Estcourt Station, Maine

Estcourt Station (elevation: 671 ft (205 m), pop. 4) is a village in Big Twenty Township, Aroostook County, Maine, United States. It is the northernmost point in Maine and New England.

Description

Estcourt Station is located on the Canada–United States border between Maine and Quebec, at the southern end of Lake Pohenegamook in the North Maine Woods region. It derives its name from the adjacent village of Estcourt, Quebec, which is part of the larger municipality of Pohénégamook. The border control stations on both sides of the international boundary are staffed only several hours daily, usually for processing logging trucks that access Maine's North Woods to haul timber to Quebec saw mills.

The populated part of Estcourt Station is essentially a sliver of the village of Estcourt that was cut off when the international boundary was properly surveyed through the area (see Webster–Ashburton Treaty). It consists of a row of several houses along Rue Frontière, a street on the Quebec side of the border, some of which were built before the survey and which the border now passes through. There is also a general store and a small gas station.

Although the US census reports that four people live in the village, according to a Canada Border Services Agency agent no one lives in Estcourt Station full time as of 2016. A few US residents live in the village during the summer. They must follow the hours of the border control stations, so after 5 pm on Friday cannot leave until 9 am Monday. Anyone attempting to enter the US through Estcourt Station illegally would have to travel on hundreds of miles of private logging roads in northern Maine that are difficult to navigate during spring and summer rains, and almost inaccessible because of snow during the winter.[1] Likewise, Estcourt Station uses Quebec's area code 418 for telephone service, and is connected to Hydro-Québec for electricity. The community receives drinking water and other municipal services from Pohénégamook.

Canadian National Railway's transcontinental main line between Halifax and Montreal passes immediately north of Rue Frontière.

Michel Jalbert incident

Gas station in Estcourt Station

In October 2002, there was a border incident, described by Secretary of State Colin Powell as "unfortunate",[2][3] that saw a Pohénégamook resident, Michel Jalbert, imprisoned for 35 days in the U.S. after purchasing gas in Estcourt Station outside of the U.S. Customs Service's normal operating hours. U.S. Border Patrol agents said that Jalbert was a convicted felon (convicted in Canada for breaking and entering in 1990 when he was 19 years old) and was in illegal possession of a firearm; he reportedly had a shotgun in the back of his truck – a common occurrence in the area during partridge hunting season.[4]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Williams, Kevin (2016-07-15). "The Incredible Complications of Living Atop the U.S.-Canada Border". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 16 July 2016.
  2. ↑ Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Bill Graham Press Availability
  3. ↑ Canfield, Clarke (16 February 2003). "Casual Border Crossing Throws a Life in Limbo". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2016-07-17.
  4. ↑ Clark Canfield, "Trouble at the border"

External links

Coordinates: 47°27.592′N 69°13.473′W / 47.459867°N 69.224550°W / 47.459867; -69.224550

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/25/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.