NEWS ARTICLE

Island Trails Hosts 2009 IAT/SIA AGM from 29 to 31 Oct. 2009
     October 29, 2009 — denis dunne

Island Trails to Host the 2009 Annual General Meeting of the IAT/SIA Council

 

From the 29th  to 31st October, 2009, Island Trails, the PEI Chapter of the IAT/SIA, will be hosting for the first time, the 2009 Annual General Meeting of the  International Appalachian Trails/Sentiers Internationaux Des Appalaches Council at the Stanley Bridge Country Resort and Conference Centre. The IAT/SIA Council is made up of Trail Organizations from Maine, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island. The AGM agenda will include a full discussion of the visit to Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Wales by IAT/SIA members in June of 2009 and details of their interest in becoming part of the IAT/SIA trail.

 

“Thinking Beyond Borders”, the International Appalachian Trail (IAT/SIA) is a hiking trail which runs from the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail at Mount Katahdin, Maine, to the northernmost tip of the Appalachian Mountains at Belle Isle, Newfoundland and Labrador. Since 1995, with the participation of local chapters and scores of volunteers, the IAT/SIA has now been extended from Northern Maine, into Northern New Brunswick, to the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, to its North American terminus at Crow Head, Newfoundland and Labrador.The IAT/SIA was proposed in 1994, by Richard Anderson, a fisheries biologist and former commissioner of Maine’s Department of Conservation, to traverse the portions of the Appalachian Mountains in Maine and Eastern Canada that the Appalachian Trail did not cover. PEI’s portion of this trail is the Dromore Trail, just south east of Mt. Stewart; the Dromore Trail opened on June 4, 2009.

On September 16, 2008 at the 32nd Annual Conference of the New England Governors and Eastern Premiers, a resolution concerning the International Appalachian Trail was passed that stated “ The Trail serves as a cultural and physical example of the close ties that exist between the jurisdictions represented by the New England Governors and the Eastern Premiers Conference. It was further resolved that the region would continue to work closely with the various organizations that are developing and maintaining these trails, in order to maximize their positive impact on our tourism industry and further promote the feeling of connectiveness  that exist between our respective jurisdictions.”

Besides Chapter reports on activities for the past year and the official opening of PEI’s Dromore Trail, the guests speakers will be Arlene White, Executive Director, Binational Tourism Alliance and the Hon. Valerie E. Docherty, Minister of Tourism for PEI.

 

For further information, please contact Denis Dunne, PEI’s IAT/SIA Chapter Representative at (902) 566-5974 or Richard Anderson, IAT/SIA Council President at (207) 865-6233.

 

 



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