Thank you for this beautiful piece about a border that connects and does not divide. This essay is a reminder of our history, which is parallel and sometimes shared.
Something like 90% of Canadians live within two hours' drive of the American border. The US welcomes 20 million Canadian visits every year-- until this year. The volume of travel cancellations (especially on the part of Québécois, who generally haven't considered themselves Canadian) is surprising. It's unfortunate that the border towns will feel the brunt of this.
The tourist industry on Lake of the Woods hasn't yet fully recovered from the complications of border crossings during the global pandemic. Border towns big and small on both sides feel the immediate impact. Frankly, it's a gut punch.
Beautiful, Jill. I loved learning about the term Medicine Line, and the way you brought us back to thinking about borders as places where neighbors live side by side. And how the land can teach us everything. Thank you.
I’m curious if you found history about about the school at Angle Inlet. I believe it’s the only one room School house left in the United States. But not sure. I think they still have kindergarten through sixth grade there and then the students come by bus to Warroad.
Yes, I think the one-room schoolhouse deserves its own post! I was tempted to include more here, but realized there is so MUCH more to write about it. I've been there several times. Wait, wasn't I there once with you?
Well that doesn't speak well for my memory! I feel like I have known you as long as I've known your mom, but that's not true. Both trips out on the lake were with your mom. She remembers!
Also as a child we lived in Northern Maine. We crossed into News Brunswick for camping 🏕️ and sightseeing frequently.
We never had any trouble that I can remember. However, they did ask you who you were and where you were going and would look in your trunk.
An older Cousin recently reminded me of this incident where my dad was taking him sightseeing and had forgotten that he had left a hunting rifle in his trunk. My father had planned to make a circle ⭕️ tour and return to the U. S through a different border entry point. However the Canadian patrol did not allow him to bring his rifle with him. They told him they would keep it from him for him, and he could pick it up when he returned. So he had to change his plans as a “tour guide”and return to the same entry.
Maine and Vermont share a lot of border miles with Canada. Interesting story your cousin told you about your dad.
This happens to be true for entering and exiting the Northwest Angle. If you drove to the Angle and checked in, you need to leave at the same exit point you entered.
Our family used to camp 🏕️ and fish 🎣 in this area.
On a different note, as an adult I went with a van 🚐 full of women to an apple 🍎 festival in southern Manitoba about a year after 9/11. None of us brought our passports as we were used to freely crossing the border. When we returned we were given the third degree by the border patrol about what we were doing in Canada. We were members of a group literally name “ Homemakers,” which was started by our county government. We told the border guard we were homemakers who attended an apple festival. He was so frustrated that he yelled at us to “go the “hell” home and next time bring your passports! “
As another border child, Buffalo to fort Erie, Canada, who also worked for two different Canadian companies, the headlines are disorienting. Crossing to Canada was like travel between ny and nj until 9/11. After that, inadequate staffing created a nightmare on both sides, which greatly suppressed crossing. Still. I have many friends and worker colleagues up north who are annoyed at the unnecessary nastiness.
Buffalo NY is a big port city on one of the Great Lakes. While the border doesn't exactly follow the 49th parallel, the experiences along the northern border don't match up to the extremist claims and disruptions to human lives on either side of the border. As a kid, did you ever cross over into Canada and why?
Am thinking of doing an essay on how I often felt more like I came from southern Ontario than the US. Often when we went to mom’s family, we drove up on the Canadian side and crossed in Ogdensburg — about 25 miles south of massena. I was in Ottawa more times than DC as a kid.
We crossed over all the time! My uncle had a boat on the Canadian side. We would go to the beaches over there, and the cultural museums. The butterfly museum and botanical gardens were a must for a grade schooler. They had to stop after 9/11 cause school buses were delayed for hours.
My dad’s retail business bought furniture from Canadian wholesalers — so he banked in Canada weekly.
My mother’s family in Norwood ny, near the massena crossing, was on the northern most border — on the 49th parallel.
Thanks for sharing this history and perspective, Jill. This is so interesting to me for many reasons, not the least of which is that my husband's Metís ancestors fled Manitoba during the Riel rebellion (but only after getting scrip, which was documented, and which is why members of the current and previous generation were able to join the Metís Nation of Alberta).
