The biggest municipality in sprawling Washington County is the city of Calais, pronounced CAL-us, like hardened skin, rather than the French Cal-LAY, its namesake port on the English Channel.

Set north of Eastport and having a population of slightly more than 3,000, it’s the retail hub of the county and neighboring Canada and the principal international border crossing for traffic to and from the industrial port city of Saint John, New Brunswick, and other coastal points.

With that in mind, here are a few more facts.

1. Thanks to the border traffic, much of it as Sunbury tractor-trailer rigs, Calais has all of the permanent traffic lights in the county. Three, make that four, if I’m counting right. Yup, pay attention.
2. It’s the eastern terminus for the Airline Highway, a section of State Route 9 that connects those trucks to Interstate 95 in Bangor and all points south and west in the U.S.
3. Calais abuts Saint Stephen in Canada, which has both a candy museum and manufacturer and the best health fitness center in our region. The Saint Croix river separates them before continuing upstream as the international boundary.
4. Calais has the only new auto dealership in the county, as well as the only Walmart.
5. It’s home to the community college.
6. The first European to explore the place was Samuel de Champlain in 1604.
7. That year he was one of two leaders in settling on an island in the tidal stretch of the river. That effort was abandoned the following spring after a brutal winter in which more than half of the colonists perished. Had the venture succeeded, it’s possible we’d all be speaking French here. Today the site of this first French settlement in New France is commemorated at the Saint Croix international historical park.
8. While its name honors French assistance to the American Revolution, I should also point out that the original had also sometimes been part of England.
9. It was first settled by Daniel David Hill of York County, Maine. He was likely a descendant from an old Quaker family affiliated with Dover, New Hampshire.
10. In summer, it’s often much hotter than Eastport. In winter, it’s typically colder.

Oh, yes, there’s even a tiny movie theater we want to check out.

 

Ten random notes in no particular order:

1. I’m still learning to spell Katahdin.
2. Was it a mama moose I hit that cold night on my commute back from the office, rather than a deer? Now that I’m getting to know deer, I think the collision involved something bigger.
3. Red states? They’re where nobody really wants to live. Or at least the paying jobs.
4. How dark the house is at night in an electrical power outage! There’s no ambient light from the street lamps or apparatus power-on buttons.
5. Glyphs = little typographic devices.
6. I dreamed I was playing violin again. In an orchestra, no less.
7. How deeply backpacking as a youth shaped my values (forget efficient as a factor). It’s that travel light thing.
8. After living in New Hampshire, I’m still not used to a sales tax.
9. English country dance lyric, “If love were an ocean / and water was gin / I’d walk a long plank / and throw myself in.” It’s not from “Robin, Mad Robin,” is it?
10. A voicemail message for today: “Let me a message or text me. I’ll get back.”

 

I’ve been posting a lot about Eastport and nearby scenes but said little to date about the neighboring communities here in Way Downeast Maine.

So today I’ll turn the spotlight to a town to our south, one we easily see from the Breakwater and other points in Eastport. It also sits across the water to our west. Despite the proximity, driving between the two takes nearly an hour.

~*~

Here are a few additional facts.

1. It’s pronounced “LOO-beck,” named for Lubeck, Germany.
2. It has roughly the same (small) population as Eastport but is organized as a town rather than a city. That’s why it can claim to be the easternmost point in the continental U.S., while E’port struts about being the easternmost city. It’s a hairline difference.
3. Lubec’s also the closest location in the continental U.S to Africa. Yes, way up here nearly on the 45^th parallel, halfway to the North Pole, rather than say Virginia or tropical Florida.
4. Set on a peninsula, the town has more water than land.
5. With its Quoddy Head State Park and the iconic peppermint-pole lighthouse, Lubec can be seen as the gateway to the Bold Coast trailheads that provide access to spectacular shoreline and bluffs. It’s like Acadia National Park without the crowds.
6. It also has a “sparkplug” lighthouse in the water south of downtown and faces the Mulholland lighthouse on the Canadian side of Quoddy Narrows.
7. Speaking of Canada. Neighboring Campobello Island, New Brunswick, is home to the Franklin Roosevelt International Park, originally the family’s summer “cottage” and compound and then Eleanor’s favorite home. Today the historic site covers five square miles that include trails of shoreline and forest. To get there, you have to drive through Lubec.
8. SummerKeys is a kind of music camp for adults, mixing skill levels from beginning amateur to skilled professionals into a lively and supportive environment. Free weekly concerts in the Congregational church are a highlight for the rest of us.
9. While statics are unavailable, one friend tells of a summer when every day in Lubec was beset by heavy fog. She’s made it sound unbroken. I have been in town on several afternoons when the place was quickly socked in the dense gray invasion, and from Eastport I’ve often seen its thick steely blanket roll over the downtown at the fringe of our view before inching up the water toward us. Another friend tells of the common frequency of heavy winds. Either way sounds harsher than what I’ve encountered in nearby Eastport.
10. The town no longer has a high school. When it did, athletic events between Lubec and Eastport were often followed by fights.