Who we are

True North Trailworks is a Maine-based trail building company founded by Kurt Snyder and Jared Lindsey. Together, we bring complementary skill sets and a shared commitment to sustainable trail design and construction, responding to the growing demand for professionally built trails that serve communities for generations. 

We are a trail building company specializing in sustainable, purpose-built trails. We partner with land trusts, municipalities, and trail organizations to design and construct trails that last—enhancing recreation, stewardship, and community access.

Our work is guided by thoughtful planning, respect for the land, and a commitment to long-term durability. From concept and layout to construction and maintenance, we focus on building trails that balance user experience with environmental responsibility. Each project is shaped by site-specific conditions, intended use, and the goals of the community it serves.

By combining proven trail-building techniques with local knowledge and collaborative partnerships, True North Trailworks delivers trail systems that are resilient, maintainable, and welcoming to a wide range of users. The result is high-quality infrastructure that supports outdoor recreation, protects natural resources, and strengthens connections between people and places.

Our Team

Jared Lindsey

Jared Lindsey brings over 27 years of outdoor and construction experience, with roots in backcountry trail work that began in the mountains of North Idaho, where he earned his first Wilderness First Responder certification in high school. His trail building, wildland firefighting, and mountain rescue experience was deepened through the NAWA Academy outdoor program in California’s Trinity Alps and service on the Washoe County Sheriff’s HASTY Search and Rescue Team, an accredited Mountain Rescue Association unit in the Sierra Nevada. That foundation, combined with seven years as a professional firefighter with the Bangor Fire Department, sharpened his incident command and crew leadership skills and anchors his trail work in rigorous safety, risk management, and field‑proven emergency response. He has also completed the Foundations of Sustainable Trails certificate and Trails Technician training, ensuring his trail design and construction follow current best practices for sustainability and user safety.

Jared’s construction background extends beyond trails: he has built residential structures to IRC standards and, in the professional yacht industry, earned an MCA Master (Yachts <3,000 GT) Certificate of Competency while managing refit and operations projects exceeding $10 million. After launching a management and construction company when his children were born, he co‑founded True North Trailworks to focus his project management, safety, and field skills on trail infrastructure, grounding trail planning, layout, and construction in extensive backcountry time and a practical understanding of how landscapes and trail systems evolve over years of use.

Owner/Project Manager/Trail Builder

Kurt Snyder is a master stone mason and lifelong rider whose craftsmanship, project leadership, and trail sense all strengthen True North Trailworks. For more than 25 years he has led Stonescape, Inc., a Maine masonry company known for high‑quality natural stonework shaped to the surrounding landscape, supported by in‑house granite quarries that supply premium material directly to True North projects. Kurt has managed and executed large, complex stone and landscape jobs across New England, pairing skilled equipment operation with a deep understanding of how stone structures perform over time. Three decades of working in Maine's varied soils, ledge, and terrain have given him a breadth of knowledge about how the landscape moves, drains, and responds to construction that is genuinely hard to match—an advantage that shows in every trail and structure he builds. He has also played a major role in developing key Midcoast trail networks—including the Thomaston Town Forest, Goose River, and Ragged Mountain systems—where his understanding of stone, soils, drainage, and flow has helped create durable, rideable trails for all abilities. With decades of dedication to local trails and experience across every phase of landscape and trail projects, he brings the capacity and reputation that help ensure the success of every True North Trailworks build, always with a rider's eye on technical features, rock armoring, and fine trail detail.

Kurt Snyder

Owner/Project Manager/Trail Builder

RJ Polky

Trail Builder/Corridor Clearing

RJ Polky brings a background deeply rooted in wildland fire, emergency services, and backcountry operations. As a USFS Senior Forestry Technician, he has deployed to large‑scale wildland fire incidents across the United States, gaining extensive experience in crew operations, logistics, and safety on complex, multi‑agency assignments. He currently serves as Interim Director of the Camden Snow Bowl / Ragged Mountain Ski Patrol, overseeing on‑mountain emergency response, trail safety assessments, and patrol operations, and also serves as a firefighter/EMT with local departments in midcoast Maine.

RJ’s role at True North focuses on trail construction and on‑site safety management. His wildland fire and ski‑patrol experience means he is fluent in incident command principles, hazard identification, communications, and operating in steep, remote terrain under variable conditions. RJ’s responsibilities at True North include identifying and mitigating all hazard trees and managing corridor clearing, leveraging his extensive background in hazardous chainsaw work from wildland fire and structural fire operations. His experience felling compromised trees, working in steep terrain, and coordinating saw teams under incident command structures directly supports safe, efficient trail construction and protects both crews and future trail users.

True North Trailworks shares staff with Stonescape, Inc., in addition to seasonal trail builders giving us the ability to maintain a skilled core crew year-round while navigating the seasonality of trail building. This partnership means we can always put the most qualified person on any given task, and when projects call for specialized rock work or technical features, we draw on some of the most experienced stone masons and equipment operators in the region. The result is a flexible, deeply capable team built for the full range of work that great trail systems demand.

Our Team and Capacity

Some of our Qualifications:

  • S212 Wildland Fire Chainsaws

  • ICT5/FFT1

  • EMT-P (Paramedic), Wilderness First Responder, EMT

  • FAL 2 Intermediate Faller

  • Certified Logging Professional

  • Foundations; Sustainable Trails (University of Indiana/IMBA)

  • Trail Technician I

  • Certified In Erosion Control Practices with Maine DEP

Equipment:

True North Trailworks has an extensive list of tools and equipment that is always expanding.

  • 5 excavators from 4k lbs to 16klbs

  • 4 skid/track loaders (small to large)

  • 3 equipment trailers

  • (2) 14k dump trailers

  • (1) F550 dump truck

  • Full compliment of stone, carpentry, forestry, and trail building power and hand tools.