The ill-fated sugar beet venture of the 1960s did not last long, but its legacy lives on in the industrial hub of Easton and its influence in the rest of Aroostook County, as well as in the memory of John Cancelarich.
Cancelarich will be sharing his stories of the sugar beet and its aftermath this Saturday, Nov. 12, at Presque Isle’s Turner Memorial Library, starting at 11 a.m.
Cancelarich, 86, was the engineer behind numerous food processing plants in The County and got his start through Fred Vahlsing, whose sugar beet factory Cancelarich briefly managed before it left taxpayers on the hook for some $30 million in failed financing and pollution of the Prestile Stream.
Today, the former site of Vahlsing’s potato plant is the McCain Foods factory, while the former sugar beet site is now Huber Engineered Woods. Cancelarich was working and living nearby through all of that evolution, and his own story is just as interesting. Unlike sugar beets or Vahlsing, Cancelarich stuck around and has lived in Presque Isle for more than 50 years.
