Felt Like Edge of the World: Estcourt Station

By Kevin Williams

The year 2016 has seen me revive my journalism career a bit with stories for a variety of outlets. I've really enjoyed the work and hope to have more stories in the near future. But I wanted to take a look at one I wrote earlier this year. I think I shared it with this group when it ran, but there were some fun photos that didn't run with the original piece that I wanted to share.  No, this isn't Amish-related, but it was just such a fascinating place.  This was a smudge of a place called Estcourt Station, Maine that sits at the northern tip of the state along the Quebec border.    The "town" of Estcourt is really no more than a few buildings and houses that spill over into Maine from the the larger Quebec municipality of Pohénégamook.  Pohénégamook itself isn't particularly isolated, you can make it to Trois-Rivières. a city of about 125,000 a half hour away.  In other words, you're pretty plugged into Canada. But Estcourt is very isolated from the USA.  It's this tiny patch of USA soil separated from any other towns by either A) hours and hours of treacherous logging roads through thick Maine forests, or B)  an hour long drive through Quebec and New Brunswick to Fort Kent, Maine.  I chose B even though I was tempted to do the first....

I've been many places in my life, but this is at the top in terms of its remoteness and just quirkiness.  For instance, I met a man who's back deck is bisected by the international boundary.  So he fires up his hibachi in the USA while the rest of his house is in Quebec.   If you missed my original article, here it is......otherwise enjoy the photos below!

The Gaz Bar where you can fill up in the USA and take advantage of the exchange rate, but you have to go through customs to do so....

This is the Canadian customs station at Estcourt, the Canadians were far friendlier and laid-back than their US counterparts down the road...

There's a tiny park entirely within the USA and you can get to it either by car or this foot bridge, which you can cross without customs

This house is now vacant,but the boundary runs through the home's living room....that might deter potential buyers...

If you leave the park to go anywhere else in the USA, you'll have to follow this sign to customs

The boundary is only sporadically marked