FORT KENT, Maine — Speakers at an April 30 scholars’ symposium discussed the history of the United States and Canada border, how changes such as the Sept. 11 attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic affected international travel, and how border laws are enforced.
The University of Maine at Fort Kent has hosted symposia since 2010. These day-long events celebrate and showcase the scholarly work of the University’s students. These events focus on issues relevant to the local community. The first symposium, for example, had a theme of “Life, Work, and Sustainability in Rural Communities.”
The symposium featured four student presentations and 50 research posters, with over 85 UMFK students participating altogether.
This year’s theme of the northern border is particularly topical, as President Donald Trump’s trade war and rhetoric about annexing Canada have resulted in reduced travel across the international border.
This year’s event featured three keynote speakers. Dr. Paul Buck began with the history of the northern border and the Webster-Ashburnton Treaty of 1842, which definitively settled contentions about where the border actually stood.
Since 1783, Buck said French was commonly spoken on both sides of the border.
“Even on the U.S. side, French was the first European language, not English,” he said, adding that indigenous people in the area also spoke Wolostaqey and Mi’kmaq languages.
He said that while some may view northern Maine as “the end of the world,” its positioning on the border and majority of French-speaking residents put it in the middle of the action.
Buck referenced scholar Thomas Albert’s “Histoire du Madawaska,” written in 1920, near the end of his presentation.
“I’ll channel [Albert] here,” he said, “the French spoken and the culture in this area is a bridge, in so many ways.”
Keynote speaker Jodi WIlliams, Patrol Agent in Charge (PAIC) of the Houlton Border Patrol Station, talked about the history of border patrol and related agencies, and also gave some insight into the federal hiring process for agents.
While Williams is originally from the Houlton area, she began work on the southern border in Arizona in the year 2000.
Williams’ presentation began with the history of border patrol, which she said started as part of the U.S. Immigration Service back in 1904, at which point the original agents were called mounted guards. Roughly 75 of these mounted guards patrolled all the way from Texas to California.
In 1924, the Labor Appropriations Act was passed, which officially established the border patrol. Following the 9/11 attacks, the Department of Homeland Security was created and 22 federal agencies were combined into a more unified department.
She said that many of the changes that occurred after 9/11 primarily affected those involved in the Office of Field Operations, as border patrol is more focused on traveling between the ports of entry looking for individuals who have potentially circumvented or avoided them.
And while COVID had a significant effect on international travel, Williams said the restrictions have finally relaxed and that international travel is starting to increase since the pandemic first hit.
“We’re excited that we’re able to go across for meetings,” Williams said, “and to do some of those things that we used to be able to do. It’s flourishing once again.”
Dr. Lisa Lavoie, who is an Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science at UMFK, presented an M.A. thesis that she recently completed on the effect of 9/11 on the twin towns of Fort Kent, Maine and Clair, New Brunswick. Her thesis touched on how the aftermath of the attacks transformed perceptions of the border, and also on the effect of the pandemic on mental health and familial relationships in the area.
As part of her research, Lavoie shared statistics on passenger vehicle traffic at the Fort Kent border between 1996 and 2023. Prior to 2001, the numbers were at their highest and rising, with 329,631 passenger vehicles recorded in 1996 and 380,749 recorded in the year 2000. But the number shot down by almost about 80,000 in 2001, the year of the 9/11 attacks.
Lavoie interviewed a U.S. Customs agent who had worked both before and after 9/11, and he spoke to the significant changes that occurred after the attack, and how the crossings now resemble military checkpoints. The agent also told Lavoie that, prior to 9/11, agents were issued bulletproof vests, but that they should be hidden if worn.
“Post-9/11, he said the reverse was true,” she said, adding that he described many of the officers coming out of academies donning paratrooper pants, combat boots and visible flak jackets.
Changes such as this, and the 2009 implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which establishes document requirements for travelers to prove who they are, contributed to continuously declining numbers of border crossings in the area.
“The one universal that I can say is that post-9/11 crossing has never rebounded to pre-9/11 levels, which had been steadily increasing from 1996,” Lavoie said.
And the numbers plummeted even more after the pandemic. In 2021, there were only 13,646 passenger vehicle crossings at the Fort Kent and Clair border.
Lavoie also cited a study conducted by the university’s Acadian Archives called “Voices of the Borderland,” which included interviews with local residents who mentioned that the anxiety and division in the country felt particularly palpable during this time.
Lavoie concluded by looking at present-day issues and the future, citing how the U.S. government unilaterally decided to shut down the primary Canadian access point of the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, a unique landmark that stands directly on the Vermont and Quebec border.
“It is important to note that the openness of this landmark has stood for over a century,” Lavoie said. “And so I leave you with these wonderings: what do taunts of making Canada the 51st state mean for relations? What does the political, economic escalation mean for our borderlands? And finally, what does the contention mean for the Haskell Free Library and Opera House?”
