Hype for the Future 62D: Town of Fort Kent, Maine

Introduction

Fort Kent is a town located at the northern terminus of United States Highway 1 in Aroostook County, Maine, and is located in the Saint John Valley.

Infrastructure

Three main highways exist in the Fort Kent area. United States Route 1, largely descended from New England Route 1 in the region, exists to service the communities along the eastern border of Maine with New Brunswick before turning to finally parallel the Atlantic Ocean. Route 11 is a north-south state highway roughly following the central spine of the State of Maine, though the actual highway route is located somewhat further to the east. Route 161, which also cuts through Fort Kent, leads west toward Allagash and east toward Caribou by way of New Canada and dispersed Swedish settlements in the region. Though Route 11 is largely directed through remote rural areas of the Maine North Woods, the next community of any significance is the Town of Ashland, at the junction with eastbound Route 163.

University of Maine

Though not the main campus of the University of Maine (UMaine), which is located in Orono in Penobscot County, the Town of Fort Kent contains the University of Maine-Fort Kent, serving a disproportionately Francophone community in northern Maine opposite the Canadian Province of New Brunswick and relatively nearby to Edmundston, NB.

America’s First Mile

The phrase “America’s First Mile” refers to the northernmost mile of United States Route 1, as the highway enters the United States from Canada opposite the Saint John River, though the area on the Canadian side is actually more rural.

Historic Sites

While not much exists within the Town of Fort Kent—not even the traditional “college town” vibe nor the associated amenities—the Town is actually home to the Daigle-Dube House and the Fort Kent State Historic Site.

Hype for the Future 61P: Nunavut

Introduction

Though Nunavut was part of the Northwest Territories prior to 1999, the inclusion of Nunavut as independent from the Northwest Territories has resulted in new territorial boundaries, with a few moderately large islands of the Arctic Archipelago actually divided between the Northwest Territories and Nunavut as a result. Perhaps the most notable of communities on the mainland of Nunavut is Rankin Inlet; however, the territorial capital is none other than Iqaluit on one of the larger islands nearer Greenland 🇬🇱.

Hype for the Future 61O: The Canadian Territorial Capitals

Introduction

Apart from the ten Provinces of Canada, the nation also has territories of lesser status, though fully dependent on Ottawa compared to the more autonomous Territories of the United States or many of the remnants of the British, French, or Dutch empires.

The Territories

The Territories of Canada 🇨🇦 are generally located north of the sixtieth parallel of latitude north of the equator, with the notable exception of Nunavut, where the islands of the Hudson Bay, including the southernmost islands, remain claimed by Nunavut regardless of proximity to Ontario or Québec. While Nunavut is a distinct territory and no longer part of the Northwest Territories as of 1999, the Arctic portion of Québec is often referred to as Nunavik, and the Arctic portion of Labrador as Nunatsiavut.

Territorial Capitals

Within the predominantly Arctic region of Canada, the territories are, from west to east, the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. The capital cities of these territories are the following:

• The Yukon Territory (YT): Whitehorse
• Northwest Territories (NT, NWT): Yellowknife
• Nunavut (NU): Iqaluit

Hype for the Future 61N: The Canadian Provinces and Capitals

Introduction

Like the United States, Canada is oriented in the general direction of east to west. However, unlike the United States, where the divergence in histories is north and south, the divergence that exists in Canada is effectively between Québec and the remainder of the nation. Each of the provinces roughly follow an east-west pipeline, as follows:

Provinces and Provincial Capitals

• Newfoundland and Labrador: Saint John’s
• Nova Scotia: Halifax
• Prince Edward Island: Charlottetown
• New Brunswick: Fredericton
• Québec: Québec City
• Ontario: Toronto
• Manitoba: Winnipeg
• Saskatchewan: Regina
• Alberta: Edmonton
• British Columbia: Victoria

Hype for the Future 61M: Atlantic Canada 🇨🇦

Introduction

The Canadian Provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island are located primarily to the east of the U.S. State of Maine, at fairly similar latitude to much of the Maine interior overall. Of these three provinces, Nova Scotia is consistently the largest in population with the City of Halifax as the provincial capital, while New Brunswick is next with Fredericton as the provincial capital and Prince Edward Island is the smallest of all the Canadian provinces with a population under 200,000 and a provincial capital smaller than 40,000. The capital city of Prince Edward Island is the City of Charlottetown, which had actually been an unincorporated town prior to city status in 1855.

