Aroostook County

Aroostook County covers the far northern reaches of Maine, the broad agricultural and forest country that takes up the entire top of the state — the largest county east of the Mississippi River. The terrain is gently rolling — open potato fields and the Aroostook River bottomland in the center, dense northern hardwood and spruce-fir forest filling most of the eastern and western edges. The Canadian border defines the entire northern and eastern boundary. Aroostook County is the only county in the region. Anchor towns include Presque Isle (the largest city), Caribou, Houlton (the eastern gateway from I-95), Fort Kent (the start of US-1, running 2,369 miles south to Key West), Madawaska, Van Buren, Limestone, and Ashland. Aroostook State Park (Maine’s first state park, established in 1939) and the Allagash Wilderness Waterway handle most of the public-land scenery. Most trips here are seasonal-outdoor focused. Snowmobiling and cross-country skiing dominate winter — the county has more than 2,300 miles of groomed snowmobile trails; summer carries fishing on the Aroostook and Saint John, hiking in the Deboullie Public Lands, and the Acadian Festival in Madawaska.