How interesting to have family connection to Manitoba. You might find the new book by @Chris LaTray of interest. He writes The Irritable Metis on Substack and his book is titled BECOMING LITTLE SHELL. Little Shell is the latest tribe officially recognized by the US government. Only this past year have I come to know about the Riel rebellion and understand the importance of the Medicine Line from Minnesota to Montana.
“High school students from the Northwest Angle and Buffalo Point First Nation are bused to Warroad, which involves four border checks daily.” Wow now there’s another story - what an unusual normalized separation of lives.
At this time I am grateful for all the Canadians and Americans who recognize our decades and decades of friendship and our non-commitment to manifest destiny. Neither of us needs to "own" the other. Both countries have intelligent representatives who can work out trade and exchanges that are fair, democratic, and win-win. What a challenge this has become to tribal folks who have land on both sides of the border. We do not need to cause soul trauma for others. I imagine even the folks in Florida are worrying about the threat to their travel industry. One thing we know for sure that many people do when they are threatened is retreat.
Retreat is a word that has both negative and positive connotations. Retreat sometimes means defeat but sometimes it means to find sanctuary and peace. It appears some Canadians have cancelled their winter retreats in Florida and plan to travel and shop in places other than the US. It appears some Americans prefer the US retreat from global trade and some Americans seek a spiritual retreat from the chaos and disruption which has ensued with a new administration.
Canadians have pointed out that an annexation of Canada would effectively render all First Nations Treaties null and void. This will not be well received by the indigenous people of Canada.
I suspect you would be hard-pressed to find anyone in Canada who would favor becoming the 51st state of the US. Well, maybe Roger Stone who is a campaign consultant for the Conservative Party in Canada might be able to convince a few. But you are right that treaties with First Nations would be at stake. And there are some here who believe treaty violations have already occurred with the firing of Haskell University faculty members, cuts to Indian Health Services, etc etc etc.
I've never met anyone ever in the US who promoted this idea before our current president announced his inclination. Befuddled and bemused.
Jill, I was surprised to learn that while the polls show Canadians overwhelmingly opposed to annexation, 40 percent of young adult Canadians like the idea. This generation has had trouble finding secure employment and affordable housing, particularly in big cities like Toronto, where I live. With Canada’s relatively high taxes and severely strained healthcare, they are starting to think they’d have it easier as Americans.
There is about a hardcore 10% of very confused self-loathing Canadians who want this to happen. They drive around with American flags and Trump paraphernalia on their cars or in the windows of their homes. These are the same insurgents who occupied Ottawa in 2022, to the disgust of the other 90% of Canadians.
I did not know there was such a vocal minority in Canada who supported Trump and annexation. I suspect more Canadians know about US politics than US residents know about Canadian politics. I certainly don't know much about current events north of the border.
Nor should it be well-received. We do not need to "annex" Canada. All we should be continuously trying to do is annex friendships and exchanges that are healthy for both countries.
If relations ever are mended between Canada and the U.S. I hope I can visit Angle Inlet one day. Minnesota is my favorite of the states I've visited and its unique geography is one reason why.
Hi Jill! Great way to put it! Everyone on the border is feeling the effects of these decisions! On both MN and MB sides people are confused about rules that seem to keep changing! Really changes the relationship of Americans and Canadians! Here is hoping peace can be found without hurting the people who rely on cross border services in both directions
It is good to hear confirmation that I am not alone in my concerns and hope that as in our past shared history we find ways to work together to sustain peace and the local economies.
I’ve been pondering the concept of borders a lot lately, in part because I’m realizing that I’ve spent (and still spend) much of my life in literal and figurative borderlands. For example, the 1825 treaty border between the Dakota and Ojibwe ran through Eau Claire. Thanks for providing more material for me to think about.
I’m Of two minds in reading this piece. Having grown up and spent much of my early adulthood in Mn we crossed the border hundreds of times for family vacations and hockey tournaments.
I recall one crossing after a tournament when all of us caravanned, our vehicles thick with the smell of wet gear and pre-pubescent boys. The first car thru explained who we all were, and the rest of us were just waved thru.
Obviously that was before 9/11 when the world changed. And although we all said we’d never forget, many of us have.
