Estcourt Station (elevation: , pop. 4) is a village within the

Big Twenty Township The Big Twenty Township is an administrative division in Aroostook County in northern Maine. It is one of the largest townships in Maine, and contains Estcourt Station, a village of four people that is the northernmost point in Maine. The towns ...

in the state of Maine. It is the northernmost point in Maine and

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces o ...

. The ZIP Code for Estcourt Station is 04741.

Overview

Estcourt Station is located on the

Canada–United States border The border between Canada and the United States is the longest international border in the world. The terrestrial boundary (including boundaries in the Great Lakes, Atlantic, and Pacific coasts) is long. The land border has two sections: Can ...

between Maine and

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirteen ...

, at the southern end of Lake Pohenegamook in the

North Maine Woods The North Maine Woods is the northern geographic area of the state of Maine in the United States. The thinly populated region is overseen by a combination of private individual and private industrial owners and state government agencies, and is di ...

region. It derives its name from the adjacent village of Estcourt, Quebec, which is part of the larger municipality of

Pohénégamook Pohénégamook, Quebec (pop. 2940) is a Canadian town on the Canada–United States border in Quebec's Témiscouata Regional County Municipality. The town shares the border with Estcourt Station, Maine, the northernmost point in New England. ...

. The Estcourt Station–Pohénégamook Border Crossing is staffed during the work week, usually for processing

logging truck A logging truck or timber lorry is a large truck used to carry logs. Some have integrated flatbeds, some are discrete tractor units, and some are configured to spread a load between the tractor unit and a dollied trailer pulled behind it. Ofte ...

s that access Maine's North Woods to haul

timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, w ...

to Quebec

saw mill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...

s. The populated part of Estcourt Station is essentially a sliver of the village of Estcourt that was cut off when the international boundary was properly surveyed through the area (see

Webster–Ashburton Treaty The Webster–Ashburton Treaty, signed August 9, 1842, was a treaty that resolved several border issues between the United States and the British North American colonies (the region that became Canada). Signed under John Tyler's presidency, it ...

). It consists of a row of several houses along Rue Frontière, a street on the Quebec side of the border, some of which were built before the survey and which the border now passes through. Although the US census reports that four people live in the village, according to a

Canada Border Services Agency The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA; french: Agence des services frontaliers du Canada, ''ASFC'') is a federal law enforcement agency that is responsible for border control (i.e. protection and surveillance), immigration enforcement, and cus ...

agent no one lives in Estcourt Station full-time . A few U.S. residents live in the village during the summer. They must follow the hours of the border control stations; thus, after 5 p.m. on Friday, they cannot leave until 8 a.m. Monday. Anyone wishing to travel between Pohénégamook and Estcourt Station legally after hours would have to travel on hundreds of miles of private logging roads through the North Maine Woods that are difficult to navigate during spring and summer rains, and almost inaccessible because of snow during the winter; there are no towns or paved roads in the North Maine Woods. Likewise, Estcourt Station is connected to

Hydro-Québec Hydro-Québec is a public utility that manages the electricity generation, generation, electric power transmission, transmission and electricity distribution, distribution of electricity in the Canadian province of Quebec, as well as the export o ...

for

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...

. The community receives

drinking water Drinking water is water that is used in drink or food preparation; potable water is water that is safe to be used as drinking water. The amount of drinking water required to maintain good health varies, and depends on physical activity level, ...

and other municipal services from Pohénégamook.

Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN i ...

's transcontinental main line between Halifax and

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

passes immediately north of Rue de la Frontière.

Michel Jalbert incident

In October 2002, a

resident named Michel Jalbert, was arrested by two U.S. Border Patrol officers from the Canadian border after he had driven across to Estcourt Station to buy gas for his truck (Location:). After he spent more than a month in a US federal prison, he was released and allowed to return to Canada on a $5,000 bond. U.S. agents said Jalbert had driven past a closed U.S. Customs Service post and not declared he was entering the United States. They also cited him for being a convicted Canadian felon (he was 19-years-old when he was given a non-custodial sentence for breaking and entering in 1990) and being in possession of an illegal firearm; his shotgun is very common in this part of Canada during the

partridge A partridge is a medium-sized galliform bird in any of several genera, with a wide native distribution throughout parts of Europe, Asia and Africa. Several species have been introduced to the Americas. They are sometimes grouped in the Perdi ...

hunting season. In March 2003 Jalbert pled guilty in a US federal court to a charge he crossed the US-Canadian border illegally; his sentence was a

plea deal A plea bargain (also plea agreement or plea deal) is an agreement in criminal law proceedings, whereby the prosecutor provides a concession to the defendant in exchange for a plea of guilt or ''nolo contendere.'' This may mean that the defendant ...

that was 35 days time already served in jail, two years of supervised release and no fines (prior to the deal he faced a maximum sentence of 20½ years and up to $500,000 in fines). The US Secretary of State at the time,

Colin Powell Colin Luther Powell ( ; April 5, 1937 – October 18, 2021) was an American politician, statesman, diplomat, and United States Army officer who served as the 65th United States Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African ...

called the incident "unfortunate" during a visit to Canada. The US Border agents that stopped Jalbert were said to have only recently been transferred from the

Mexico–United States border The Mexico–United States border ( es, frontera Estados Unidos–México) is an international border separating Mexico and the United States, extending from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the Gulf of Mexico in the east. The border traver ...

(as part of an effort to strengthen the USA after the

9/11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerci ...

in 2001). Jalbert believed he was stopped and made an example to show the rules were being tightened. After the incident the gas station in Estcourt Station said its trade significantly declined. The gas station has since been closed as of September 2021.

Climate

According to the Köppen climate classification system, Estcourt Station has a Warm-summer,

humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezin ...

(''Dfb''). ''Dfb'' climates are characterized by a least one month having an average mean temperature ≤ , at least four months with an average mean temperature ≥ , all months with an average mean temperature < and no significant precipitation difference between seasons. Although most summer days are comfortably humid in Estcourt Station, episodes of warmth and high humidity can occur with

heat index The heat index (HI) is an index that combines air temperature and relative humidity, in shaded areas, to posit a human-perceived equivalent temperature, as how hot it would feel if the humidity were some other value in the shade. The result is al ...

values > . Since 1981, the highest air temperature was on July 5, 2008, and the highest daily average mean dew point was on July 2, 2002. The average wettest month is July which corresponds with the annual peak in

thunderstorm A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorms are somet ...

activity. Since 1981, the wettest calendar day was on October 15, 2005. During the winter months, the average annual extreme minimum air temperature is . Since 1981, the coldest air temperature was on January 16, 2009. Episodes of extreme cold and wind can occur with wind chill values < . The average annual snowfall (Sep-May) is > .

Ecology

According to the A. W. Kuchler U.S.

potential natural vegetation In ecology, potential natural vegetation (PNV), also known as Kuchler potential vegetation, is the vegetation that would be expected given environmental constraints (climate, geomorphology, geology) without human intervention or a hazard eve ...

types, Estcourt Station would have a dominant vegetation type of Northern

Hardwood Hardwood is wood from dicot trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen. Hardwood (which comes ...

Spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the s ...

(''108'') with a dominant vegetation form of Northern

s (''23''). The

plant hardiness zone A hardiness zone is a geographic area defined as having a certain average annual minimum temperature, a factor relevant to the survival of many plants. In some systems other statistics are included in the calculations. The original and most wide ...

is 3b with an average annual extreme minimum air temperature of . The spring bloom typically peaks around May 17 and fall color usually peaks around September 25.

Notes

External links