There is no hiding from Lyme disease-carrying deer ticks these days. But your best chance at avoiding them may be to head north on U.S. Route 1 and don’t stop until you reach the Canadian border in Fort Kent. Since the state’s first reported sighting of a deer tick in 1996 on a red squirrel, they have spread to all of Maine’s 16 counties. Despite this impressive population and range expansion, there are still places in Maine where you are less likely to encounter deer ticks, according to one of the state’s top tick experts. “There is a population size gradient,” said Griffin Dill, manager of the University of Maine Cooperative Extension Tick Lab.