build in the 1950s.
In the 1800s, the infrastructure that developed to support the logging
industry also drew hunters, anglers, and hikers to the area. In the
1830s, within 2 miles of one another on the eastern side of the
Penobscot East Branch, William Hunt and Hiram Dacey established farms to
serve loggers, which soon also served recreationists, scientists, and
others who wanted to explore the Katahdin region or climb its mountains.
Just across the East Branch from the Hunt and Dacey Farms (the latter
now the site of Lunksoos Camps) lies the entrance to the Wassataquoik
Stream. In 1848, the Reverend Marcus Keep established what is still
called Keep Path, running along the Wassataquoik to Katahdin Lake and on
to Mount Katahdin. From that time until the end of the 19th century, the
favored entryway to the Katahdin region started on the east side of
Mount Katahdin with a visit to Hunt or Dacey Farm, then

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crossed the East Branch and ascended the valley of the Wassataquoik
Stream.
Henry David Thoreau--who made the ``Maine Woods'' famous through his
publications--approached from the headwaters of the East Branch to the
north. With his Penobscot guide Joe Polis and companion Edward Hoar in
1857, on his last and longest trip to the area, he paddled past Dacey
Farm with just a brief stop at Hunt Farm. He wrote about his two nights
in the Katahdin Woods and Waters area--the first at what he named the
``Checkerberry-tea camp,'' near the oxbow just upriver from Stair Falls,
and the second on the river between Dacey and Hunt Farms where he drank
hemlock tea.
During his 1879 Maine trip on which he summited Mount Katahdin, Theodore
Roosevelt followed the route across the East Branch and up the
Wassataquoik. As Roosevelt later recalled, he lost one of his hiking
boots crossing the Wassataquoik but, undaunted, completed the
challenging trek in moccasins. Many including Roosevelt himself have
observed that his several trips to the Katahdin region in the late 1870s
had a significant impact on his life, as he overcame longstanding health
problems, gained strength and stamina, experienced the wonder of nature
and the desire to conserve it, and made friends for life from the Maine
Woods.
Native Mainer Percival P. Baxter, too, followed this route on the 1920
trip that solidified his determination to create a large park from this
landscape. Burton Howe, a Patten lumberman, organized this trip of Maine
notables, who stayed at Lunksoos Camps before their ascent via the
established route. As a State representative, senator, and governor,
Baxter had proposed legislation to create a Mount Katahdin park in
commemoration of the State's centennial, and the 1920 trip cemented his
profound appreciation of the landscape. Spurned by the Maine
legislature, Baxter devoted his life to acquiring 28 parcels of land,
largely from timber companies who had heavily logged them, and donated
them to the State with management instructions and an endowment,
resulting in the establishment of Baxter State Park.
Artists and photographers have left indelible images of their time spent
in the area. In 1832, John James Audubon canoed the East Branch and
sketched natural features for his masterpiece Birds of America. Frederic
Edwin Church, the preeminent landscape artist of the Hudson River
School, first visited the area in the 1850s, and in 1877 invited his
landscape-painter colleagues to join him on a well-publicized expedition
from Hunt Farm up the Wassataquoik Stream to capture varied views of
Mount Katahdin and environs. In the early 1900s, George H. Hallowell
painted and photographed the log drives on the Wassataquoik Stream, and
Carl Sprinchorn painted logging activities on the Seboeis River.
Geologists were among the earliest scientists to visit the area. While
surveys were done in the 1800s, in-depth geological research and mapping
of the area did not begin until the 1950s. These mid-20th century
geologists found bedrock spanning over 150 million years of the
Paleozoic era, revealing a remarkably complete exposure of Paleozoic
rock strata with well-preserved fossils. The lands west of the Penobscot
East Branch are dominated by volcanic and granitic rock from the
Devonian period, mostly Katahdin Granite but also Traveler Rhyolite, a
light-colored volcanic rock that is similar in composition to granite.
The oldest

