Why You Don’t Want To Live On the US-Canada Border
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ย. 2024
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As a resident of Point Roberts I would like to remind you that we don't HAVE to drive to get to mainland USA. We can take boats across the bay and do quite frequently. Many of us keep a car on both sides for this exact purpose.
because lots of people have two cars and a boat money
Ok , that makes sense ! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@averagejoey2000 just because you are broke doesn’t mean everyone is
@@orderstudios4088 I only have a boat and one car. only have enough money to live on the boat
@@averagejoey2000 Each person/family budgets for what they need based on where they live. What sounds weird or extravagant for some people may be basic necessities for others.
What's even crazier is that Point Roberts only has an elementary school. So for children grades 4 and up they would have to take a bus though British Columbia and into the mainland Washington State. But that also means during the pandemic this couldn't happen.
it's really stupid, the USA should make exceptions for entries that have no international connection at all, or give Canada stewardship over the land. USA technically owns it, but Canada gets the tax revenue and the relatively tiny amount of remaining residents get residency, benefits but not federal voting rights unless they apply for citizenship.
Otherwise in a decade it will be a rotting ghost town.
a car ferry between point Roberts and it's nearby us town would solve the issue entirely
@@anasevi9456 Germany has such a case with Switzerland.
Büsingen is a legally german town, that is fully enclosed by Switzerland and has adopted many swiss laws. They even use the swiss currency, in contrast to the euro used in Germany.
it goes even more crazy between "Baarle-Nassau, NL" and "Baarle-Hertog, BE", where the border is all over the place. The state to whom you have to pay taxes is even determined by the position of your front door, because so many houses stand on the border.
the good thing is, that Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Belgium are all part of the Schengen area, where only rarely border controls happen. And if they happen they only pick single random cars/busses/trucks out of the border traffic
@@person-gg6gx Would require Federal subsidies, and so far Uncle Sam has not offered any. The temporary ferry during the pandemic border closure was paid for with emergency Federal money, which has gone away.
@@anasevi9456 The problem is... your comment makes too much sense.
We ALL know the US senate doesn't make logical sense
When I was a kid, pre-9/11, you didn't need a passport to travel by car between Canada and the US. And not just at border towns, but... anywhere. It's really hard to explain to people who didn't grow up with it how EXTREMELY open the Canada / US border used to be.
Yes! When I was a kid, we went on a road trip to Niagara Falls. My parents had passports but my brother and I didn't but there was no issue entering Canada.
They didn’t make you use a passport until 2008 actually when crossing by land
As a further step of making the boarder more difficult I’ve faced US customs while leaving the US back into Canada. I thought about asking if I was leaving east Germany, but I thought better of it.
One week I crossed the truck border 9 times, once with an eightfoot by four foot crate in the back I was going to use for livestock feed storage. "Anything to declare"? NO. Proceed. I could have had an ENTIRE North Korean soccer team in that crate. Today? Not so much.
By “extremely open” you mean like “Schengen open” where there was no border checks when crossing the border or just you didn’t need a passport to cross the border?
I used to live in a border town between New Brunswick and Maine and my favourite memories to share with people is how I would cross the border on my bike with my passport and I essentially had 25 hours to my day as once I crossed the border I was in a different time zone. I'd leave one job at 5pm, ride my bike for a half hour across an international border, and start at my 2nd job at 5pm. Which was 6pm on the other side of the border.
As a Pacific Northwest resident, while point roberts is in a odd position, it's important to point out that, culturally, the entire PNW is far more connected to BC Canada than it is with the rest of the US. The same applies to BC, it's more connected to Washington and Oregon than it is the rest of Canada. As it turns out, the PNW is extremely secluded and far away from the rest of NA.
👍
This is true, I'm from Vancouver, and people are far more likely to do a weekend trip to Seattle than to another part of Canada (except perhaps Vancouver Island or the Okanagan Valley)
@@aidanw9378 Portland resident here, it's not considered traveling for us until we live the I-5 Portland/Seattle/Vancouver corridor.
*raised Doug flag*
It makes sense. You have some steep mountains in the way, and because I am such a nerd I once did a count and found that there are more roads leading from Delaware County, Pennsylvania to the State of Delaware than there are roads leading from British Columbia to anywhere else. The whole PNW is just really isolated.
