Independent U.S. Sen. Angus King took a selfie at the Arctic Circle last month while up there watching the U.S. Navy put a new nuclear-powered submarine through its paces.

U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, flew overseas to talk Turkey.

U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine, went on a veterans’ sweep — health care, services and cemeteries — all the way to the Philippines.

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, logged three continents in three foreign tips. If you count Canada.

Over the past two years, Maine’s congressional delegation has traveled far (Arctic Circle), wide (Thailand) and potentially dangerously (West Bank) on official business.

Pingree and Michaud took only one trip apiece, according to staff.

Pingree’s spanned four days last April, sponsored by the Turkish government.

“A number of members of Congress went on the trip and it was helpful to her to be able to meet high-ranked government officials in Turkey, which is an important ally of the United States,” Pingree spokesman Willy Ritch said.

Michaud’s one journey had multiple stops — San Diego, Hawaii, Philippines and Guam — with four other U.S. representatives, staff and military escorts.

“It was shortly after he became ranking member (of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee) and it was a trip put together by the Republican chairman,” spokesman Peter Chandler said.

The trip, from Feb. 15 to Feb. 24, 2013, included visits to several VA hospitals and clinics to talk health care and technology. Michaud also paid respects at several military gravesites, according to the itinerary.

There was one unscheduled geography lesson.

“Mike was meeting with some military officials who made this map of the U.S. (and) were making the point that Washington, D.C., was sort of the furthest point east,” Chandler said. “Mike reminded them that the U.S. stretches all the way up to Maine.”

Collins, the delegation’s most senior member, took part in a four-country trek (Colombia, Argentina, Chile and Brazil) over 10 days in January 2013. Collins fit in meetings with Interpol to talk about human trafficking and cyber threats and with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency to talk about its counter-narcotics work down there, according to her staff.

Last November, she was off to Nova Scotia and the Halifax International Security Forum for two days. Collins, a member of both the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and the Senate Intelligence Committee, talked to U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel about Bath Iron Works and to Canadian officials about how they’ve handled the health claims of troops exposed to Agent Orange at the Canadian Forces Base Gagetown.

“Just as the government of Canada found a way to offer compensation to service members exposed to toxic herbicides at Gagetown, the VA should likewise be able to find a way to recognize the similar concerns voiced by Maine veterans,” Collins said afterward in a release.

Collins, a ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, also attended the World Economic Forum in Thailand in late May 2012 before heading to Burma on the same trip.

In Thailand, they rolled out the Maine carpet in her honor: The U.S. Embassy declared it “Promote Maine” week and hosted a special breakfast of Maine blueberries, syrup and coffee.

King, the delegation’s newest member, elected in November 2012, has traveled abroad three times already.

In July 2013, he spent four days in Turkey and Jordan looking at Sryia’s impact on the region.

He returned in February, spending five days between the West Bank and Lebanon, meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Lebanese President Michel Sleiman, among others.

Afterward, King, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote: “I am more hopeful than ever that a two-state solution is possible (between Israel and Palestine.)”

He added, “In Lebanon, I was struck by the perseverance of the Lebanese people who face growing threats from terrorism, sectarian tensions, a burgeoning refugee catastrophe and other spillover effects from the war in Syria.”

Last month, King spent two days at Camp Nautilus in the Arctic Circle while the USS New Mexico took part in formal ice training exercises, learning about the ship and what quickening ice-melt means for the area’s future. (More shipping routes, energy exploration, tourism and challenges, according to King.)

The senator took one solo selfie with the USS New Mexico poking out of the ice behind him and posed in another with Petty Officer 3rd Class Christopher Johnson who serves aboard the ship and is from, of all places, Greenbush, Maine.

“We’re everywhere, literally,” spokesman Scott Ogden quipped.

kskelton@sunjournal.com

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