Maine’s northernmost resident tells US Postal Service, ‘I exist’

Sep. 20—On the northern tip of Maine, past state roads and companies, the tiny village in Aroostook County’s Massive Twenty Township known as Estcourt Station is a nod to the close by Canadian rail line that runs coast to coast.

Data present {that a} century in the past, when mills have been thriving and farming and logging required extra palms, the village had 100 or extra residents. By 1960, it had half that. The 2010 census counted simply 4 folks.

In the present day, Estcourt Station has only one everlasting resident: Steve Stahlman, a 67-year-old veteran.

The northernmost Mainer lives in an outdated home on Rue de la Frontière, a paved street that goes out and in of america earlier than it reaches a bit of park beside Kelly Rapids. He has a couple of seasonal neighbors on the American facet of the border, however is the one one who lives and votes in Maine.

Stahlman purchased his home in 2017, counting on the twice-a-week mail service to permit him to pay his payments, correspond with the U.S. Veterans Administration and forged absentee ballots by mail.

But because the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the america Postal Service has ceased bringing mail to or from Estcourt Station. In its place, it provided to offer Stahlman a free put up workplace field he might solely attain by driving on 38 miles of personal logging roads or making a large circle by Canada on 60 miles of paved freeway.

Not surprisingly, Stahlman shouldn’t be thrilled with the brand new association.

“You may as nicely give me a put up workplace field in San Diego, for all the great it would do me,” Stahlman stated Monday. “It might sound like I am simply bellyaching a few small factor, nevertheless it’s not.

“Think about if you happen to needed to drive 38 miles down a logging street, climate allowing, simply to get to Allagash, after which one other 10 miles to the put up workplace at St. Francis earlier than it closes, or worse, one other 30 miles to Fort Kent to get your mail?

“Each time I hear that USPS slogan ‘Delivering to each family in America’ I feel to myself ‘all however one,’” Stahlman stated.

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Lesley Blethen, a supervisor on the U.S. Postal Service’s northern New England workplace, wrote in a 2020 letter that the put up workplace, to economize, had determined to stop service to Estcourt Station and provide free put up workplace packing containers as a substitute. Blethen prompt Stahlman attempt logging roads to shorten the lengthy drive.

Stahlman has tried to persuade politicians to lend him a hand in restoring mail service, however up to now he has had no luck. He has not given up but.

After his father died in 2015, when Stahlman lived in Alabama, with its stifling warmth, he determined he wish to purchase one thing in New Brunswick, the place summers can be kinder. However problematic Canadian legal guidelines satisfied him to take a look at Maine.

Rising up “an Military brat,” Stahlman stated he spent his early years on Boston’s North Shore, earlier than transferring to Kentucky as a youngster. He stated he has cherished northern New England since attending a Boy Scout camp in New Hampshire as a baby, so the thought of going to Maine appeared stable.

Checking an internet actual property website, Stahlman stated, “I noticed a crimson dot proper there on the prime of the state” and purchased a home sight unseen from a retired — and legendary — sport warden named Philip Dumond.

Stahlman initially deliberate to make use of it as a seasonal place, like so many others who view Maine as a candy summertime escape, however when he received there to take a look round, Stahlman fell in love. It took him lower than two weeks to resolve he would stay there completely.

“Behind me,” he stated, “there are 38 miles of Maine wilderness.”

The little neighborhood in Maine the place he lives has “4 or 5 homes” in a few sq. mile. It makes for a singular, fairly spot, an space the place Canadians from the close by city of a number of thousand folks come ceaselessly to fish or hang around by the St. Francis River and woods.

If it weren’t for the worldwide border, with its peculiar guidelines, it will appear like Stahlman’s street was merely a part of the Quebec city of Pohénégamook, which picks up his trash and recycling, and supplies municipal water, as if he was an honest-to-goodness Canadian. He will get his electrical energy from Hydro-Québec and the phone space code for Estcourt Station is from Canada.

Stahlman stated he should be cautious about crossing the border with out checking in with border brokers. If he tousled, it might carry a $5,000 fantastic from his personal nation. The Canadian brokers, he stated, are “tremendous pleasant” and pose no drawback.

Nonetheless, Stahlman is so gung-ho concerning the neighborhood that he purchased Maine and U.S. flags to fly from the American facet of a pedestrian footbridge that crosses the border.

“As remoted as it’s,” he stated, Estcourt is a superb, stunning place.

Estcourt doesn’t have a lot. But it surely does, oddly, have its personal zip code — 04741.

When COVID-19 slammed the world starting within the late winter of 2020, restrictions fell like rain from bureaucrats all over the place who have been attempting to comprise the unfold of the doubtless lethal virus.

One of many new guidelines imposed principally shut down the border between america and Canada, creating an apparent drawback for Estcourt Station since there was not any strategy to get to it with out crossing the border.

Stahlman couldn’t even drive down his personal avenue with out passing a concrete put up on the curbside marking an invisible line that sliced throughout the pavement and proper by some homes.

“I used to be compelled to relocate briefly away from my dwelling,” Stahlman stated.

Happily, he stated, he has retired and may go the place he likes, so it was not that huge a hardship.

Stahlman stated he stored checking on his home after mud season, however couldn’t transfer again till the border reopened a few 12 months in the past.

Within the meantime, the put up workplace did a survey of mail recipients in Estcourt Station to find out if anybody would care if it dropped the twice-a-week supply to a cluster of 9 mailboxes behind the Canadian customs constructing.

