World's longest marked trail proposed around Great Lakes

It's a big idea — a 10,900-mile-long one.

Melissa Scanlan, an associate professor, associate dean and director of the Environmental Law Center at Vermont Law School, seeks to establish a hikers version of Mt. Everest — the Great Lakes Trail on the shores of the Great Lakes.

All of the Great Lakes. And all of their shoreline.

It would span at least eight states and two Canadian provinces, and would be the longest continuous marked trail in the world — five times larger than the 2,180-mile Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia, and more than four times bigger than the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail from the U.S. border with Canada to its border with Mexico.

"I love the Great Lakes," said Scanlan, who grew up in the region in Wisconsin. "They are just an awesome, binational treasure that often goes unrecognized. We can use something like this to capture people's attention to the awesome resources that exist in the Great Lakes region."

It was while hiking a National Scenic Trail in Wisconsin — the Ice Age Trail — that Scanlan said the idea came to her.

"I was thinking of all the people who had to donate easements to allow that trail to happen across private property," she said. "And I realized we already have this public trust easement along the shoreline of the Great Lakes."

As the Great Lakes states were admitted into the Union, the federal government granted them the lake beds and waters of the Great Lakes up to the ordinary high-water mark — from the point on the bank or shore where continuous wave action has made a distinct mark, to the water.

This was affirmed by a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1894, in the Shively v. Bowlby case. The justices found that lands below the high-water mark were "for the benefit of the whole people." (This may come as news to owners of $750,000 lakefront homes whose deed tells them the shoreline is theirs.)

What's more, Michigan is a key state in determining how that public trust shoreline easement can be used. A 2005 state Supreme Court case, Glass v. Goeckel, found "the public trust doctrine does protect (the) right to walk along the shores of the Great Lakes," and that "the state lacks the power to diminish those rights when conveying (shoreline) property to private parties." New York has ruled similarly on the issue.

It's this principle, Scanlan says, that makes the Great Lakes Trail a real possibility.

"At least in Michigan, it's very clear," she said. "I think it could be seen as a model for the rest of the Great Lakes region. The legal doctrine in Michigan and New York should be equally applicable in other states if they were to take up the issue."

And Michigan doesn't have to wait for other states to get on-board with the idea, Scanlan said.

"Michigan alone has more coastline than the Appalachian Trail," she said. "Even if Michigan took the lead on this and established their segments of the shoreline trail, that would be rivaling the great National Scenic Trails in the U.S. I think people would see the value of it and want to join the effort to create a trail around the entire Great Lakes system."

Obviously, some locations will require moving off the shoreline — the lakefront factories in Gary, Ind., and the cliffs along Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula come to mind. Scanlan said the trail in those spots could look for public lands near the lake, or even take advantage of water trails, canoeing and kayaking opportunities out in the lakes themselves.

"You don't have to reinvent the wheel," she said. "You would tap into existing trail systems, and you don't have to be right on the shoreline all of the time."

Sarah Wightman, a student at the University of Michigan Law School and until recently the editor of the Michigan Journal of Environmental and Administrative Law, invited Scanlan to campus to discuss the Great Lakes Trail concept last month.

"Everyone is really interested in it," Wightman said. "I'm from northern Michigan originally" — Cadillac — "and I can definitely see some tourism opportunities being a draw from it."

But a Marquette hiking enthusiast cautions that it won't be easy.

"My initial reaction is, we can't get the North Country Trail done, and it's only 4,600 miles," said Lorana Jinkerson, president of the North Country Trail Hikers chapter covering the central U.P.

The North Country Trail is a National Scenic Trail running from eastern New York to central North Dakota. Established in 1980, less than 60% of the trail was completed as of last year.

The Great Lakes Trail, to become a National Scenic Trail, would require an act of Congress enabling a likely years-long feasibility study by the National Park Service. After that mapping and evaluation, Congress would take up the trail again and determine whether to create it. Scanlan encourages those interested in the trail concept to contact their member of Congress and ask for a feasibility study for it.

Buy-in from local governments and organizations throughout the region also would be necessary. And some could view the potential conflicts between hikers and Great Lakes shoreline homeowners as something they wish to avoid. But Scanlan is undaunted.

"I think a lot of the conflicts arise from people not being clear on where the property boundary is," she said. "The benefit of having a National Scenic Trail in this area is there would be a demarcation of where the ordinary high-water mark is. I think it could settle some conflicts that could exist right now.

Another benefit, she said, is that a shoreline trail designation limits what activities can take place: "It's for walking, not for camping, having bonfires or hanging out on the shorelines for the day."

Scanlan hopes some along the potential trail route take the lead — Michigan would be perfect, she said — and the idea goes viral.

"The Appalachian Trail has 2 million to 3 million hikers on it every year," she said. "Other National Scenic Trails are somewhat remote, hard to get to. But something that would go around the Great Lakes, go through so many industrial cities and small towns, would allow so many people to access it. But the full benefit of the trail as a tourist attraction really doesn't happen until you have it designated as a whole."

Jinkerson wishes Scanlan well with the Great Lakes Trail effort.

"It's a big, big endeavor," she said. "I don't know how she's going to pull it off, but it is a cool idea."

Contact Keith Matheny: 313-222-5021 or kmatheny@freepress.com.