‘North’ is in eye of beholder

One cool spring night last month, a wayward traveler, acknowledging that she hadn’t a clue where she might be, stopped at the rural home of retired Maine game warden Gary Pelletier near Aroos-took County’s Cross Lake, 12 miles southeast of Fort Kent on Route 161, to ask for directions.

Lost Lady wanted to know how far she was from Presque Isle, and Pelletier, pointing toward the east on Route 161, replied, “About 42 miles that way.”

It couldn’t possibly be, the woman said. She had just come from that direction, from Caribou. Presque Isle must be some place up ahead, she insisted, pointing toward Fort Kent. Pelletier asked Lost Lady where she was from. “I’m from Maine,” she replied.

“Well, you’re still in Maine, madame,” Pelletier told her. “And Presque Isle is still that way (pointing down Route 161). And it’s still 42 miles from here…”

Lost Lady, most likely not totally convinced, turned her vehicle around and headed back to Caribou. Presumably, she found her way from there to Presque Isle, although I suppose there’s a chance she still might be ramming around in the Aroostook County outback hoping to find a way to get south by heading north.

The story serves to illustrate yet again how blissfully unaware lots of Mainers are when it comes to the northern geography of this great state, a fact that greatly amuses residents of the Crown of Maine. It comes as no great surprise that many of the geographically challenged souls reside in The Other Maine that lies to the west of the Kennebec River, although we certainly have our fair share here in The Real Maine.

It occurred to Pelletier after his encounter with Lost Lady that, in the minds of many, Maine does stop at Bangor, or Augusta. But if you think native Mainers are the only citizens who can be hard-pressed to figure out how to get to Presque Isle, you should get a load of those from away.

“I remember when I was younger and a fellow down in Massachusetts told me that he had been to ‘northern Maine’ once. Turns out he had been to Portland,” the former game warden recalled. “One other time, when I had just guided a trip on the Allagash, people came to my house before taking off for the Boston area, and I turned on my big 60-inch television, which happened to be tuned to CNN [the Cable News Network channel]. A woman in the party remarked, ‘Oh my gosh. You get CNN way up here…”‘

Unfortunately, yes. You can run from Wolf Blitzer, but you cannot hide.

If, over the years, I had had a buck for every time the Portland bureau of The Associated Press had placed in “northern Maine” a town that is actually in central Maine, say, or even in Down East Washington County, my retirement nest egg would be healthier by far than is presently the case.

At the newspaper we called this the AP’s “Milo, a-small-town-in-northern-Maine” syndrome. We’d speculate as to where such geographical revisionism would leave truly northern burgs such as Madawaska, say, or St. Francis or Dickey. Then we’d have a whack at the wire story to return Milo to its proper location so our northern readers the next morning wouldn’t think we were total dopes, and everyone would live happily ever after.

A couple of years back – prompted by the tendency for publications in other jurisdictions to consider all of Maine to be “Down East” – I broached the subject of just where the boundaries of that mythical region supposedly lie. That provoked e-mail the quantity of which you wouldn’t believe, and practically every author had a different opinion on the subject. If the natives can’t agree on some geographical designation that by this late date in our history should be pretty much cut and dried, it’s little wonder that some might insist that the road from Caribou to Presque Isle leads through Fort Kent.

About all that can be done to assuage this prevailing geographical bewilderment is to have a good laugh and move on. On one occasion when Pelletier was in the warden service, the Maine Department of Conservation hired a van to transport three people from the Augusta area to “northern Maine” (Bangor) for a meeting. Pelletier and four others came down from up north to participate. As the meeting got under way he told the assemblage that he was some happy he had been able to drive south for 31/2 hours to get to “northern” Maine.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net