Confederation

Each of the provinces representing Atlantic Canada had joined Confederation to join the nation, though only New Brunswick and Nova Scotia had joined at the very beginning. Prince Edward Island did not actually join Confederation until sometime in 1873, after the Provinces of Ontario (from Upper Canada), Québec (Lower Canada), New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.

Access

Access to the Canadian Maritimes from the State of Maine requires crossing by way of an Authorized Port of Entry, including the numerous sites of the United States Customs and Border Protection on the American side and the Canada Border Services Agency (ASFC is the French abbreviation) on the Canadian side. As an international border crossing, the necessary documentation is vital for crossing the border, though even more documentation is typically required for air travel to the region of the Maritimes.

Within Canada, where access is not controlled between provinces, ferries between New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador are generally unrestricted in terms of access to Canadian citizens.

Hype for the Future 61F: Places of Liberation for novaTopFlex

Preamble

The novaTopFlex Three Identities maintain cultural values such as freedom of choice in connection and freedom of movement domestically. With the appropriate documentation and other features, for obvious legal security reasons and logistics, these values can be provided in various regions across the globe, including parallel societies with similar values.

Countries and Regions

novaTopFlex has identified several locales within the United States and Canada as matching energies and personal and cultural values, including, but not limited to, liberation from scripted roles and freedom of identity and expression. In the United States, the identified regions are New England, Chicagoland, the Twin Cities, and the Pacific Northwest, though the Mid-Atlantic and Front Range areas also have similarly shared values. For Canada, such regions include (from east to west) Newfoundland, the Maritimes, the Eastern Townships of Québec (including modern Estrie and regions now identified as Centre-du-Québec and Montérégie), the Greater Toronto area, and the Pacific Northwest extending into British Columbia. Pockets of the City of Montréal may also be suitable to the values and cultural preferences of novaTopFlex, though Canada as a whole often supports freedom of identity and expression to a significantly greater extent than the United States.

Hype for the Future 61E: Anglophone Names in Québec

History

While not the dominant part of Canada or even British North America for the United Empire Loyalists, the Province of Québec has actually attracted numerous Anglophone settlers from British Colonial America and the early United States, though many have also been involved in more recent generations beyond the Loyalists, especially entering the Estrie (Eastern Townships) region of the Province of Québec. There Anglophone universities exist within the Province: McGill, Concordia, and Bishop’s. The first two are located in Montréal, and the third is actually located centrally within the region at Lennoxville. Many of these names can overlap with names located within the Province of Ontario, the keystone settlement of English Canada.

Eastern Townships

Though Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu is a Francophone name in the Province of Québec, the influence, particularly on the State of Vermont, cannot be underestimated. While the Eastern Townships have never been considered an extension of the New England region, many of the early United Empire Loyalist settlers were not just from the New England region, but also from the Mid-Atlantic.

The most obvious Anglophone names located in the Estrie region of Québec include Sherbrooke, Coaticook, Orford, Windsor, and Granby, though Drummondville is also in the old region with an obviously Anglophone name. Many smaller communities also exist with Anglophone names throughout the region, including Abercorn, Sutton, Cowansville, Farnham, Philipsburg, Pike River, Stanbridge Station, Bedford, Pigeon Hill, Eccles Hill, Shefford, and Waterloo. Some of the communities are on the larger side, though many communities in the region are at least somewhat more on the rural side. At the eastern end of the Estrie region, however, are more Francophone names in the region.

