Julie King and Ed Talone celebrating in Portland with Maine Chapter IAT Board members
On Friday, November 1, 2013 the Maine IAT Chapter hosted a small welcome party for Julie King and Ed Talone at Sebago Brewing Company in Portland, Maine. Julie and Ed have been hiking in Maine and Canada’s Maritime provinces since May, 4, 2013, when they started at the northeast corner of Baxter State Park in Maine, USA. Their hike included sections of the IAT, many rail trails and local and regional trails. During their hike they hiked in Maine, USA and New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. In total they hiked 2576 miles and, by Ed’s count, crossed 1723 bridges.
Some of their side trips included; Quebec’s Magdalene Islands, Nova Scotia’s Cabot Trail and an extensive hike in in the Labrador area of Newfoundland and Labrador. During their hike Julie did a spectacular job maintaining a SHUTTERFLY web site and you can see all the great pictures of the places they visited and read about their hiking at edjuliehikingadventures@sfly.com
Maine Chapter President, Don Hudson officially welcomed Julie and Ed and thanked them for all the wonderful efforts they made to promote the IAT and acquaint people along their way with the IAT. Poul Jorgensen, NB Trails Coordinator also attended the event. He transported Julie and Ed from his home province to Portland to attend the event and catch up on other IAT activities, like the AGM in Scotland.
Ed Talone with Maine Chapter Secretary, Seth Levy
Dick Anderson urged everyone to visit their SHUTTERFLY site and see all the spectacular countryside that they traveled through and all the wonderful people they met along the way, who made their hike a special experience for them. At the event Julie and Ed thanked everyone for the great support they received, both in the planning of the hike and along the route they traveled.
Ed is one of a very small number of people in the United States to have hiked more that 50,000 miles and Julie has hiked extensively in the British Isles, Australia and the United States. It was a pleasure indeed for me, and the group that attended the event, to share a few moments with two exceptional hikers, have a bite to eat with them, thank them for their great contribution to the IAT and bid them farewell.
Dick Anderson