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rock in Katahdin Woods and Waters, a light greenish-gray quartzite
interlayered with slate from the early Cambrian period (over 500 million
years ago), can be observed along the riverbank of the Penobscot East
Branch for over 1,000 feet at the Grand Pitch (a river rapid). This rock
is part of the Weeksboro-Lunksoos Lake anticline, a broad upward fold of
rocks originally deposited horizontally, which is evidence of mountain-
building tectonics. The fold continues north along the river and then
turns northeast toward Shin Pond, exposing successive bands of younger
Paleozoic rock of both volcanic and sedimentary origin on either side of
the structure.
Various formations in the area provide striking visual evidence of
marine waters in Katahdin Woods and Waters during the geologic periods
that immediately followed the Cambrian period. For example, Owen Brook
limestone, an outcrop of calcareous bedrock west of the Penobscot East
Branch containing fossil brachiopods, is of coral reef origin. Pillow
lavas, such as those near the summit of Lunksoos Mountain, were produced
by underwater eruptions. Haskell Rock, the 20-foot-tall pillar in the
midst of a Penobscot East Branch rapid, is conglomerate bedrock that
suggests a time of dynamic transition from volcanic islands to an ocean
with underwater sedimentation. This conglomerate, deposited about 450
million years ago, contains volcanic and sedimentary stones of various
sizes, and occurs in outcrops and boulders in several locations.
The area's geology also provides prominent evidence of large and
powerful earth-changing events. During the Paleozoic era (541 to 252
million years ago), mountain-building events contributed to the rise of
the primordial Appalachian Mountain range and the amalgamation of the
supercontinent Pangaea. Following the last mountain-building event,
significant erosion reshaped the topography, helping to expose the cores
of volcanoes, the Katahdin pluton, and the structure of the previous
mountain-building events. About 200 million years ago, Pangaea began
splitting apart as the Atlantic Ocean appeared and North America,
Europe, and Africa formed. Today, the International Appalachian Trail, a
long-distance hiking trail, seeks to follow the ancestral Appalachian-
Caledonian Mountains on both sides of the Atlantic, starting at Katahdin
Lake in Baxter State Park near the northern end of the domestic
Appalachian Trail, traversing Katahdin Woods and Waters for about 30
miles, and proceeding through Canada for resumption across the Atlantic.
In more recent geological history, during the approximately 2.5 million
year-long Pleistocene epoch that ended approximately 12,000 years ago,
repeated glaciations covered the region, eroding bedrock and shaping the
modern landscape. Glacial till from the most recent glaciations
underlies much of the area's soil, moraines occur in several locations,
and glacial erratics are common. Prominent eskers--long, snaking ridges
of sand and gravel deposited by glacial meltwater--occur along most of
the Penobscot East Branch and the Wassataquoik Stream. Glacial
landforms, glacial scoured bedrock, and the lake sediments in the area,
deposited only since the retreat of the last glaciers, record a history
of intense climate change that gave rise to the modern topography of the
area.
This post-glacial topography is studded with attractive small mountains,
including some like Deasey, Lunksoos, and Barnard, that offer
spectacular views of Mount Katahdin. Katahdin Woods and Waters

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abuts much of Baxter State Park's eastern boundary, extending the
conservation landscape through shared mountains, streams, corridors for
plants and animals, and other natural systems.
Among the defining natural features of Katahdin Woods and Waters is the
East Branch of the Penobscot River system, including its major
tributaries, the Seboeis River and the Wassataquoik Stream, and many
smaller tributaries. Known as one of the least developed watersheds in
the northeastern United States, the Penobscot East Branch River system
has a stunning concentration of hydrological features in addition to its
significant geology and ecology. From the northern boundary of Katahdin
Woods and Waters, the main stem of the East Branch drops over 200 feet
in about 10 miles through a series of rapids and waterfalls--including
Stair Falls, Haskell Rock Pitch, Pond Pitch, Grand Pitch, the Hulling
Machine, and Bowlin Falls.
After Bowlin Brook, the main stem declines more gently south toward
Whetstone Falls and below, embroidered with many side channels and
associated floodplain forests and open streamshores. Of the two major
tributaries, the Seboeis River flows in from the east, and the
Wassataquoik Stream from the west, the latter dropping over 500 feet in
its approximately 14-mile wild run from the border of Baxter State Park
to its confluence with the Penobscot East Branch main stem.
The extraordinary significance of the Penobscot East Branch River system
has long been recognized. A 1977 Department of the Interior study
determined that the East Branch of the Penobscot River, including the
Wassataquoik Stream, qualifies for inclusion in the National Wild and
Scenic Rivers System based on its outstandingly remarkable values, and a
1982 Federal-State study of rivers in Maine determined that the
Penobscot East Branch River System, including both the Wassataquoik
Stream and the Seboeis River, ranks in the highest category of natural
and recreational rivers and possesses nationally significant resource
values.
In recent years, a multi-party public-private project has taken steps to
reconnect the Penobscot River with the sea through the removal and
retrofitting of downstream dams. This river restoration will likely
further enhance the integrity of the Penobscot East Branch river system,
and provide opportunities for scientific study of the effects of the
restoration on upstream areas within Katahdin Woods and Waters. It will
also allow federally endangered Atlantic salmon to return to the upper
reaches of the river known in the Penobscot language as
``Wassetegweweck,'' or ``the place where they spear fish.'' The return
of ocean-run Atlantic salmon to this watershed would complement the
exceptional native brook trout fishery for which Katahdin Woods and
Waters is known today.
Katahdin Woods and Waters possesses significant biodiversity. Spanning
three ecoregions, it displays the transition between northern boreal and
southern broadleaf deciduous forests, providing a unique and important
opportunity for scientific investigation of the effects of climate
change across ecotones. The forests include mixed hardwoods like sugar
maple, beech, and yellow birch; mixed forests with hardwoods, hemlock,
and white pine; and spruce-fir forests with balsam fir, red spruce, and
birches. In wetland areas, black spruce, white spruce, red maple, and
tamarack dominate.

