The Northeastern Corner

Yesterday Allison and I visited America's northeastern corner, in Madawaska, Maine.  But we didn't stay long; the real highlights of our day were snowshoeing on the 10th Mountain Division Trails outside Fort Kent, and driving through pretty winter scenes of frozen lakes and potato fields in central Aroostook County.  Today we have another out of the box experience planned, at the Aroostook National Wildlife Refuge on the grounds of the former Loring Air Force Base outside Limestone.  All the while, it has remained bitterly cold.

We searched fruitlessly for a good cup of coffee in Fort Kent (we could not even find a Dunkin Donuts), then toured the town a bit in the daylight.  We quickly stopped by Fort Kent's small downhill ski area, Lonesome Pine Trails, which had good snow but was closed that morning.  Then we headed to the morning's true destination: the Maine Winter Sports Center's 10th Mountain Division biathlon facility.  This beautiful, modern athletic center is free for visitors to use, although a small donation is suggested.  The center features a main lodge with changing, shower and dining facilities, as well as a large shooting range, spectator stands and a ski waxing building.  We snowshoed on one of the groomed ski trails (staying out of the tracks, of course), then ventured onto one of the lovely dedicated snowshoe trails which wound through pleasant woods.  Along the way we saw many animal tracks, including what appeared to be those of a mother bear and her cub.

After snowshoeing, we got back in the car and headed east along the Saint John River to Madawaska.  This mill town, with an important border crossing to Edmundston, Canada, is the northernmost town in the northeastern United States.  It is considered to be one of the "Four Corners" of the United States, together with Key West, Florida, Blaine, Washington and San Ysidro, California.  We quickly drove by the border station and down the main street, then headed on to Frenchville for a good lunch at Rosette's Restaurant.

We then drove on toward Presque Isle, passing through broad snowy potato fields and by frozen lakes dotted with ice fishing shanties.  The temperature hovered around 0 fahrenheit all through this very enjoyable part of our tour.

Last night we stayed in Presque Isle, the largest city in Aroostook County.  We are reassessing our plan to stay until tomorrow, due to continuing cold weather which may make downhill skiing at Mars Hill unpleasant.  But today we plan to see the city, then head to Limestone for some more snowshoeing.  Stay tuned!

P.S. - We have plenty of good pictures, which we will share at the end of our trip after we have downloaded them.