There are people who hate America and all we stand for, and they will use whatever means possible to take action against us.
Having lived in the ME and elsewhere outside of the Americas almost continuously post 9/11 — and seen the hatred of terrorists up close and personal - I understand the risks of lax borders in a different way than many others.
And make no mistake, every inch of our border is a potential target for those who desperately wish us harm. To think otherwise is to live in a world that does not exist.
In the same way I am happy to go thru increased security because of the stamps in my passport at every airport, I am happy to wait at the border, knowing my patience might make us all safer, or at least less vulnerable.
Having been a lifeguard in Saudi Arabia the summers of 1980 and 1981 while writing my masters thesis, I too have witnessed intense border security. I remember Checkpoint Charlie between East and West Germany and remember when the border wall came down. I grew up thinking the Russians were the ones who hated us. Having lived and studied in the Middle East I did not meet anyone who hated America, although I have met many people at home and abroad who did not agree with the policies of their government. But in this day and age when cyberterrorism is a far greater threat than hordes of foreign criminals crossing into Warroad, it makes me wonder at what cost is this increased security and who bears that cost? Since Marvin Windows relies on lumber from Canada it makes me wonder. Since there aren't enough people to work at Marvin Windows, the employees they have recruited from abroad are at risk for deportation. How does this help? And then there is the gasoline for my car which comes across the border at Warroad. We don't have gasoline made in the US of A. I'm hard pressed to find any cause for the disruption. So far no arrests by ICE and to date there has never been a drug bust at this border crossing. As far as I can see, it's no way to treat a good neighbor.
Thank you for this beautiful piece about a border that connects and does not divide. This essay is a reminder of our history, which is parallel and sometimes shared.
Something like 90% of Canadians live within two hours' drive of the American border. The US welcomes 20 million Canadian visits every year-- until this year. The volume of travel cancellations (especially on the part of Québécois, who generally haven't considered themselves Canadian) is surprising. It's unfortunate that the border towns will feel the brunt of this.
The tourist industry on Lake of the Woods hasn't yet fully recovered from the complications of border crossings during the global pandemic. Border towns big and small on both sides feel the immediate impact. Frankly, it's a gut punch.
Beautiful, Jill. I loved learning about the term Medicine Line, and the way you brought us back to thinking about borders as places where neighbors live side by side. And how the land can teach us everything. Thank you.
I like to think of "fluid" borders and drawing the line as spiritual protection. Thanks for reading!
I love that.
I’m curious if you found history about about the school at Angle Inlet. I believe it’s the only one room School house left in the United States. But not sure. I think they still have kindergarten through sixth grade there and then the students come by bus to Warroad.
Yes, I think the one-room schoolhouse deserves its own post! I was tempted to include more here, but realized there is so MUCH more to write about it. I've been there several times. Wait, wasn't I there once with you?
I think you were there with my mom.
That’s right! In 2021 for the writer’s retreat. You and I were on the boat together to Little Oak Island a few years earlier.
Nope that was my mom, Beth.
Well that doesn't speak well for my memory! I feel like I have known you as long as I've known your mom, but that's not true. Both trips out on the lake were with your mom. She remembers!
Also as a child we lived in Northern Maine. We crossed into News Brunswick for camping 🏕️ and sightseeing frequently.
We never had any trouble that I can remember. However, they did ask you who you were and where you were going and would look in your trunk.
An older Cousin recently reminded me of this incident where my dad was taking him sightseeing and had forgotten that he had left a hunting rifle in his trunk. My father had planned to make a circle ⭕️ tour and return to the U. S through a different border entry point. However the Canadian patrol did not allow him to bring his rifle with him. They told him they would keep it from him for him, and he could pick it up when he returned. So he had to change his plans as a “tour guide”and return to the same entry.
Maine and Vermont share a lot of border miles with Canada. Interesting story your cousin told you about your dad.
This happens to be true for entering and exiting the Northwest Angle. If you drove to the Angle and checked in, you need to leave at the same exit point you entered.
There is a segment on ( right now -7:06 pm)the TV show 60 minutes about migrants crossing the border in New York.
Our family used to camp 🏕️ and fish 🎣 in this area.
