Issues → March/April 2009 → Features →
United States/Canada Border
Multimillion-dollar stations on the "friendliest border"
by Edie Clark
No roads follow the neat borderline between New England and Canada that you see on the map. Instead, you have to traverse, back and forth, in and out of Canada--a rough stitch that has pulled the two countries together since before either of them was a nation.
This is the story of that line--a line that was sometimes called "the friendliest border in the world"--and how it has changed since 9/11. Most of what I'll tell you isn't about these two countries, but rather about our own, at war with terror--not about a country, but a state of mind, a very expensive state of mind. Consider, for instance, the $26 million customs station built recently in the tiny town of North Troy (population 593), Vermont. A friend who lives nearby told me, "It looks like a fortress out in the middle of nowhere."
It is indeed a fortress, with winged roof and huge letters spelling out United States of America, which seems like an announcement to the moose who might wander by. I pull into the station. Several agents are milling about inside, and one comes out. The traffic coming through is light. He's military in appearance, complete with combat boots and weapons on the belt. He asks me to turn off the engine and put the car into park. He asks where I'm going, where I've come from, and where I live. I tell him I'm writing about the border. He asks for my passport and tells me to open my trunk, which holds my suitcase, laptop, briefcase, and picnic hamper. He doesn't bother with my luggage, but burrows deep into the hamper. He emerges, triumphant, with a big, fresh lemon I've brought with me from home. A lemon can improve a lot of things. He holds it up almost delicately, like an Easter egg. It is indeed a fine lemon, and it looks even finer the way he's holding it.
"Can't let you get by with this," he says. "Matterafact, just so you don't think I'm going to take this home ..." And he steps to the garbage can beside the station, lifts the lid rather dramatically, and drops it in, closing it with a clash. This vigilance for fruits and vegetables, which I am to find prevalent here, is about pests and worms and bugs that might hitchhike in with the fruits. I understand. Sort of.
In Derby Line, Vermont (population 792), the houses along Main Street are grand examples of Gilded Age style. On the day I visit last July, there's a yard sale at one of these homes just off the town green. Three white-haired ladies sit in lawn chairs, presiding over their goods. They're all abuzz about the raid that took place the day before.
"They went right down that street," one says, pointing. Four men were arrested for trafficking 2,205 pounds of marijuana across the border. According to the local newspaper, the police had been watching these men since the early '90s. They'd started by backpacking small loads across the border, then upgraded to tractor trailers. Three of the men live in town, and the ladies know them. One, they tell me, is "a good-looking man, lives in a beautiful home, has a nice wife and kids. We were always told it was his wife who had the money."
It's probably an old story in Derby Line. The main byway up into Quebec is called, locally, "Smugglers' Road," and some of these ornate homes were built from the riches reaped by transporting whiskey and other commodities during Prohibition. Or so it's said. (There was only one other big industry in Derby Line, a machine-tool plant.) In that context, I ask the ladies whether these crimes today are much different from whiskey running. "No, not really!" they chorus. "Didn't hurt us, what they were doing."
Reader Comments
Comment from JANE A REEL on April 5, 2009
Thank you for an intriguing story. I had never really thought about the issues connected to our border with Canada. Some of the things Edie Clark encountered highlight the mystery . On a topic unrelated to the story, I can't imagine living in such a remote area. This story gave me a lot to think about.
Comment from Ronald Donett on April 10, 2009
This was a very thought provoking article. This is only my opinion,but to me the worst tragedy since 9/11 is how society in general has changed. I am now 60 years of age and it just seems to me that we used to live in a world where people in general loved and cared for one another. Now,it is more of a 'me first' attitude on the part of many people. You can say hello to someone and they will drop their head and act as if you are not even there. I have gone different places and someone will go ahead of you through a door and not hold it for you. Isn't it sad? The article about the New England - Canada border only magnifies how the society that we live in has drastically changed. The one thing that I take comfort in knowing is that in time,goodness always triumphs over evil.
Comment from chris hall on April 15, 2009
the Border creates more problems than it solves. it needs to be done with.
Comment from Sandra Basgall on April 26, 2009
EastportMaine was settled in 1780, incorporated in 1798. It was seized by the British in 1814 but in 1818 was returned to the United States through the Treaty of Ghent. Fort Sullivan at Eastport, built in 1810, had a meteoric life - only four years later, on July 11,1814 when a British fleet of a dozen warships of 200 guns with troop transports hove into sight, the fort?s six officers and 80 men surrendered upon demand.
Comment from Jim Crosbie on May 27, 2009
Your article was both interesting and sad. I'm 61 and have travelled back and forth to Prince Edward Island and the Maritimes since I was born. My Mom was born on a farm in P.E.I. and I have loved visiting our "Home from Away". It is such a sad commentary on our society in general that we now fear everything and everyone. After 9/11 our government overreacted as they usually do and brought fear and uncertainty instead of calm and thoughtful actions to deal with the tragedy of 9/11. Our age of innocence is gone forever.
Comment from Andy Grossman on August 14, 2009
I have been at the Derby Line/Rock Island border a half dozen times over the past 45 years; the freezing of the border in recent years is a great pity. Some years ago I researched border issues and was told that US Customs tries to buy up and demolish houses that straddle the border. One hopes that the Haskell Free Library will avoid that fate. Another anomaly I was told about was that -- at least in the days before the "Carte soleil" [Quebec health insurance scheme ID card] -- the clinic in Newport VT was the closest maternity facility and many Quebeckers from the area were born there, thus being dual nationals. Then there were those families in houses straddling the border who had to make Grandma sleep on one side or the other to get SSI (from Social Security) or Canadian Old Age Security, each of which has a residence qualification. Finally there was the matter of the Quebec sovereignty movement, and the "francisation" program that preceded it -- linguistically separating Quebec from "the other". My company, a (tiny) Quebec corporation, had to change its name into French even though it did no business in that province and its name became unpronounceable except to somebody who is bilingual and logical nonsense in either language. For what it's worth I always get a bigger smile from the Canadian border police when I speak to them in French; the identity crisis will not go away.
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