Maine - Day 7 - the north rim

Grand Isle Campground
Tuesday, 7 August 2018

We were lucky and got our first walk in before the promised rain appeared.  Again Gracie balked at walking along the road, never mind that there's almost no traffic along there.  Dexter and I saw a red fox cross the road and stop to look at us.  Fortunately, Dexter was so surprised he stopped dead long enough for the fox to disappear into a field of grass.  Also fortunately, Gracie didn't see it - I have trouble holding even one of them back, let alone both of them.

Then it started pouring and kept it up for quite a while.  I'd already decided I wanted to go see what I could see (and find a laundromat) despite the rain, and got lucky when the rain mostly let up.

today's route

This road continues to follow the St. John River, again with towns on either side.  I'm told most people on both sides speak French as their primary language, though fortunately all the signs are in English and the towns look like they're American - but they're really Acadian underneath.

About 3 miles down the road from the campground is what's marked on the map as the town of St. David, but the only way I knew I was there was when I found St. David church.

St. David Church

Moderately magnificent, isn't it? for such a tiny town.

In fact, if it weren't for the church and the mention on the map, I'd have thought this town was in the town of Madawaska.  Madawaska's main claim to fame is that it's one of the 4 corners of the continental US: it's the farthest northeastern town.

Also in Madawaska I found this very unusual building.  I don't know what's actually in there now (maybe nothing from the look of it), but I'm pretty sure I know what used to be there.


Outside several towns I've passed, including Madawaska, I've seen signs saying, "No Jake Brake Please."  I had to look it up, being a new one on me, and learned it's another term for a compression brake used by big rigs.

On the radio I've been getting a CBC station (Canadian Broadcasting), and I got tired of getting New Brunswick news and started hunting for something else and found 2 country/western stations playing songs in French.  I could not not believe it.

Fort Knox is the same size in population to Madawaska but seems much bigger.  One of its claims to fame is that it's the terminus of US Rt. 1.

This is the US border where Rt. 1 ends, and the bridge over the St. John River goes to the sister city of Clair.  I saw lots and lots of semis and other traffic in the short time the dogs and I walked along there.  At least there's no barbed wire, like at that station in New Hampshire.

Ft. Kent also has a very nice laundromat, owned for more than 20 years by Dinah who says she's getting old and tired and is looking for somebody to sell her business to.  It's certainly a thriving business, being the only laundromat within about 100 miles (on the US side, anyway).

Ft. Kent also has the Fort Kent blockhouse from the bloodless Aroostook War.

In case you can't blow that photo up enough to read the explanation, I've got a link that explains what happened when Maine declared war on England. the-high-comedy-of-the-bloodless-aroostook-war

Ft. Kent blockhouse

As far as I can tell, this blockhouse was built in 1838.  It's been restored, of course, because it got pretty neglected before the state of Maine took it over, but I went inside and it looks pretty authentic to me.




I took an extra photo of that map of Maine's boundaries to show just how much of Maine sticks up into Canada.  And you can see more clearly how the early settlers weren't paying attention to artificial boundaries at the river, because it didn't use to be a boundary.  Coming from Texas as I do, I'm used to lots of Spanish - and there's some of that up here too, because of the workers who pick the potato crop.  But there's as much French here as there is Spanish in Texas, and for some reason I'm having trouble getting used to that.  Maybe because I don't speak French.

I took this photo of the St. Louis Catholic Church in Ft. Kent because it was so beautiful.

Look at that steeple.  And the windows under it.  All the windows, in fact.  Built around 1883.