Even by long-distance hiking trail standards, the IAT is a stretch. As the name suggests, it picks up where the Appalachian Trail leaves off, following the Appalachian Mountains from Katahdin across the international boundary into Canada. The IAT wends through Maine and New Brunswick on a patchwork of country roads, trails, and abandoned rail corridors before entering Qubec’s Gaspe Peninsula and traveling northeast over the alpine terrain of the Chic-Choc Mountains. The final mainland leg of the journey takes hikers along the Gaspe’s northern coast to the seaside cliffs of Forillon National Park. The Newfoundland phase of the IAT-a 650-mile ramble through boreal forests and sub-arctic tundraÑremains a work in progress. Once complete in 2009, the trail will ride the spine of the island’s Long Range Mountains, through Gros Morne National Park and the Viking settlement of L’Anse aux Meadows to the island of Belle Isle 20 miles offshore.

Dick Anderson’s inspiration for a trail that takes the Appalachians to their logical conclusion grew out of his long-standing interest in bioregionalism. That concept defines areas as biological systems rather than political jurisdictions-a theme echoed in AMC conservation efforts in the Mahoosucs region of Maine and New Hampshire. “The bioregional approach gets people to think of a common landscape irrespective of political boundaries,” says AMC Staff Scientist. Dave Publicover. Anderson’s landscape, the Appalachian Mountains, rose up 260 million years ago during the upheaval of a multiple-continent pileup that formed the super-continent of Pangea. When Pangea began to rift apart 60 million years later, shards of the ancestral Appalachian chain split apart and began moving their separate ways. This created the Appalachian Mountains of North America and the Caledonia Mountains in Ireland and Scotland. Fossils and rock formations endemic to Appalachian terrain have also been found in Spain, Portugal, the west coast of Norway, and North Africa. Says Maine geologist Walter Anderson (no relation): “It’s like pieces of a puzzle.”

Anderson unveiled his vision for the IAT at a 1994 Earth Day press conference for Maine gubernatorial candidate Joe Brennan. Touted as an “extension” of the Appalachian Trail, he purposely waited until 4 p.m. the day before to notify the Appalachian Trail Conference, “so nobody could throw a monkey wrench into it.” The idea quickly gained traction on both sides of the border. In the U.S., an Associated Press reporter and thru-hiker covered the story, which was picked up by newspapers nationwide. Anderson then drove to the Downeast border community of Calais and left a videotape of the press conference at a prearranged drop-off location. A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reporter shuttled it across the border and it aired on that evening’s national news. “It was fantastic because everybody saw the thing,” Anderson says. “People knew about it right away. It had a wicked good burst.”

The fallout was just as swift. Appalachian Trail Conference chair David Field was there for the announcement and felt blindsided because Anderson hadn’t first sought input from the Maine AT community. “I remember being a little shocked and probably a little affronted,” recalls Field. AT leaders decamped to Harpers Ferry, W. Va. to craft an official response, emerging with a reaffirmation that the AT begins at Springer Mountain and ends on Katahdin. It took Anderson just a few days to realize that “extension” may have not been the best choice of words since it would take an act of Congress to legally extend the Appalachian Trail. But would thru-hikers feel the same way? Imagine hiking from Springer Mountain, Ga. to Katahdin to find out you’re only two thirds of the way there. “I don’t think people get to Katahdin and feel unfulfilled,” says J.T. Horn of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. “People doing an AT thru-hike are trying to get to Katahdin, not the Gaspe Peninsula.”

Some are willing to try. In 1997, John Brinda left graduate school for a transcontinental odyssey: an AT thru-hike with the Florida, Pinhoti, and Benton MacKaye trails added onto its southern end. The Bellingham, Wash., resident wasn’t even aware a footpath reached beyond Katahdin until he made it to West Virginia and saw a newspaper clipping about the IAT posted on a notice board in Harpers Ferry. Brinda called the number listed in the story and Anderson answered. Four months later, he was walking above treeline on Quebec’s Gaspe Peninsula. All told, it took Brinda nine months averaging 20 miles per day to complete the 4,400-mile epic. During our interview, I tell him the IAT has since been extended to Newfoundland and then wish I could take it back. Silence. “Now I’ve got to do that,” he says.

In 2001, M.J. Eberhart, a 66-year-old retired optometrist from Georgia, became the first person to thru-hike the full length of the IAT from Katahdin to Newfoundland. Eberhart, who hikes as Nimblewill Nomad-after Nimblewill Creek, which flows around the base of Springer Mountain-looks like Arlo Guthrie in gaiters. According to Anderson, he’s done more than any hiker to spread the IAT gospel, painstakingly recounting his travels in two books, Ten Million Steps and Where Less the Path is Worn. “Nimblewill met everybody,” Anderson says. “He kept track of where they lived. He got their names right. Nimblewill is a wickedly gregarious person. It’s hard to explain, but he’s like a spirit when he hikes.”

Eccentric clientele notwithstanding, the affiliation with the granddaddy of all long-distance footpaths has been both a blessing and a curse for Anderson’s trail. “Our history has made it easier and harder for them,” explains Horn. The Appalachian Trail was run as a private endeavor from the 1920s until the National Trails System Act was passed in 1968, when an aggressive federal land acquisition program replaced informal right-of-way agreements that had been in place with landowners. With federal funding and eminent-domain authority, the National Park Service began acquiring private lands for an expanded AT corridor. Hundreds of miles of the AT located on roads were redirected into the woods, but the process left many landowners wary of new trails.

“The hardest part of creating a continuous long-distance trail is determining what the route is going to be and securing landowner permission to do it,” confirms AMC Trails Coordinator Heather Clish. Opposition from timber companies and private landowners in Maine forced a substantial segment of the IAT between Baxter State Park and Mars Hill onto public roadways and abandoned rail lines. The situation is similar in New Brunswick, where landowners have not warmed to the idea of a trail running across their properties. “Hikers don’t seem to mind,” says Bob Melville, who oversees the IAT’s 170 miles of trail in New Brunswick. “When you’ve spent a few months in the woods, you’re glad to see people.”

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