Hiking the IAT in Matapedia

Today we had great weather, so we decided to drive the 34 miles or so from Carleton-Sur-Mer to Matapedia to hike a section of the International Appalachian Trail (IAT) that we had hiked in 2009 when we visited Quebec on a business trip.  The IAT runs from Mount Katahdin, in Maine, north through New Brunswick, and crosses into the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec over the Restigouche River at Matapedia.  Historically, the Matapedia River, along with a large number of other Gaspe rivers, have been home to legendary Atlantic salmon runs.  Today, with Atlantic salmon fished out commercially, the runs have all but disappeared, and salmon fishing on these pristine rivers has all but died out.  Many of the towns such as Matapedia that had thrived on fishing tourism have floundered.  We could tell that Matapedia is not as healthy a community has it had been when we visited in 2009.  More on that later.

Here we are at the trailhead.

This was quite a different photo than our 2009 trailhead photo, which showed an elaborate trailhead sign marking the IAT and showing the distance to Gaspe destinations on the AIT.

We climbed steeply for perhaps a quarter mile.  The IAT shelter and pit toilet were still here, but they had also fallen into some disrepair.

We climbed Further to the Belvedere Des Deux Rivieres, an overlook from which we could see the two rivers:  the Matapedia, flowing into the Restigouche, which in turn flows east into the Baie des Chaleurs (Bay of Warm Waters), and on into the St. Lawrence Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.  From here, we had great views of the immediate area.

We climbed eagerly down from the belvedere to start up the main track of the IAT, where we found the wooden trail sign.  The only problem was that the portion of the sign indicating that this was the IAT (SIA in French) was broken and had fallen onto the ground, so David held the pieces up where that part of the sign belonged.

In contrast, when we had been here in 2009, the sign was in top-notch shape.  It made us sad to think that the trail hasn't been maintained much at all for these intervening nine years.

We climbed very steeply for nearly a mile.  Along the way, we enjoyed early leaves on lots of birch trees --

-- scarlet trillium -

- and burly trees that have begun to grow over the SIA-IAT trail markers:

We reached the top of the nearest mountain and it was time for lunch.  We gladly dropped pack and refueled:

Our hike back was just as steep as the hike up, but of course it was all downhill, so instead of puffing as we climbed, we held the brakes and tried to avoid slipping or tripping down the loose surface of the trail.  We finally made it back to the belvedere, where we took another look out the Restigouche River:

Speaking of the Restigouche River, on our drive home we made a stop at the Canadian national historic site of the Battle of the Restigouche, the place where, in 1760, the British sunk a fleet of French ships and drove the French out of Canada.  The visitor center was closed due to the early season, but we hiked down to the shore of the Restigouche and walked along, imagining the maneuvering of the ships, the roar of cannon.  Today, the scene was much quieter, with just one small fishing boat lounging on the gravel beach:

This was an interesting, but somewhat sad, trip down hiking memory lane.  We wonder why the IAT is so much less well maintained than it had been here.  We still have several more sections of the IAT to hikes we travel around the Maritimes, and we'll be interested to see how well other local communities have maintained their section of the trail.