History
The IAT was proposed in 1994 by Richard Anderson, a Maine fisheries biologist, with plans to traverse the portions of the Appalachian Mountains in Maine, New Brunswick, and Quebec that the Appalachian Trail did not cover. Following route selection, construction of the trail took place through the late 1990s.
The first person to thruhike the IAT, as it then existed, was John Brinda from Washington State, in 1997. He did this as part of his thruhike of the Eastern Continental Trail starting in Key West, Florida. He was the first person to thruhike the entire Eastern Continental Trail.
The Newfoundland and Labrador extension to the IAT was proposed in 2003 and is still under construction. When completed, it will add an additional 1,200 km of trail. The official opening of the first trail section of the IAT Newfoundland was September 23, 2006.
Read more about this topic: International Appalachian Trail
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of reform is always identical; it is the comparison of the idea with the fact. Our modes of living are not agreeable to our imagination. We suspect they are unworthy. We arraign our daily employments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)