FORT KENT, Maine – Three graduate classes from Clemson and Georgetown Universities are working with the town of Fort Kent on a wayfinding project that will highlight everything the northern Aroostook town has to offer.
The idea of the wayfinding project is to ensure that people visiting Fort Kent don’t miss out on local places to visit. Town Manager Suzie Paradis said some of the larger spots being highlighted will include the Lonesome Pine Trails ski resort, the Maine Winter Sports Center, and the town’s historic blockhouse, which was built for the “bloodless” Aroostook War in 1838,
The gateways leading into Fort Kent on the east and west side of town on Route 1 will also be highlighted, along with entrances from Route 11 and Route 161, and the bridge across the St. John River from Canada. She said the placement of these entrance signs will essentially make a star shape in the middle of Fort Kent.
Grad students at Clemson University in South Carolina are finishing up an Information Design class in which they conducted interviews and focus groups with town officials to work on develop a proposal that will touch on the new information system behind the wayfinding project, which includes the location, material, and content of signs that will help visitors navigate the northern Maine border town.
The collaboration is being led by Scott Schmidt, a professor at Georgetown, Clemson, and Drexel universities. Schmidt said the wayfinding system is more than just placing signs throughout a community. The system tells the history of the town while providing a user-friendly experience for tourists and newcomers to the community.
Schmidt has worked with other St. John Valley towns on past projects. His first collaboration was with the town of Van Buren, which like Fort Kent is located on Maine’s northern border with Canada. He found Van Buren by googling “rural design” early last year, which led to him discovering that the town received a grant from the Citizens Institute on Rural Design.
Schmidt reached out to Luke Dyer, Van Buren’s town manager, and since then he has collaborated with the town on projects including the creation of art pieces for its historical walkway, a brochure emphasizing the town’s competitive electric rates, and the creation of a business incubator. Schmidt has also worked with the town of St. Agatha on a rebranding project.
Dyer gave a speech about the town’s collaboration with Schmidt during a recent Aroostook County municipal manager’s meeting, which inspired Paradis to reach out.
Schmidt, who is from western New York, traveled to Aroostook County this summer to attend Van Buren’s “Christmas in July” festival and visited Fort Kent and about 10 other towns about potential collaborations.
“Suzie rolled out the red carpet and really went the extra mile,” Schmidt said. “She drove me around town and showed me points of interest. It really gave me a good overview of the town itself, and what the possibilities could be for the towns and for future classes.”
The Information Design class is wrapping up their work this week, and will record a video to present to the Fort Kent town council later this month. The project will then go to students at Georgetown University next semester to develop a digital app experience for the signs, and then during the following semester, a rural development class at Clemson will work on how this project could actually be implemented.
The project will provide students in the three classes with valuable career experience and the town will not be charged. Once the work is finished and the scope and price of implementing it is established, town officials could choose to fund installation of the signs. Paradis said it is currently too early to say what the project would cost.
Schmidt says he is looking forward to continuing to work with Fort Kent and other towns in the region.
“One of the reasons why I keep working with smaller towns in northern Maine is the pride that they have for their Canadian heritage, but also their openness to new ideas,” he said. “It seems to be a real vital mix. The signage isn’t just there to say ‘parking this way,’ but it’s really to highlight what the town’s all about and the story that town has to tell.”
