The universe of Kevin and Kate McCartney is a fascinating place to visit. The Caribou couple are involved with the following projects (and then some): The arts in Caribou, Aroostook County history, a bed-and-breakfast, antique irons, a science museum, Acadian fiddling, home-style cooking, Abraham Lincoln and aviation.

Of course, there’s also the solar system stretching through Aroostook County.

The McCartneys had lived the life of itinerant academics until 14 years ago, when Kevin landed a position at the University of Maine at Presque Isle. He’s now a professor of geology there, as well as the director of the Northern Maine Museum of Science.

“I’m from here now,” Kevin explained. “We’ve lived twice as long here as we have any place else. Kate and I are ones who get to a place and immediately put ourselves right to work.”

This willingness to get involved helped the McCartneys to fit in in “The County.”

“The activity here is just astonishing,” Kevin said. “That’s what makes these projects work. There’s an old, Depression-era philosophy of getting by and doing well with it. The sense of pride here is just awesome.”

Kevin was on sabbatical last semester from UMPI. Still he ended up at his office most days, checking his e-mail and catching up on his various projects. (He’s recently back from leading a geology field trip to the Pacific Northwest.)

He also published a book, “Antique Irons at The Old Iron Inn,” which examines an item that he has collected for 30 years. The couple wrote the primer, with photos by Robert Longlais. Many of his 250 mostly American irons are displayed in the sitting room of their bed-and-breakfast and home, naturally enough named the Old Iron Inn.

An iron is a foreign object to many men. Yet many antique iron collectors are men, Kevin explained.

“Men are enamored by the technology, the variety,” he said. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen except guns. It’s impossible to have a complete set of irons. There’s so many different manufacturers and inventors, different kinds for different types of clothing, with different fuel sources and regional differences.”

Why did Kevin himself get involved with irons?

“You get to have something that’s small and relatively inexpensive,” he said. “Still it’s had an amazingly complex evolution, and there’s always discoveries you can make. It’s a simple little device, but everyone thought they had a better idea how to do it. It was like mousetraps or apple peelers.”

One factor in Kevin’s writing the book is that when he taught an adult education course about antiques, he discovered that many of his students had an “‘Antiques Roadshow’ mentality,” of wanting to learn about antiques in order to make a killing in the field.

“By and large, if you are collecting something, you aren’t doing it as an investment,” Kevin said. “You like the discovery, you like the search.”

Antiques in general go up at the rate of inflation. You collect because you enjoy it. If you want an investment, do the stock market or real estate.”

Also, there wasn’t any book quite like what he was planning on the market.

“People kept asking about the irons,” Kevin recalled. “There are some iron books out there, but they’re expensive and you have to read into it a lot to get the basic information. I wanted to do a small little book for those interested in a knowledge of irons without all the details.”

Kevin spent a couple of years filling some gaps in his collection and doing a little research on some of the iron manufacturers.

“I wanted to refine the collection so that it’s as good as it can be,” he explained.

The McCartneys’ book has photos and descriptions of many types of irons: flat, those with detachable handles, sleeve, polishing, hat, fluting, goffering, tailor, slug, coal, fuel, even electric.

As Kevin is showing off some of his finest irons in a glass case, Kate hustles in. For two days a week during the school year, she drove 180 miles round trip to serve as a volunteer instructor in a special project of Lisa Ornstein, director of the University of Maine at Fort Kent’s Acadian Archives.

“Lisa was concerned that Acadian fiddling was dying, and the only way for it to survive was if kids start up with it,” Kate explained. “So we’re teaching French Canadian fiddling to fourth-graders in Fort Kent who want to learn. We’re teaching the songs by ear so they can learn.”

The decade-old inn, located on High Street, is run by Kate, who is, in her own words, “chief financial officer and kitchen wench” (she has published two cookbooks of recipes that she uses at the inn).

The four rooms at the inn have their own personalities. There’s the Old Iron Room, the Lincoln Room and the Rose Room, the decorating schemes for which are all fairly self-explanatory. Then there’s the Amoeba Room. That room’s original wallpaper reminded the couple of the microorganisms, hence its name (there’s even a microscope that’s been converted into a lamp).

Kate is also involved with the Council for the Arts, which has brought such artists as Buckwheat Zydeco, Natalie MacMaster and Odetta to the Caribou Performing Arts Center. Also the group is behind the recent CaribouFest, which featured a performance by the duo America (“Horse With No Name,” “Ventura Highway”).

Kevin’s next project nearing fruition is the Historical Pavilion July 30-Aug. 2 at the Northern Maine Fair Forum Building. More than 30 Maine historical groups are expected to have booths at the pavilion, offering a wealth of local history.

Two of Kevin’s other projects originate at UMPI. The Northern Maine Museum of Science, which formally opened in 1996, is located on three floors of Folsom Hall, and also encompasses 20 acres of natural areas.

“This was built with no money,” Kevin said. “There’s a lot of student projects here.”

On one wall of the museum is the sun, the beginning of the model solar system built to scale along Route 1. It’s based on the scale of the distance from Earth to the sun equaling one mile.

The planets have gone up one at a time as they’re ready (it’s been a series of little bangs, not one big one). Mercury can be found in front of Burrill’s clipping service, Venus by the Budget Traveler, Earth by Percy’s Auto Sales, Mars by the “Welcome to Presque Isle” sign. Jupiter can be found in the middle of a field in rural Presque Isle, while the base for Saturn was just erected in a field in Westfield, awaiting the ringed planet’s arrival in the next couple of weeks.

The 3-year-old project has gained national attention. Between 400 to 500 people are involved in some way, Kevin estimated.

While admitting that coordinating that many people can be like “herding squirrels,” Kevin added, “The reason we’re able to do this is The County. There’s a real can-do ethic. Also people are used to building things with no money. We’re doing it with donated this, and people-powered that.”

The McCartneys are happy to have found an area that jibes so well with their own personalities.

“We’re roving academics, and this is our very first hometown,” Kate said. “It’s an area where you can build a life for yourself. You don’t need money or a name, just a willingness to go to meetings. You can make a difference. Your efforts are immediately apparent.”

“You can change the world here,” Kevin added. “You can have a vision, an idea, and you go and find the people who are doers.”