From the Editor: Why they call it The County
Photo / Peter Van Allen
Photo / Peter Van Allen
Photo / Peter Van Allen
Photo / Peter Van Allen
Photo / Peter Van Allen
We who live in southern Maine tend to think of Aroostook County, a.k.a. The County, as this amorphous space that takes up the upper half of Maine. There are plenty of people from southern Maine who have never been to The County and have no plans to go to The County. And that's their loss.
As editor of Mainebiz, as I have often said, I am lucky to get paid to visit every corner of Maine — including the corner that is the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined.
Our “On the Road” networking events are our chance to visit or revisit six locations around the state. This year we marketed the fact that these events would be held “from Kittery to Fort Kent,” a distance of 363 miles that takes 5 hours and 49 minutes to travel, according to Google Maps.
What do we know about Aroostook County? It produces potatoes, broccoli and elected officials, including U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a Caribou native. Depending on how you measure it, Aroostook is either the largest or second-largest county east of the Rocky Mountains. St. Louis County, Minn., home of Duluth, is larger if you include water, smaller if you measure only land.
Like the rest of the Mainebiz staff, I relished the opportunity to get back to The County. I'd already been in Houlton, Presque Isle, Fort Fairfield and Mars Hill. But here was an opportunity to see the St. John Valley, the border with New Brunswick, at the nexus of a region that on one side is forest products and on the other side is agriculture. I loved the idea of getting as far north in Maine as you can go — as far north on the East Coast as you can go.
Every “On the Road” event includes a round-table discussion before the networking. I want to give a shout out to the people that took part in the discussion: Peter Moore, Corporate Finance Associates; David Whitney, Sheridan Construction; Wes Jordan, Sheridan Construction; David Cambridge, Katahdin Trust Co.; Dana Saucier, Pinnacle Management Consulting; Dan Vaillancourt, Daigle Oil Co.; John Short, University of Maine at Fort Kent; Bob Dorsey, Aroostook Partnership for Progress; Douglas Cyr, Irving Woodlands Forestry; Dona R. Saucier, Greater Fort Kent Area Chamber of Commerce; and Jonathan Roy, Inn of Acadia.
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