Fort Kent lights set town aglow

FORT KENT – The installation of thousands of lights – an idea designed to create a destination community – has transformed the town’s business district into a festive center for the Biathlon World Cup week.

Each day more lights are added to the estimated 400,000 lights installed in Fort Kent during the last three weeks. Such an illumination was done in Park City, Utah, during the 2002 Olympics.

Justin Dubois is in charge of the effort, in which 1,500 sets of 18-foot-long rope lights, resembling those used to decorate at Christmas, have been sold in recent weeks. That number does not include the lights used to decorate trees along Main Street.

The lights delineate the storefronts and rooflines of businesses and homes and candy-stripe light poles on both sides of the street. Other Christmas-style snowflake lights also are attached to the light poles. Few businesses have not participated in the community decorating effort.

Many homes and businesses outside the business district have followed suit.

“People are enjoying the lights and want even more,” Dubois said Wednesday. “We’ve sold more lights in the past two weeks than in the previous three months since we started with the idea.

“I originally ordered 100 sets of lights, not knowing if they would sell,” he said. “Last week, I got two orders of 150 sets each, and they both sold out in 45 minutes.”

More lights are coming.

Maine Public Service Co. and local contractors, such as Brent Beaulieu, who have cherry-picker bucket trucks, have volunteered their equipment and crews to install the lights.

The local Lions Club, which has been instrumental in the project from the start, added clear Christmas lights to trees along Main Street. Club members also took off with the idea of candy-striping period lighting poles on Main Street after St. Louis Catholic Church parishioners used the method to light poles in their Main Street parking lot.

Dubois said he has sold rope lights that would stretch a total of 6 miles. The ropes have a tiny light every inch, amounting to more that 324,000 lights.

Dubois is a full-time student at the University of Maine at Fort Kent and works full time for Quigley’s Hardware Store, which has been making the rope lights available at cost. He is on vacation from both this week to work full time for the Biathlon World Cup.

“It’s fantastic, and it keeps changing every day as more lights are added,” Town Manager Don Guimond, also a biathlon volunteer, said Thursday. “It’s community spirit, and that’s what this is all about.

“It’s really livened things up,” he said. “Unbelievable.”

Others agreed with Guimond’s assessment.

“Fantastic, beautiful, and it shows how this community has pulled together to make this happen,” said former businessman and resident Michael Levesque.

“Pretty awesome,” said Sam Collins of Caribou, businessman and former president of Leaders Encouraging Aroostook Development. “The community cares and has come together.”

“The town looks like a world-class resort destination,” said Max Saenger, chief operating officer of the Maine Winter Sports Center. “It’s reminiscent of places like Aspen. The lights help put us out front.”

“It’s beautiful and just great,” Oreen Daigle, a lifelong resident of Fort Kent, said Thursday while watching athletes in competition. “The town is gleaming, and awake.”

Even the International Biathlon Union is impressed.

“There is a feeling of Christmas, making everyone welcome,” Janez Vodicar, IBU spokesman, said Thursday. “It makes everyone welcome, and the lights have really impressed us.

“When I first saw the lights, I said, ‘Look at this!'” he said. “It’s like magic. These people have done a great job.”

The lights will remain after the competition and will be used for other occasions, such as Christmas, Fourth of July, and the annual Can-Am Crown International Sled Dog Races.