On a brisk, late-winter morning, Leocea McLanahan walked along the Susquehanna River with her three daughters, the youngest in a stroller.
Caitlin, 9, found bluebells and asters emerging amid the ground cover. Five-year-old Malea peered through binoculars, looking for birds with their babies. The McLanahans come often from their home in Conowingo.
"We have a guidebook, and we look for different birds and flowers along the water," said McLanahan, who home-schools her children. "We jot down notes to help us remember."
The trail they were walking, which follows the river for about 4 miles into Susquehanna State Park near Havre de Grace, also draws visitors with fishing rods and cameras. Now a nonprofit group wants to link it to other trails, and build new ones, to create a 40-mile network of waterside walkways through Harford and Cecil counties.
The Lower Susquehanna Heritage Greenway, based in Darlington, hopes to secure federal and state funding for crisscrossing trails that would link the area's natural, cultural and historic resources.
"Right here, in the middle of a densely populated area, you can still be outdoors enjoying nature within minutes," said Mary Ann Lisanti, executive director of the greenway group. "Ten minutes off I-95 and 15 minutes from Bel Air, you can go fishing, walk through history into deep woods and see the spring flowers and nesting birds."
Hikers might also meander into several small towns and stop at any of 14 museums that display artifacts of Colonial commerce.
"We can bring all these stories together and take pride in the place where we live," Lisanti said.
Fishing piers, boat launches, even benches to rest and take in the lush beauty line the route. Signs posted at frequent intervals offer maps as well as pictures and details of the flora and fauna that walkers might encounter.
"You can walk from here to the quarry, where they mined the rock to build Conowingo Dam almost 100 years ago," Lisanti said of the trail into the park.
Only a few miles of the trail system that Lisanti envisions actually exist.
She has applied for a $4 million federal grant to help build much of the rest. Lisanti was among dozens lobbying for state funding in Annapolis last week, hoping for $250,000 to extend the existing trail farther into the state park.
"You feel bad competing for state dollars with those helping the homeless or seeking health care programs, but these trails would be for the entire state," Lisanti said. "We would create walkable communities and provide everyone with an opportunity to exercise."
Lisanti has attracted several corporate sponsors, including Exelon, owner of Conowingo Dam. The company is helping Cecil County develop a park along the river and is spending $2.5 million to build a fishing pier near the Harford side of the dam. Anglers can catch the fattest rockfish in the country from the spot, she said.
"Once a corporate executive sees an eagle catching a fish, I don't have to do any more selling of this project," she said. "I think the consciousness of our Earth kicks in."
Erika Quesenbery, marketing coordinator for Cecil County, said a trail would offer charming glimpses of smaller communities like Port Deposit and Darlington, once-bustling river towns that have long been bypassed by Interstate 95 and U.S. 40.
"When you walk it, you get it," she said.
The proposed trails would run through Darlington and Havre de Grace in Harford County and Port Deposit and Perryville in Cecil County, passing historic landmarks that once defined the area's commerce.
"All Maryland's history happened here," Lisanti said.
John Smith explored the river and reached the Port Deposit area 400 years ago. The oldest ironworks in the country dates to 1720 at Principio Furnace, near Perryville, where a blacksmith works today at a modernized forge.
Remnants of the early Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal systems, where mule teams once pulled laden barges to the river, remain and might be restored, as might Slump's Furnace, a towering, although tilting, stone structure built in the 19th century.
In Cecil County, the trail would parallel Route 222 through Port Deposit, where walkers could climb the stone stairs built into walls of granite by sailors at the Bainbridge Naval Training Center. County officials included trail construction in its approval of several new developments along the river highway.
The path would move through farmland into Perryville, passing a $2.5 million walking pier and boat launch that opened last year. Another segment, already paved, crosses by the Perry Point Veterans Affairs Medical Center and circles a community park, where several new ball fields await Little Leaguers.
"The trails are our commonality," Lisanti said. "They are important to the quality of life of our community and to its economic life."
Eventually, Lisanti says, she would like a pedestrian bridge built over the river at about the same spot where a 19th-century span once stretched between the two counties, from Cecil County near Smith Island to Rock Run Mill near Havre de Grace. The still-standing toll house could be renovated into a visitor center, she said.
But, she said, "the trails have to come first."
Just across U.S. 1 from Lisanti's office, a scenic overlook stands atop a towering cliff, offering a sweeping spectacle of churning water rushing through the Conowingo Dam into the Susquehanna River. Graceful herons and majestic eagles take flight from nests high in the towering trees. Flocks of canvasback ducks and coots nest along the shore.
On her way to a business meeting, Jennifer Reese of Harrisburg, Pa., had a few minutes to spare. She stopped at the overlook to gather her thoughts and lingered.
"I was just passing through, but I had to stop for the fascinating view," Reese said.
mary.gail.hare@baltsun.com