Hype for the Future 61D: Richford, Vermont

Introduction

Richford is the northeasternmost town in Franklin County, Vermont, bounded to the east by the Town of Jay in Orleans County along Route 105, at the very southeast by the Town of Westfield in Orleans County near the Jay Peak Resort, to the south by the Town of Montgomery without a direct state highway connection, to the southwest by the Town of Enosburg where Route 118 provides access to nearby Montgomery and Berkshire, and to the west by the Town of Berkshire along Route 105.

Québec

Within the Town of Richford on the United States side of the border are two (2) distinct border crossings into Québec, Canada, including the crossing at Pinnacle Road in the northwest and the more substantial crossing at Route 139 further east. Though Route 139 only provides direct access to the Town of Richford, access to the nearby Towns of Berkshire and Enosburg is provided by Route 105 approaching the junction with Route 108.

Even extending north into Québec, a disproportionate amount of Anglophone place names exist within the Eastern Townships of the Province, including the Village of Abercorn directly opposite the Town of Richford along Route 139. Abercorn is a town located in Brome-Missisquoi Regional County Municipality, with the Town of Sutton located nearby further to the north and east, still adjacent to Richford, Vermont. Cowansville, another Anglophone name, is the next town with a larger population than Sutton along Route 139, accessible after the international border crossing from Richford, and Granby is an even larger town located yet further to the north along the same route. Interestingly, Route 139 is mostly routed through Anglophone settlements within the Eastern Townships, with the first Francophone name on the line at Vallée-Bleue, followed by Saint-Alphonse on the opposite side of Cowansville. At the northern end of Route 139 is Saint-Nicéphore, a former community now attached to the City of Drummondville, Québec.

Hype for the Future 58C: The Complexities between Maine 🇺🇸 and New Brunswick 🇨🇦

Roosevelt Campobello

The Roosevelt Campobello summer home was most notably associated with the family of Franklin Delano and Eleanor Roosevelt specifically, with the International Park area being jointly serviced by the United States 🇺🇸 and Canada 🇨🇦 in spite of physically being located on Campobello Island, entirely within the Canadian Province of New Brunswick.

Grand Manan

Though the island may occasionally appear closer to the mainland of the United States by way of Maine, the Island of Grand Manan is located entirely within New Brunswick, Canada. Interestingly, even in spite of the Canadian heritage of the entire region, Machias Seal Island, located relatively nearby, is effectively stuck in a border dispute between Canada and the United States, though the island is currently publicly accessible regardless of nationality at this time.

Machias Seal Island

Commonly associated with birdwatching heritage is Machias Seal Island, which even contains a lighthouse in the area, but does not actually maintain a significant permanent settlement and is more of a research settlement disputed between the United States and Canada. According to the United States, Machias Seal Island is rightfully part of the State of Maine, while according to Canada, the exact same island is rightfully part of New Brunswick. The maritime border of the United States and Canada overall is also more directed toward separating Maine from Nova Scotia by way of effectively dividing the Bay of Fundy from the remainder of the Gulf of Maine.

Hype for the Future 58B: Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada 🇨🇦

Introduction

Grand Manan is located along the border of the United States 🇺🇸 and Canada 🇨🇦, with the territory on the entirety of the island belonging to Canada and specifically to the province of New Brunswick. Located at the extreme southwest of New Brunswick and relatively close to the eastern edge of Maine around Lubec and West Quoddy Head, the Island of Grand Manan quietly maintains cultural traits similar to the traits elsewhere in the Maritimes as well as in the Down East region of the State of Maine.

Amenities

The Island of Grand Manan is located within the Canadian Province of New Brunswick, with cultural amenities and associated traits often inherited from the early New England Yankee settlers and in particular the United Empire Loyalists. While many of the United Empire Loyalists were actually from the New Netherland area and settled largely around Saint John along the Bay of Fundy in southern New Brunswick, numerous other United Empire Loyalists were also from elsewhere in the Mid-Atlantic as well as New England, with some also settling in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island nearby.

