In 2024, we celebrate the North Branch Art Trail’s 31st year!
About the North Branch Art Trail
THE “ORIGINAL” NORTH BRANCH ART TRAIL
When it was created in 1994 by local artist Brian Keeler, the North Branch Art Trail (named after the North Branch of the scenic Susquehanna River) was the first of its kind in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
For 16 consecutive years, Brian produced an annual open house celebration in Wyalusing, PA on Columbus Day weekend. Each weekend included regional art exhibits, studio tours, and a community festival, and grew dramatically in size and reputation year-after-year until Brian stepped down and relocated in 2010.
THE “NEW” NORTH BRANCH ART TRAIL
With Brian Keeler’s blessing & support, this important Art Trail was reinstated as a program of the Kitson Arts Alliance (KAA) in 2018.
Initially, KAA expanded the trail to focus on all there was to see and do along and near a 100-mile stretch of the North Branch of the Susquehanna River from Owego, NY to Wilkes-Barre, PA.
As part of its renewed identity, the newly-expanded art trail created a regional arts publication – originally called the NBat Guide – that was designed to encourage locals and tourists alike to patronize a wide variety of our region’s special attractions & destinations. Debuting as a quarterly newspaper in early 2018, each issue of the original NBat Guide featured three “shop local” guides
– the North Branch Arts Guide (art galleries, museums, and artist studios plus performing arts venues & organizations);
– the North Branch Food Guide (farms, farm stands, farm stores & farmers’ markets); and the –
– North Branch Beverage Guide (wineries, breweries, distilleries, cideries, meaderies & more).
Today, the art trail’s publication has been rebranded as the North Branch Arts Paper. This popular, go-to reference guide has doubled in size and now contains two sections – while Section A continues to focus on our area’s arts & artists, Section B is all about local food & beverages.
Beginning in 2022, the art trail – and its Arts Paper – now covers the entire 300-mile length of the Susquehanna River’s North Branch – from its headwaters in Cooperstown, NY to its conclusion in Sunbury, PA. Our region now includes a total of 18 counties in Upstate New York and Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Our Region
The North Branch Art Trail region is made up of 18 counties, six in New York State (Broome, Chemung, Chenango, Delaware, Otsego, and Tioga) and 12 in Pennsylvania (Bradford, Columbia, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Montour, Northumberland, Snyder, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Union, Wayne, and Wyoming). Altogether, we cover the entire length of the North Branch of the Susquehanna River.
