Fort Kent, ME

Fort Kent is a very small town at the northern tip of Maine.  From Google maps it looks like it is a cross street with a McDonald's and a Rite Aid.  I am sure there is much more to it when you dig in; and, I have e-mailed the Chamber to request a little more information.  I decided today that, for future cities, I would reach out to some community organizations outlining what I am doing for  more.  This being the first city and a Sunday, though, I would be surprised if I got a response today.  The town itself sits along the Fish River, which has salmon and trout; and the book I have, Reader's Digest's Off the Beaten Path, says along the edge are places to fish as well as access to water and fire places.

City-Data will be a frequent guest here and the numbers paint a picture reflecting the effects of the recession.  Median income is quite low, 22,584, and home prices are falling.  The rest is what I would have expected envisioning a town in upper Maine. Extremely small, and extremely white.  The vast majority of people are descended from the French or French Canadians.

Fort Kent, itself, is an actual fort which was built in 1842 at the end of the Aroostook War. No bloodshed, just talking.  After the Revolutionary War, the border between Maine and New Brunswick was never settled.  There was an attempt to settle the matter in 1820; but, while the British accepted, the US rejected the deal.  In February 1893 there was a capture of a land agent which brought out both side's fighting forces.  General Winfield Scott was dispatched to the region he arranged a meeting in March 1893.  Both sides agreed to negotiate the issue, fighting was averted, and the Webster-Ashburton Treaty set the current border in 1842.  For more, see the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands.

That is the history lesson on Fort Kent.  My intention is to have future posts be more interesting and take on the human side of a town.  This blog launched quickly and my mileage is adding up.  Slowly, but it is adding up.  I am already more than half way to Madawaska.  My apologies to Fort Kent for not spending the time on it that I am going to spend on other parts of the country.  But that is the nature of running.  You have to focus on where you are.    I am learning that much grief and strife comes from living at some point other than the present.  I am never more in the present, in the moment, than I am when I am running.  Every foot strike is this moment; one after another, after another, after another...  In this way, running mimics life.  To be in the present is to live, and run, at the fullest.  I am sorry Fort Kent.  I am here; and you are 14 miles behind me.