On a different note, as an adult I went with a van 🚐 full of women to an apple 🍎 festival in southern Manitoba about a year after 9/11. None of us brought our passports as we were used to freely crossing the border. When we returned we were given the third degree by the border patrol about what we were doing in Canada. We were members of a group literally name “ Homemakers,” which was started by our county government. We told the border guard we were homemakers who attended an apple festival. He was so frustrated that he yelled at us to “go the “hell” home and next time bring your passports! “
Ha! You radical alien homemakers!
As another border child, Buffalo to fort Erie, Canada, who also worked for two different Canadian companies, the headlines are disorienting. Crossing to Canada was like travel between ny and nj until 9/11. After that, inadequate staffing created a nightmare on both sides, which greatly suppressed crossing. Still. I have many friends and worker colleagues up north who are annoyed at the unnecessary nastiness.
Buffalo NY is a big port city on one of the Great Lakes. While the border doesn't exactly follow the 49th parallel, the experiences along the northern border don't match up to the extremist claims and disruptions to human lives on either side of the border. As a kid, did you ever cross over into Canada and why?
Am thinking of doing an essay on how I often felt more like I came from southern Ontario than the US. Often when we went to mom’s family, we drove up on the Canadian side and crossed in Ogdensburg — about 25 miles south of massena. I was in Ottawa more times than DC as a kid.
Family road trips! Interesting this piece provoked such vivid memories of Canada. Our neighbor to the north is on a lot of people's minds.
We crossed over all the time! My uncle had a boat on the Canadian side. We would go to the beaches over there, and the cultural museums. The butterfly museum and botanical gardens were a must for a grade schooler. They had to stop after 9/11 cause school buses were delayed for hours.
My dad’s retail business bought furniture from Canadian wholesalers — so he banked in Canada weekly.
My mother’s family in Norwood ny, near the massena crossing, was on the northern most border — on the 49th parallel.
What great memories of the ways in which the border did not divide but connected the US and Canada there.
Thanks for sharing this history and perspective, Jill. This is so interesting to me for many reasons, not the least of which is that my husband's Metís ancestors fled Manitoba during the Riel rebellion (but only after getting scrip, which was documented, and which is why members of the current and previous generation were able to join the Metís Nation of Alberta).
How interesting to have family connection to Manitoba. You might find the new book by @Chris LaTray of interest. He writes The Irritable Metis on Substack and his book is titled BECOMING LITTLE SHELL. Little Shell is the latest tribe officially recognized by the US government. Only this past year have I come to know about the Riel rebellion and understand the importance of the Medicine Line from Minnesota to Montana.
“High school students from the Northwest Angle and Buffalo Point First Nation are bused to Warroad, which involves four border checks daily.” Wow now there’s another story - what an unusual normalized separation of lives.
Working on it! and a piece about the one-room schoolhouse where they attend K-6 at the Angle Inlet.
At this time I am grateful for all the Canadians and Americans who recognize our decades and decades of friendship and our non-commitment to manifest destiny. Neither of us needs to "own" the other. Both countries have intelligent representatives who can work out trade and exchanges that are fair, democratic, and win-win. What a challenge this has become to tribal folks who have land on both sides of the border. We do not need to cause soul trauma for others. I imagine even the folks in Florida are worrying about the threat to their travel industry. One thing we know for sure that many people do when they are threatened is retreat.
Retreat is a word that has both negative and positive connotations. Retreat sometimes means defeat but sometimes it means to find sanctuary and peace. It appears some Canadians have cancelled their winter retreats in Florida and plan to travel and shop in places other than the US. It appears some Americans prefer the US retreat from global trade and some Americans seek a spiritual retreat from the chaos and disruption which has ensued with a new administration.
Canadians have pointed out that an annexation of Canada would effectively render all First Nations Treaties null and void. This will not be well received by the indigenous people of Canada.
I suspect you would be hard-pressed to find anyone in Canada who would favor becoming the 51st state of the US. Well, maybe Roger Stone who is a campaign consultant for the Conservative Party in Canada might be able to convince a few. But you are right that treaties with First Nations would be at stake. And there are some here who believe treaty violations have already occurred with the firing of Haskell University faculty members, cuts to Indian Health Services, etc etc etc.
I've never met anyone ever in the US who promoted this idea before our current president announced his inclination. Befuddled and bemused.
