FORT KENT · FIELD REPORT
US ROUTE 1 MILE ZERO · NORTHERN DOOR
Key West to Fort Kent. That was the journey, and this was the northern end of it. After following Route 1 through the music, people and places along the Eastern seaboard, the search had brought me to the top of Maine. The Northern Door’s Mile Zero display gave the finish its own familiar language: the Route 1 shield, the town’s name, a T-shirt and a coffee mug. A whole road reduced to something you could take home.
By then, northern Maine had already changed what I thought I was finishing. I had expected the last stretch to be largely symbolic, but the discoveries around Acadian history, Celtic music and the Wabanaki connections in Calais had opened more questions than they answered. As I told Lura Jackson at the time, “I’m just scratching the surface here.” Reaching Fort Kent completed the route; it also gave me a reason to come back.
The 2017 expedition was a reconnaissance run. The recordings, photographs, interviews and introductions were the beginnings of an archive that would take longer to understand than it took to drive the highway. Fort Kent closes these Field Reports with that work still ahead: listening again, following the connections and sharing what turned up along the way.