Given the cultural traits and history of the United Empire Loyalists, often defining the culture of Atlantic Canada very similarly to the New England states, Grand Manan is home to a few hotels and motels as well as a notable art center and an island art gallery. Ferry service is accessible primarily in the Canadian direction, with access to a smaller island nearby as well as to the mainland at Blacks Harbour, New Brunswick.

Hype for the Future 53G: Uptown, Midtown, and Downtown Toronto

Background

The largest city in Canada and provincial capital city of Ontario, Toronto is home to massive urban infrastructure, even if the region is smaller than the Chicago region by overall population. Located on the northern side of Lake Ontario, Toronto is organized into numerous urbanized areas with the central locations at Uptown, Midtown, and Downtown, from northwest to southeast, eventually approaching Lake Ontario itself. On the opposite side of Lake Ontario is the Niagara region on both the United States and Canadian sides of the region, with the locations within the United States physically located at the western end of the State of New York.

Attractions

Perhaps the most iconic of attractions located within Toronto is the CN Tower, as the architectural style of the tower is quite distinct both at a national scale and at a global scale. Casa Loma, the Aga Khan Museum, and the Royal Ontario Museum are each associated with major tourist attractions within the city, and the Fort York National Historic Site is also a renowned marker of the modern culture of the city and of the Great Lakes region in general. Though the general region, into the suburban zones nearest Lake Ontario, is highly urbanized and historically so, the modern symptoms of suburbia have largely impacted the portions of the urban and metropolitan area located relatively further inland.

Historic Communities Elsewhere

Within the Greater Toronto area, from Hamilton through Oshawa, additional locations of interest are typically identified as historic sites, such as Parkwood in Oshawa and the steam heritage in Hamilton.

Hype for the Future 49I: Saint-Pierre and Miquelon 🇵🇲

Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon refers to an awkwardly positioned French overseas territory, extremely close to the Island of Newfoundland yet not included within the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada 🇨🇦. Even though the area is generally associated with Anglo-Irish culture, the islands comprising Saint Pierre and Miquelon 🇵🇲 are often associated with quintessential New France as remnants descended from the mother country.

Frequently Asked Questions: Maine Edition

Is Maine part of the Maritimes?

No. Maine is not part of the Maritimes nor part of Canada at all, in any capacity. Machias Seal Island may be part of an ongoing border dispute between the United States and Canada (Maine and New Brunswick), but no, Maine is not part of the Maritimes.

Is Aroostook County Canadian?

Per the historic Webster-Ashburton Treaty, the vast majority of the Aroostook Valley would become part of the territory of the United States, with only the northernmost sections becoming part of Canada. The Treaty was mostly associated with Maine and New Brunswick, and not necessarily with Québec.

The western part of Aroostook County is very sparsely populated. How do we know it is not Canadian?

Again, population density does not determine the nationality of a certain locale, anywhere, worldwide. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty area is not the only area with such sparse population density, either; the northern extremities of counties such as Oxford, Penobscot, and Piscataquis may also be similarly rural but outside of the Aroostook Valley entirely.

Important Notes about Maine

Maine is a very heavily identified multicultural state, which may be quite a surprise to individuals, groups, and entire communities not from the State. While much of Southern Maine and into the Down East region, where mountains continue all the way into the Atlantic Ocean (a unique feature of Maine amongst the East Coast states, more typically identified along the West/Pacific Coast), is identified as the location of numerous art colonies, most notably Ogunquit and Kennebunkport, the interior of the State of Maine is quite different. While much of the interior is authentically identified as firmly typical for the State, Aroostook County may also hold quite a few surprises. Despite the small population for a relatively large footprint of over twenty percent of statewide land area, the County offers a solar system model along U.S. Route 1, thanks to the University of Maine at Presque Isle. There are also just a few attractions in Aroostook County that may contain a glimpse of the past, even comparable to much of the Canadian Maritimes, thanks to the historic Webster-Ashburton Treaty. Also of interest is the Aroostook River for which the County is named: The river actually flows into the Saint John River at the former Canadian village of Aroostook, Victoria County, New Brunswick (Nouveau-Brunswick), which in turn flows into the Bay of Fundy.