17 Things Mainers Always Have to Explain to Out-of-Towners

2. Yes, it does snow a lot.

Many school districts build five snow days into the school year. It isn’t uncommon for school to go until mid or late June to make up for all of the snow days in the winter.

3. No, we don’t know every single Mainer.

We understand that Maine’s population is small, but that doesn’t mean that we know everyone.

4. But yeah, we know most folks in our hometown.

Many towns in Maine have less than 10,000 residents, which means that we do know just about everyone in our neck of the woods.

5. It’s super safe.

It’s pretty common for us to leave our doors unlocked. Growing up, my family never locked the door to the house, and my siblings and I never even had keys.

6. You’ll have a hard time finding an Applebee’s.

We don’t have many chain restaurants. In fact, most Maine towns don’t have any at all. You might need to actually check out that local coffee shop.

7. We have been shopping local and eating farm-to-table forever.

Without chain restaurants, we didn’t have much of an option, and since we tend to know the people in our communities, we want to support them.

8. Yes, we have an accent.

A Maine accent is like a more intense version of a Boston accent.

9. You can’t get there from here.

Maine is very rural, and sometimes the roads just don’t take you where you want to go. Usually when Mainers say “you can’t get there from here” they don’t mean it literally, they are trying to say that it might not be easy and it will take longer than you might expect.

10. Mainers love Maine, and they love sharing facts about Maine.

It’s just a Maine thing. Did you know that Maine has more coastline than the rest of the Eastern seaboard combined? Now you do.

11. Supper and dinner are not the same thing in Maine.

Dinner is at noon. Supper is in the evening.

12. The Bush family summers in Maine, not the Kennedys.

It’s surprising how many people get that wrong.

13. We know how to hit a moose without dying.

Hitting a moose is extremely dangerous — they are so tall that they can fall on top of the driver and crush them to death, but it’s totally possible to improve your odds and Mainers know how.

14. We probably don’t know Stephen King.

But we might have seen him around. You can drive up to his home in Bangor which looks just like you would expect Stephen King’s house to look like, i.e. it’s got an iron gate with a spider web and bat motif.

15. Canada is still a long drive away.

Most Mainers live in Southern Maine or along the coast, so Canada isn’t that close. So, no, we didn’t drive to Canada to buy beer when we were underage.

16. We lack diversity.

Over 96% of Maine is white.

17. Our governor is nuts, and we are sorry about that.

Governor LePage has been named America’s Craziest Governor by Politico, and we’re not proud of it.