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Although significant portions of the area have been logged in recent
years, the regenerating forests retain connectivity and provide
significant biodiversity among plant and animal communities, enhancing
their ecological resilience. With the complex matrix of microclimates
represented, the area likely contains the attributes needed to sustain
natural ecological function in the face of climate change, and provide
natural strongholds for species into the future. These forests also
afford connections and scientific comparisons with the forests on
adjacent State land, including Baxter State Park, which was logged
heavily before its parcel-by-parcel purchase by former Governor Percival
Baxter between 1931 and 1963.
Of particular scientific significance are the number and quality of
small and medium-sized patch ecosystems throughout the area, tending to
occur in less common topography that is often relatively remote or
inaccessible. Hilltops and barrens often protect rare flora and fauna,
such as the blueberry-lichen barren and associated spruce-heath barren
found between Robar and Eastern Brooks, and the three-toothed
cinquefoil-blueberry low summit bald atop Lunksoos Mountain, where
rattlesnake hawkweed can be found. Cliffs and steep slopes, like those
present along the ridge from Deasey Mountain to Little Spring Brook
Mountain and on the eastern sides of Billfish and Traveler Mountains,
harbor exemplary rock outcrop ecosystems that often include flora of
special interest, such as fragrant cliff wood-fern and purple clematis.
Ravines and coves can support enriched forests like the maple-basswood-
ash community found below the eastern cliffs of Lunksoos Mountain, with
trees over 250 years old and associated rare plants including squirrel-
corn. The Appalachian-Acadian rivershore ecosystems of the Penobscot
East Branch and its two major tributaries are considered exemplary in
Maine, with occurrences of beautiful silver maple floodplain forest and
hardwood river terrace forest--rare and imperiled natural communities,
respectively, in the State. A nationally significant diversity of high
quality wetlands and wet basins occurs throughout Katahdin Woods and
Waters, including smaller streams and brooks, ponds, swamps, bogs, and
fens. Patch forests of various types also occur throughout the area,
such as a red-pine woodland forest on small hills and ridges amid the
large Mud Brook Flowage wetland in the southwestern section.
The expanse of Katahdin Woods and Waters, augmented by its location next
to other large conservation properties including Baxter State Park and
additional State reservations, supports many wide-ranging wildlife
species including ruffed grouse, moose, black bear, white-tailed deer,
snowshoe hare, American marten, bobcat, bald eagle, northern goshawk,
and the federally threatened Canada lynx. Seventy-eight bird species are
known to breed in the area, and many more bird species use it.
Visitation and study of the area have been limited to date, as compared
with other areas like Baxter State Park, and many more species of birds
and other wildlife may be present.
Certain wildlife species are known to occur in specific patch ecosystems
in the area, such as the short-eared owl in hilltops and barrens, and
the silver-haired bat and the wood turtle in floodplain forests. Mussels
such as the tidewater mucket and yellow lampmussel live in some of the
brooks and streams, and rare invertebrates like the copper butterfly,
pygmy snaketail dragonfly, Tomah mayfly, and Roaring Brook mayfly
inhabit some of its bogs and fens.