Jill, I was surprised to learn that while the polls show Canadians overwhelmingly opposed to annexation, 40 percent of young adult Canadians like the idea. This generation has had trouble finding secure employment and affordable housing, particularly in big cities like Toronto, where I live. With Canada’s relatively high taxes and severely strained healthcare, they are starting to think they’d have it easier as Americans.
I had no idea so many young Canadians favor this idea! A surprising result indeed.
There is about a hardcore 10% of very confused self-loathing Canadians who want this to happen. They drive around with American flags and Trump paraphernalia on their cars or in the windows of their homes. These are the same insurgents who occupied Ottawa in 2022, to the disgust of the other 90% of Canadians.
I did not know there was such a vocal minority in Canada who supported Trump and annexation. I suspect more Canadians know about US politics than US residents know about Canadian politics. I certainly don't know much about current events north of the border.
Trump's remarks have caused a political earthquake. It's astounding.
Nor should it be well-received. We do not need to "annex" Canada. All we should be continuously trying to do is annex friendships and exchanges that are healthy for both countries.
While Canadians of European descent do not want to be colonized, First Nations people will absolutely not accept being colonized a second time.
Amen
Nor should they accept being colonized. We know from history that colonization is the rape of one nation by another. It has never turned out well.
If relations ever are mended between Canada and the U.S. I hope I can visit Angle Inlet one day. Minnesota is my favorite of the states I've visited and its unique geography is one reason why.
I hope you visit, too! It's one of the most chill places in the world to relax and see nature at its best.
Hi Jill! Great way to put it! Everyone on the border is feeling the effects of these decisions! On both MN and MB sides people are confused about rules that seem to keep changing! Really changes the relationship of Americans and Canadians! Here is hoping peace can be found without hurting the people who rely on cross border services in both directions
It is good to hear confirmation that I am not alone in my concerns and hope that as in our past shared history we find ways to work together to sustain peace and the local economies.
I’ve been pondering the concept of borders a lot lately, in part because I’m realizing that I’ve spent (and still spend) much of my life in literal and figurative borderlands. For example, the 1825 treaty border between the Dakota and Ojibwe ran through Eau Claire. Thanks for providing more material for me to think about.
I’m Of two minds in reading this piece. Having grown up and spent much of my early adulthood in Mn we crossed the border hundreds of times for family vacations and hockey tournaments.
I recall one crossing after a tournament when all of us caravanned, our vehicles thick with the smell of wet gear and pre-pubescent boys. The first car thru explained who we all were, and the rest of us were just waved thru.
Obviously that was before 9/11 when the world changed. And although we all said we’d never forget, many of us have.
There are people who hate America and all we stand for, and they will use whatever means possible to take action against us.
Having lived in the ME and elsewhere outside of the Americas almost continuously post 9/11 — and seen the hatred of terrorists up close and personal - I understand the risks of lax borders in a different way than many others.
And make no mistake, every inch of our border is a potential target for those who desperately wish us harm. To think otherwise is to live in a world that does not exist.
In the same way I am happy to go thru increased security because of the stamps in my passport at every airport, I am happy to wait at the border, knowing my patience might make us all safer, or at least less vulnerable.
Having been a lifeguard in Saudi Arabia the summers of 1980 and 1981 while writing my masters thesis, I too have witnessed intense border security. I remember Checkpoint Charlie between East and West Germany and remember when the border wall came down. I grew up thinking the Russians were the ones who hated us. Having lived and studied in the Middle East I did not meet anyone who hated America, although I have met many people at home and abroad who did not agree with the policies of their government. But in this day and age when cyberterrorism is a far greater threat than hordes of foreign criminals crossing into Warroad, it makes me wonder at what cost is this increased security and who bears that cost? Since Marvin Windows relies on lumber from Canada it makes me wonder. Since there aren't enough people to work at Marvin Windows, the employees they have recruited from abroad are at risk for deportation. How does this help? And then there is the gasoline for my car which comes across the border at Warroad. We don't have gasoline made in the US of A. I'm hard pressed to find any cause for the disruption. So far no arrests by ICE and to date there has never been a drug bust at this border crossing. As far as I can see, it's no way to treat a good neighbor.