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FORT KENT, Maine -- Where is that confounded sign?
You'd think that the sign that marks the northernmost point of historic U.S. Route 1 would have pride of place in Fort Kent, Maine, a small frontier town on the Canadian border with precious few tourist attractions besides the sign.
But instead of being housed in some tasteful little roadside shrine, the weatherworn wooden sign is tucked into the corner of the Fort Kent Masonic Lodge's parking lot, partially hidden by a ratty tree.
The mileage marked on the sign is wrong too; it claims that it's 2,209 miles to Key West, Florida -- it's actually 2,425 miles.
"It's close enough," said Elmer Daigle, of Fort Kent's Daigle's Bed and Breakfast. "What's a few hundred miles more or less when you're going that far anyway?"
Daigle is a famous name in these parts. The family participated in two of Fort Kent's historical high points -- Maine's war against Canada, and Maine's war against prohibition.
During the dry years, Fort Kent residents ran rum and other refreshing alcoholic beverages across the Canadian border to thirsty Americans down south. And as far as Fort Kent residents are concerned, almost everywhere else in the country is down south.
"Moving liquor across the border was a real financial high for this town," said Daigle. "Most of us have family on the other side of the border, and it was easy to throw a wedding or a big birthday for Grandma and have everyone tuck a few bottles into their gift-wrapped presents, under the baby's blankets, inside their coats."
But almost 100 years before smuggling became a lifestyle, Fort Kent residents prepared to take up arms against Canada, in the only war ever declared by a single U.S. state against a foreign country.
The Aroostook War, named after Maine's northernmost county, was a border dispute that got way out of hand. The trouble started when Maine gained statehood in 1820 and began issuing land grants to settlers in the Aroostook River Valley. The borders weren't clearly defined, so Canadian lumberjacks continued to cut timber in the Aroostook region.
In February of 1839 the lumberjacks kidnapped an American land agent who had been sent to oust them from Maine's forests. And the "war" was on.
Maine and New Brunswick called out their militias. The U.S. Congress promised to supply 50,000 additional troops and $10 million to protect the precious lumber. Happily, both sides quickly agreed to a compromise; Maine got 7,015 square miles of the disputed land, and New Brunswick 5,012 miles.
There were no battles in the Aroostook War; not a single shot was ever fired. But there was one really good brawl.
One night in a local bar an Aroostook militiaman raised a toast to Maine. The Canadians drinking in the bar thought that was just plain tacky, and a fight broke out. Noses were bloodied, eyes were blackened. That was about as violent as the Aroostook War ever got.
But there was at least one casualty, a man named Hiram Smith. Problem is, no one knows how he died.
Daigle said it's commonly accepted that Smith was run over by a U.S. military supply wagon. Others say Smith fell into a pond and drowned.
That pond is now called Soldiers Pond, and there is supposed to be a memorial to Smith along its banks, but no one we asked knew exactly where the memorial was located.
There's also a minority opinion that Smith froze to death when he fell into the pond. Few truly believe that, as Smith was supposed to have died during the late summer of 1839. It seems to be more of a wry joke about the weather here than a historical fact.
Winter does come early here, though, so perhaps Smith did meet a frosty end.
When we visited Fort Kent on Oct. 23, the thermometer was topping out at 19 degrees, and snowstorms had blown through town during each of the previous four days.
"But this is a particularly early snowfall," insisted Doris Daigle, also of Daigle's Bed and Breakfast. "Normally we don't ever see snow until at least Halloween."
Whether in anticipation or defiance of the first expected snowfall, Halloween is sure a big deal up here in Aroostook County.
Yards and homes are intensely decorated. Ghosts made from wadded handkerchiefs dangle from many trees; huge plastic pumpkins at least 5 or 6 feet in diameter, and assorted assemblages of dozens of inflatable witches, vampires, and other monsters haunt almost every front lawn. Twinkling orange lights are strung on houses.
Perhaps people who don't spend hours online have more time to make ghosts from hankies. Fort Kent is not a hotbed of high technology.
Most residents are just beginning to toy with the idea of using the Internet to conduct business. After years of always-on broadband or wireless service, we're reacquainting ourselves with the phone jacks on our laptops, and we rejoice when the connection speed even approaches 56K.
Maine, especially the northern county, has more to worry about than high-speed Internet access. The state has been hit hard by manufacturing jobs moving overseas, and people are really scrambling to make ends meet, often working two or three jobs.
Most of the rest of the folks in the northern part of the state are farmers.
"We grow potatoes," said one Fort Kent resident who would only give his first name -- Edward. "How can the Internet help us do that? You either know how to plant a potato field or you don't. There's nothing on the Internet that we need."
But Elmer and Doris Daigle have put up a website for their bed and breakfast and have begun taking reservations by e-mail. They said they haven't gotten many new guests from their Net site, though.
Most of the visitors who come to Fort Kent are here to snowmobile. The U.S 1 sign has been moved around a few times because folks kept smashing into it with their snowmobiles, according to the gas station attendant who directed us to the sign.
A handful of visitors come to look at one of the last remaining relics of the Aroostook War, a wooden blockhouse built to help the troops defend themselves from the New Brunswick militia. Like the Route 1 sign, the fort is tucked into the back of a parking lot. Visitors basically stumble across it.
The fort now serves as a museum for a small collection of war memorabilia and once housed a cannon. According to a 1939 state-sponsored guidebook, residents from the nearby town of Fort Fairfield, after having torn down their own fort, decided they really wanted a memento of the Aroostook War. So they got the Fort Kent cannon's caretaker drunk one night and snatched the relic.
A few visitors do come to Fort Kent at the very beginning or end of their Route 1 journeys.
"We get one or two people each year, asking where the sign is and saying they are going to go all the way to the other end," said Peg Jameson, a waitress at the local diner. "I always say 'Hey, send us a postcard when you get there.'
"But we don't get many postcards from Key West. Sometimes I wonder what happened to those folks. Did they make it? Did they give up? Did they just not want to buy a card and stamp?"
We promise to send Peg a postcard. We also jam handfuls of Fort Kent snow into a water bottle, planning to pour it into the ocean at Key West at the end of our trip.
"So you're transporting Fort Kent snow to Florida," said Elmer Daigle. "That's pretty funny -- bootlegging water instead of booze."
*(Michelle Delio and photographer Laszlo Pataki have begun their four-week geek-seeking journey along U.S. Route 1. If you know a town they should visit, a person they should meet, a weird roadside attraction they must see or a great place to fuel up on lobster rolls, barbecue, conch fritters and the like, send an e-mail to wiredroadtrip@earthlink.net.) *
