Calais, ME
Border Towns: Good neighbors through the centuries
The St. Croix River marks the international boundary between the United States and Canada, a natural border between the towns on its banks—Calais (pop. 4,000) in Maine and St. Stephen (pop. 5,000) in New Brunswick. Residents in both towns today say they’re more like one community than two, just as they were during the War of 1812, when St. Stephen gave Calais gunpowder for its July Fourth celebration.
“Even though the two countries were at war then, we weren’t battling here. We’re too close,” says Linda LaFrance, president of the International Homecoming Festival that salutes the friendship between Calais and St. Stephen every August.
Keith Guttormsen, executive director of the Calais Regional Chamber of Commerce, agrees. “It’s just like one community. If you didn’t have to go across the border, you wouldn’t know the difference.”
Here, in an area that’s largely wilderness—the forested home of white-tailed deer and black bear, where bald eagles soar and blueberries grow on rocky slopes—the towns meet on a bridge across the St. Croix, creating one long main street. Residents shop in both towns, sports teams play each other, town councils meet socially, and joint interests, from waterways to festivals, are shared.
“If I want to go to a movie, I go to Calais,” says St. Stephen’s mayor, Allan Gillmor. “If someone wanted to go skating, they’d come to St. Stephen. In a sense, we’ve reciprocated in the types of facilities we provide.”
Guttormsen adds, “If there’s a big fire here, St. Stephen’s fire department comes; if it’s over there, Calais goes. I don’t see how you could get much more cooperation between two towns. Even if they’re not needed at the fire, they’ll always send somebody to man the local firehouse.”
The towns also share a key place in North American history. Nearly four centuries ago, French explorers landed on nearby St. Croix Island and spent the winter mapping the coast from the Bay of Fundy south to Cape Cod.
St. Croix Island holds special meaning for the 16 million North Americans of French descent, says Deborah Wade, a National Park Service chief interpreter. “Many of them look to St. Croix Island as the site where French ancestral roots took hold,” she explains, even though the settlement wasn’t permanent. And knowledge gained from the local Passamaquoddy people may have helped the French survive as they moved on.
“The events that took place there were very important to the people, both of Canadian and U.S. citizenship. It’s part of the heritage of both countries,” Wade says. As a result, St. Croix Island was named the National Park Service’s first International Historic Site.
Permanent settlers made their way to Calais in the late 1770s, with St. Stephen being settled shortly afterward. As the two towns shared a commerce built on shipbuilding and lumber, they laid the foundations of their current relationship, recognized in the International Homecoming Festival.
“The Rotary Club started the festival in 1974 as a three-day event,” LaFrance says. In 2001, the festival runs Aug. 3 to 12, and is expected to draw as many as 10,000 people. Although the organizing committee manages cornerstone events, such as the parade and fireworks, community groups in both towns choose and organize other activities, from lumberjack contests to craft fairs. Class reunions and former residents use the festival as the ideal time to return home.
“Everyone looks forward to it,” LaFrance says.
In keeping with their traditions, Calais and St. Stephen are currently working together on plans for 2004, when they’ll celebrate the St. Croix Island settlement’s 400th anniversary.
“Our relationship is a product of history and geography,” Gillmor says. “And once you get intermixing through marriage and friendships and so on, borders don’t mean much.”
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