VAN BUREN, Maine — Van Buren’s Acadian Village brought guests back centuries in time on Saturday as a blacksmith worked in his shop while others sewed quilts and prepared traditional French food.

It is northern Aroostook’s first large-scale immersion event. It coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Acadian Village. The village has seventeen buildings, with the oldest dating back to the 1790s, all of which are connected to early French heritage. The village is the second-largest of its kind in the United States.

The Saturday festivities cap off a “Living Acadia” (or “Acadie Vivante”) workshop that brought educators throughout the entire state together to learn about Maine’s French settlers and heritage. The workshop began Tuesday and ends on Sunday. Activities took place throughout the St. John Valley and included history lessons at the University of Maine at Fort Kent’s Acadian Archives, lectures on Acadian identity, French language lessons and cooking in a traditional outdoor bread oven.

Most of the workshop was specifically for instructors, but the Saturday immersion event was open to the general public.

Fort Fairfield French teacher Jonna Boure led the workshop’s activities. The immersion event at the Acadian was inspired by King’s Landing in Fredericton, which includes people acting out several historical roles. Boure has also worked at the Acadian Village for several years.

Boure, dressed in period clothing, said on Saturday morning after showing guests around the Roy House, the village’s oldest building, that everything was going fantastically. She also commended the work of Cindy Matthews, a Waterboro French teacher who also serves as vice president of the American Association of Teachers of French’s Maine chapter.

While Boure instigated the event, Matthews brought her prior experience with organizing institutes focused on studying Acadian history.

Matthews worked with Boure on creating the workshop. She ran the village’s post office during the event. Even the post office was tailored to accurately represent the experience of sending letters during the early days of French settlers. Guests could use hand stamps on their own postcards, and they would later be sent through the actual mail.

Some participants acted out roles based on historical figures and their heritage. Diane Michaud greeted guests in French as Evangeline, the protagonist in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem about a woman separated from her husband following the expulsion of Acadians in the 1700s. Michaud’s husband, Ron, was dressed as his ancestor Pierre Michaud, one of the first Acadians to come off the boat and settle in the Canadian village of Kamouraska.

At the blacksmith shop, Matt Grandy demonstrated how metal items were made using tools from the 19th century.

“The blacksmith was a very important person in town,” he said. “At the period of time when the Acadian Village was starting, basically everything that was metal would have come from the blacksmith shop – your door hinges, latches, the both on the inside of the odor, nails, different things in the kitchen, some of the pots and pans, and the irons in the fireplace.

The blacksmith’s shop, since nearly everyone had to go there at some point, was also a central community hub where people often met and even gossiped about what was happening in town.

“It was a good place for the exchange of information as well as the exchange of goods,” Grandy said.

People have already approached organizers about holding another event in the future, Matthews said, adding that part of the focus is emphasizing that French people, and the French language, is still alive in Maine.

“We want more people to know that there’s living French in our state, not just a historical thing that happened, but that there are still real people who speak French and that this is a place coming to and learning about,” Matthews said. “So, in terms of that, this has definitely been a success.”

The Maine Marine Patrol has launched the newest and largest patrol vessel in its fleet, the 57-foot P/V Allegiance, which will support safer and more effective offshore patrols, according to the Maine Marine Patrol, in a news release. The vessel was officially put into service on Thursday, June 11, during a christening event at Perry’s Lobster in Surry.

“Maine Marine Patrol routinely patrols commercial fishing activity offshore and hauls and inspects tens of thousands of lobster traps annually,” said Marine Patrol Colonel Matt Talbot, in the news release.

“While still capable of supporting Marine Patrol’s mission near shore, the new vessel will better position Marine Patrol to conduct offshore commercial fisheries enforcement, including the ability to safely haul and inspect large lobster trawls in federal waters,” said Colonel Talbot.

The vessel will also be used to respond to search and rescue incidents, monitor fisheries in addition to Lobster including scallop, Atlantic Herring, Menhaden, and Groundfish, and others.

The P/V Allegiance will be based in Boothbay Harbor and assigned to Marine Patrol Specialist Evan Whidden. It replaces the 29-year-old, 35-foot P/V Vigilant.

The P/V Allegiance was constructed and finished by Wesmac Custom Boats in Surry.

“This is the fifth patrol vessel built or refitted by Wesmac and we are once again very pleased with the quality of work and attention to detail by the Wesmac team,” said Colonel Talbot.

The P/V Allegiance is powered by a low-emission Tier 4 Man Diesel V-12 1450hp engine which can cruise in excess of 20 knots. It is equipped with state-of-the-art Furuno navigation electronics, and a heavy duty 17-inch hauler. It has significant deck space and an open stern which will allow Officers to safely handle and set back the larger offshore lobster trawls Marine Patrol Officers will be inspecting. The vessel is also equipped to carry a 15-foot Ribcraft Rigid Hull Inflatable boat on deck, which can be used for at-sea boardings to check vessels for compliance with marine resources laws.

PORTLAND (WGME) — Maine Governor Janet Mills has not yet decided whether the state will opt into a new federal tax credit program that would help fund private school tuition, tutoring and other educational services.

The program, called the Educational Choice for Children Act, would start next year. In states that opt in, individuals can receive up to $1,700 in tax credits for donations they make to scholarship-granting organizations, also known as SGOs. Those SGOs would then award grants to students to cover private school tuition, tutoring and other educational services.

Families earning up to 300 percent of the area median income can qualify for the scholarships in states that opt in.

Under the current framework, donors contribute to SGOs and receive federal tax credits, and SGOs use the funds to award scholarships for qualifying educational expenses, including tuition, fees, tutoring, curriculum materials and educational therapy for K-12 students. SGOs can also use donated money to award scholarships for educational expenses, including everything from private school tuition to special needs services and educational therapy.

Each state’s governor must opt in by filing IRS Form 15714. Once opted in, the state designates SGOs to operate within its borders and distribute EFTC scholarships to eligible families.

Republican State Senator James Libby of Cumberland, a member of the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee, says he is interested in bringing the program to Maine.

“What it really does is it takes dollars that would normally go to pay for taxes and put them directly into education,” Libby said. “The program itself allows for expenditures for other things besides school choice, so the states can set it up the nonprofit to have goals for whatever they want. There’s a lot of good parts to this legislation and I truly hope Maine will get involved.”

Democratic Rep. Kelly Murphy, who chairs the state’s education committee, says she believes the program would hurt Maine students.

“The Education Freedom Tax Credit favors families that already have the ability to pay for private schools at the expense of families with students enrolled in public schools,” Murphy said. “A decline in public school enrollment would result in a loss of state funding for local SAUs, as the costs for running schools continue to increase, putting additional pressure on property taxpayers to make up the gap. This program and others like it would hurt the majority of Maine students, especially those in small, rural schools across our state.”

The U.S. Department of the Treasury is in the process of finalizing rulemaking for the program. Currently, 30 states have opted into the program, and four states have opted out. In New England, New Hampshire is the only state that has opted in so far.

It is unclear if there is a hard deadline for states to opt in, but Mills is facing pressure to sign off this year so the Department of the Treasury can approve scholarship organizations before scholarships become available in January.