Since no person might moderately keep in Estcourt Station given the journey restrictions on the time, the put up workplace heard no complaints concerning the concept throughout its 30-day remark interval. Stahlman by no means knew it occurred, till it was too late.

Listening to nothing, the U.S. Postal Service declared in September 2020 it will now not ship somebody out to drive from Fort Kent to the city twice weekly. Mail service basically ended for the neighborhood.

For a tiny place, Estcourt Station has lengthy been a supply of complications for everybody from farmers to diplomats.

In 1938, the Parliament of Canada in Ottawa took up dialogue of a petition from the Union of Catholic Farmers in Estcourt Station, begging lawmakers to annex their city and make it a part of Quebec.

On the time, the village had 100 residents, most of them French Canadians who had wound up on america facet of the border by happenstance.

Remoted by 50 miles of forest, the farmers stated of their petition they’d no roads or technique of communication with the remainder of america and, in consequence, dealt completely with Canada. They have been particularly irked at having to pay customs duties to purchase and promote something, since Canadians have been their solely potential consumers and retailers.

Parliament tossed apart the petition with out severe consideration. In spite of everything, Estcourt Station’s woes weren’t its drawback. Moreover, Maine’s governor weighed in to insist the state wouldn’t sacrifice a sliver of its territory.

Later in 1938, American customs brokers seized 5 horses, three cows and a sheep that had wandered from a facet of a area in Canada throughout the meadow to U.S. territory. They didn’t have permission. U.S. brokers bought the animals again to their house owners for a complete of $181.

Half a century in the past, the city landed in sizzling water when a neighborhood established an outside theater that confirmed X-rated films that drew crowds from Canada. No one might do a lot to cease it as a result of authorities barely existed on the native degree, though a U.S. Customs workplace there stored an indication on its wall reminding folks something smuggled in must be smuggled out once more to achieve anybody past Estcourt Station.

However the greatest drawback arose in 2002, after america beefed up border safety following terrorist assaults, when a Pohénégamook resident, Michel Jalbert, who had lengthy purchased gasoline from a station in Estcourt Station, like many Canadians within the space, was stopped by two U.S. Border Patrol officers simply shy of the border.

They discovered a gun used for partridge searching within the truck and charged Jalbert with crossing the border illegally and held him behind bars for a month. He finally pleaded responsible and was launched for time served.

It was such a well-publicized incident, with Canadians up in arms, that the U.S. secretary of state on the time, Colin Powell, needed to handle what he known as an “unlucky incident” and assist organize for the deal to carry it to an finish.

Stahlman stated he’s not proud of the U.S. Postal Service as a result of he thinks its common service obligation shouldn’t be met by providing him a put up workplace field so removed from his home.

He stated he spoke with put up workplace officers, however received nowhere with them. He offered emails that present he tried.

Stahlman stated he additionally reached out to U.S. Rep. Jared Golden’s workplace as a result of his expertise working within the authorities through the years taught him bureaucrats typically listen after they assume a congressman is watching.

Golden’s workplace seemed into it, emails point out, and sought with out success a method for Stahlman to obtain his mail.

Pissed off, Stahlman stated he wrote a letter to the editor of the Bangor Day by day Information in October 2020, detailing his expertise with the put up workplace and Golden. Earlier than its publication, he stated, Golden’s workplace requested him to rescind the letter whereas it investigated the difficulty additional.

So Stahlman complied. However, he stated, nothing extra occurred.

From Stahlman’s perspective, “they simply blew me off.”

However Golden’s workplace did speak with postal officers, emails present. It simply didn’t discover a answer that labored for his annoyed constituent.

Nick Zeller, a spokesman for Golden, stated: “As we do with all constituent requests, the congressman’s workplace strongly advocated on Mr. Stahlman’s behalf to the related federal businesses and communicated with him all through the method. Now we have labored to discover a answer and brought each motion obtainable to us, and we’re dissatisfied within the response from the U.S. Postal Service.”

Ryan Cunius, a authorities relations consultant for the U.S. Postal Service, wrote to Golden final October.

“Whereas I acknowledge that Mr. Stahlman could also be dissatisfied with this response,” Cunius wrote, “it precisely displays the Postal Service’s coverage and place on this matter.”

In brief, the put up workplace didn’t budge.

Stahlman stated his driver’s license expires in March 2023 and he has no concept how he’ll exchange it.

With out mail service, he stated, how is he presupposed to obtain a brand new license? Or forged a mail-in poll for the Nov. 8 normal election?

He stated People are entitled to mail supply, even when they don’t stay in a serious metropolis. Letters wouldn’t have to be introduced to each door, he stated, however a standard mail drop mustn’t require somebody drive three or 4 hours to get there and again.

Mail despatched to Stahlman nowadays is returned as undeliverable.

Stahlman employed a lawyer who filed a proper grievance with the U.S. Postal Service in April.

The grievance stated the choice to stop supply to Estcourt Station violated a federal regulation that claims postal officers “shall present a most diploma of efficient and common postal companies to rural areas, communities, and small cities the place put up workplaces aren’t self-sustaining. No small put up workplace shall be closed solely for working at a deficit, it being the particular intent of the Congress that efficient postal companies be insured to residents of each city and rural communities.”

The grievance additionally stated forcing Stahlman to journey between his home and both St. Francis or Fort Kent to get his mail would imply he must spend between 90 minutes and two hours on the street every method, if the climate is cheap. That doesn’t meet the requirements imposed by Congress, stated lawyer Jessica Winters of Kentucky.

Stahlman stated he has a message for the officers who reduce off his mail: “I exist, rattling it.”