AROOSTOOK COUNTY, Maine — Cross Lake residents Cheryl and Kirk St. Peter are hoping that Aroostook County folks will take advantage of an upcoming meeting to learn more about an international hiking trail that crosses over the North Atlantic from Maine to Greenland, several European countries, and terminates in north Africa.
Cheryl St. Peter is the vice president of Maine’s International Appalachian Trail chapter while her husband Kirk serves on the board. The Maine chapter of the IAT is holding its annual meeting and program May 6-8, 2016 at the Presque Isle Inn & Convention Center.
The St. Peters hiked the 140 miles of the IAT within Maine back in 2010.
“We thoroughly enjoyed it, Cheryl said Thursday, April 14 via telephone. “I am not sure many local people even know about it.”
Friday night, May 6, will feature the Alaska to Maine Snowmobile Ride of the Millennium, sixteen years later, with Mike McCarthy, Mike Ouellette and Kirk St. Peter.
The Saturday evening, May 7, speaker is Matt “Gator” Miller, a young man from New Hampshire who hiked the Maine IAT after thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail in 2015.
Both of these after-dinner presentations are free and open to the public.
There will also be many short sessions on the natural and cultural history of the regions through which the IAT-ME passes.
The program is detailed on the IAT-ME website www.internationalatmaine.org, where an agenda/registration form is also available.
This will be the first time in quite a while that the IAT-ME Annual Meeting will be held in Aroostook County, where a large portion of the trail is located.
In Maine, the trail starts (or ends) at the Katahdin Lake East entrance to Baxter State Park, then continues approximately 140 miles to the U.S./Canadian border at Fort Fairfield.
In New Brunswick the trail continues up to the Gaspe region, all the way to the cliffs of Cap Gaspé in Forillon National Park.
Cheryl St. Peter said she hopes those unfamiliar with the trail or the organization will attend the event.
“We want people to appreciate what we have in our region for outdoor recreation,” she said.
“It is so close. We want people to make use of it.”
The International Appalachian Trail includes hiking trails in 17 countries on both sides of the Atlantic, including the U.S., Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Wales, England, France, Spain, Portugal and Morocco.
All of these countries contain remnants of the Appalachian-Caledonian Mountains, which were formed more than 250 million years ago when the earth’s plates collided to form the supercontinent Pangea and were left on either side of the Atlantic when today’s continents separated to form that ocean.
More information about the entire IAT may be found by going to www.iat-sia.org.
