The Annual Appeal is Getting Close

The Maine IAT’s Annual Appeal is just around the corner. This is the time of year we ask our members, supporters and friends to donate to our Annual Fund which covers trail work expenses, education projects, maps and guides, and other special projects.

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Dick Anderson’s 85th Birthday

Dick Anderson receives congratulations from John Wuestoff at his 85th birthday party.

A wonderful group of friends gathered at the old Lunt School in Falmouth, Maine Friday evening, December 13, to celebrate IAT Founder Dick Anderson’s 85th birthday and to wrap up the 25th year of the Trail. John Wasilewski and OceanView hosted and catered the party in the auditorium of the old school, which is now party of the OceanView retirement community. Long-time friend and colleague Elizabeth Swain organized the party for the IAT board, and helped insure a robust turn-out.

The party provided an opportunity to also honor former Governor Joseph Brennan, who celebrated his 85th birthday in early November. Joe met Dick in 1953 at the University of Maine at Orono, and Joe appointed Dick as his Commissioner of the Department of Conservation in 1979.

A slide show of Dick’s life and the development of the IAT played on the big screen while family, friends and colleagues from their days in government congratulated Dick and Joe, and talked about everything from fishing trips and other escapades. Former Director of the Bureau of Parks & Lands Herb Hartman was in full caucus ore with the former Director of the State Planning Office Dick Barringer and the former Governor. The room was filled with constant chatter as old friends, many who had not seen one another for a couple of decades got up to speed with one another’s lives.

IAT champion Eddie Woodin kicked off the speeches with a reminiscence of Dick’s life that hit all the high points, from the early days working for Maine Fish & Game (now Inland Fisheries & Wildlife) on salmon in Sebago Lake, to Directing the Maine Audubon Society, and six years of helping to kickstart the recycling business in Maine before heading to state government.

Dick’s party helped raise over $20,000 for the IAT, with about half heading to the endowment and the other to day-to-day operations. We are grateful for all of the warm regards and financial support as Dick and the IAT head into the new year.

Thanks Eddie!

Don has to check the records, but this has to be something like 22 or 23 years in a row that Eddie Woodin has contributed to the International Appalachian Trail in Maine.

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Annual Appeal

The Maine Chapter is wrapping up a very important year and we are looking ahead to making great strides in 2018. As a friend and supporter of the Maine Chapter, you have helped us complete, improve, and maintain one of the world’s great long distance trails. No other trail in the world has at its core a story of Earth history such as the IAT, and no trail community since that which created the Appalachian Trail has put the opportunity for rural economic development so clearly at the forefront of its mission. You have helped make that happen!
Since the morning in mid-October 1993 — at the Front Street Deli in Bath, Maine — that Dick Anderson first showed me a map of a trail that he had imagined, linking the three highest peaks in Maine, New Brunswick and Quebec, I have wondered whether or not I would walk it. After ducking the question — "Have you walked the IAT?" — countless times at gatherings and meetings of hikers and maintainers, I decided this past summer to walk the trail in North America. The Maine section had to be first, of course, and I completed the trail from Fort Fairfield to the new national monument east of Baxter State Park in the first week of October.
Now that first IAT miles are behind me, I can report to you with first hand experience that the dozens and dozens of volunteers who over the years have laid out, cut, and maintained our trail have done a remarkable job. When we presented our first map of the IAT on Earth Day 2000, over 80% of the trail in Maine was along the side of roads. It was not a bad walk, but one full of promise — promise that one day it might wind through the forests and along the streams and rivers of northeastern Maine. Twenty-three years later, nearly 80% of it is in the woods.
In addition to regular trail work and the efforts to relocate trail off of secondary roads, your support will help with the cost of updating the website and improving map and other resources for hikers on all sections of the trail in North America. We have started work on a map of the trail in North America and we envision a Cloud based companion guide to help people plan their long distance hikes or shorter walks along the trail from Katahdin to Crow Head in Newfoundland and the Nuussuaq Peninsula in Western Greenland. Companion guides were first written for the Appalachian Trail over thirty years ago, and we had a small printed version for the IAT in Maine, New Brunswick, and Quebec as early as 1998. These guides provide information about everything from public ground transportation to resupply, as well as opportunities for lodging, laundry, and other points of interest nearby the trail.
The IAT links people and places that ring the North Atlantic Ocean Basin, all of which share a common geologic heritage. Your gifts help us put it on the map!
With warm regards and thanks,
Sincerely,
Don Hudson,
President, IAT Maine and Co-chair, IAT International Council
To contribute to the annual appeal via paypal on website, go to www.internationalatmaine.org/support and click Donate.

Special Thanks to Eddie Woodin

The Maine IAT Patriot’s fans shared an afternoon of fun and football in Yarmouth watching the Patriots beat the Chargers 21 to 13.
Eddie Woodin, a long-time support of the International Appalachian Trail-Maine Chapter, generously presented IAT Maine Chapter President, Don Hudson with a $1,000 contribution.
His support is greatly appreciated by all the Board members.
Hopefully the IAT Patriots fans will be gathering for the superbowl!

Dick Anderson, Eddie Woodin, Don Hudson, Elizabeth Swain, Earl Raymond