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Katahdin Woods and Waters's daytime scenery is awe-inspiring, from the
breadth of its mountain-studded landscape, to the channels of its free-
flowing streams with their rapids, falls, and quiet water, to its
vantages for viewing the Mount Katahdin massif, the ``greatest
mountain.'' The area's night skies rival this experience, glittering
with stars and planets and occasional displays of the aurora borealis,
in this area of the country known for its dark sky.
WHEREAS, section 320301 of title 54, United States Code (known as the
``Antiquities Act''), authorizes the President, in his discretion, to
declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and
prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific
interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the
Federal Government to be national monuments, and to reserve as a part
thereof parcels of land, the limits of which shall be confined to the
smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the
objects to be protected;
WHEREAS, for the purpose of establishing a national monument to be
administered by the National Park Service, Elliotsville Plantation, Inc.
(EPI), has donated certain lands and interests in land within Katahdin
Woods and Waters to the Federal Government;
WHEREAS, the Roxanne Quimby Foundation has established a substantial
endowment with the National Park Foundation to support the
administration of a national monument;
WHEREAS, Katahdin Woods and Waters is an exceptional example of the rich
and storied Maine Woods, enhanced by its location in a larger protected
landscape, and thus would be a valuable addition to the Nation's
natural, historical, and cultural heritage conserved and enjoyed in the
National Park System;
WHEREAS, it is in the public interest to preserve and protect the
historic and scientific objects in Katahdin Woods and Waters;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of
America, by the authority vested in me by section 320301 of title 54,
United States Code, hereby proclaim the objects identified above that
are situated upon lands and interests in lands owned or controlled by
the Federal Government to be the Katahdin Woods and Waters National
Monument (monument) and, for the purpose of protecting those objects,
reserve as a part thereof all lands and interests in lands owned or
controlled by the Federal Government within the boundaries described on
the accompanying map entitled, ``Katahdin Woods and Waters National
Monument,'' which is attached to and forms a part of this proclamation.
The reserved Federal lands and interests in lands encompass
approximately 87,500 acres. The boundaries described on the accompanying
map are confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care
and management of the objects to be protected.
All Federal lands and interests in lands within the boundaries described
on the accompanying map are hereby appropriated and withdrawn from all
forms of entry, location, selection, sale, or other disposition under
the public land laws, from location, entry, and patent under the mining
laws, and from disposition under all laws relating to mineral and
geothermal leasing.

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The establishment of the monument is subject to valid existing rights,
including the November 29, 2007, ``Access Agreement'' between EPI and
the State of Maine, Department of Conservation that provides for certain
public snowmobile use on specified parcels, and certain reservations of
rights for Elliotsville Plantation, Inc., in specified parcels. If the
Federal Government acquires any lands or interests in lands not owned or
controlled by the Federal Government within the boundaries described on
the accompanying map, such lands and interests in lands shall be
reserved as a part of the monument, and objects identified above that
are situated upon those lands and interests in lands shall be part of
the monument, upon acquisition of ownership or control by the Federal
Government.
The Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) shall manage these lands
through the National Park Service, pursuant to applicable authorities
and consistent with the valid existing rights and the purposes and
provisions of this proclamation. As provided in the deeds, the Secretary
shall allow hunting by the public on the parcels east of the East Branch
of the Penobscot River in accordance with applicable law. The Secretary
may restrict hunting in designated zones and during designated periods
for reasons of public safety, administration, or resource protection.
This proclamation will not otherwise affect the authority of the State
of Maine with respect to hunting.
The Secretary shall prepare a management plan to implement the purposes
of this proclamation, with full public involvement, within 3 years of
the date of this proclamation. The Secretary shall use available
authorities, as appropriate, to enter into agreements with others to
address common interests and promote management needs and efficiencies.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to enlarge or diminish the
rights of any Indian tribe. The Secretary shall, to the maximum extent
permitted by law and in consultation with Indian tribes, ensure the
protection of Indian sacred sites and cultural sites in the monument and
provide access to the sites by members of Indian tribes for traditional
cultural and customary uses, consistent with the American Indian
Religious Freedom Act (42 U.S.C. 1996) and Executive Order 13007 of May
24, 1996 (Indian Sacred Sites).
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to revoke any existing
withdrawal, reservation, or appropriation; however, the monument shall
be the dominant reservation.
Nothing in this proclamation shall preclude the use of existing low
level Military Training Routes, consistent with applicable Federal
Aviation Administration regulations and guidance for overflights of
military aircraft, consistent with the care and management of the
objects to be protected.
Warning is hereby given to all unauthorized persons not to appropriate,
injure, destroy, or remove any feature of this monument and not to
locate or settle upon any of the lands thereof.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-fourth day
of August, in the year of our Lord two thousand sixteen, and of the
Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-
first.
BARACK OBAMA


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TD29AU16.000