I live in the border region (currently on the Canadian side but used to live on the US side). It's not as good as the pre-9/11 days but it is not nearly so bad as it was during the height of the pandemic. No COVID tests required if you are fully vaccinated. It was annoying in the extreme not to be able to visit friends that were only a short drive away. Sometimes I forget that for most people, international travel is a big deal and not just a casual day trip.
It still sucks like the pre 9-11 good days are kind of over, now we get nsa,tsa, patriot act and a strengthened border with 'known terrorist hub' Canada
As a central Euopean, I don't get borders at all :D
Board line they are useless
Being only 28, I rarely remember a life without secure borders. I grew up in Fort Erie, and moved back as an adult. The town is nothing what it used to be compared to pre 9/11.
why doesn't the US cede these areas to Canada? I doesn't make any sense to hold unreachable no man's lands. As for the people living there, you folks are true masochists. I cant imagine getting out my passport for a grocery trip. Lol.
Coutts and Sweetgrass exist specifically because the border exists. Coutts is the port of exit for all the beef, canola oil, crude petroleum, modified milk ingredients, and grains (especially barley for beer) imported into the US from Alberta, and Sweetgrass is the port of exit for all the fruit and winter vegetables imported into Alberta from the US.
I would say "imported into Montana", except that there are fewer people in all of Montana than in Calgary alone.
Hahaha especially eastern Montana. I've never known anyone who lives there.
@@EvilSnips bruh Montana has 1M people, Calgary has 1.5M people.
Taking a subset of a smaller set, you get a set that's necessarily ≤ than the original, which is < than the bigger one.
No information nor fun has been had with this comment.
And sweetgrass hosts a few businesses that receive packages from for Canadians buying from US companies that only ship within the continental 48.
The Coutts Alberta Volunteer Fire Department also serves as Sweetgrass' fire department.
As a kid living in Lethbridge, the joke about Sweet Grass was that it had 9 buildings, 10 of them being bars
USA should have agreed to this: “The British Foreign Office instructed Captain James Prevost, the British Boundary Commissioner, to inform his U.S. counterpart of the situation and request Point Roberts be left to Britain, because of the great inconvenience it would be to the United States. If the American Boundary Commission was reluctant, Prevost was instructed to offer ”some equivalent compensation by a slight alteration of the Line of Boundary on the Mainland“. It is not known how the U.S. commissioner responded, but Point Roberts remained part of the United States.” - Wikipedia.
Shockingly I saw the bot bully peter, which I then reported. I don't usually see these bots here.
The problem was that Canada demanded all of Vancouver Island. If you look at the opening map, Vancouver Island is the mass of land to the left of Point Roberts (it does not touch mainland Canada as portrayed in the graphic). A portion of the island passes below the 49th parallel. So per the original agreement it should have been split between the U.S. and Canada (which incidentally would've avoided much of the wrangling between the two countries over salmon fishing rights in the 20th and 21st century). But Canada insisted on getting the entire island, which led to the U.S. insisting on keeping little bits of land like Point Roberts as compensation.
@@solandri69 Except that if you read the entire quote I posted, the British side was willing to make adjustments elsewhere on the mainland (probably by moving a length of the border north a bit from the 49th parallel) to compensate for the land lost by ceding Point Roberts to the British.
The US/Canada should just agree to let us secede. Honestly the only thing that worries me about that would be the fault line (which ironically shares the same name as the secession movement), but I've heard the quake could set off the SA fault line so California would get most of the help even if we were part of the US.
@@davidbarts6144 Interestingly there is a somewhat analogous piece of Canada in British Columbia isolated by a waterway - the Pend Oreille River flows north from Washington, crosses the border then takes a sharp westward turn until it empties into the Columbia just north (a few hundred metres) of the border, just southeast of Trail. Why I say this is interesting is because that part of Canada has no permanent settlements nor are there any bridges to access it (other than the one at the Pend Oreille's mouth following the Columbia, which is the highway to the US border, but even this doesn't allow access to most of the territory due to another arm of the river that crosses into the US) and nothing but logging roads within it, though there are two hydroelectric dams. The area is quite a bit larger than Point Roberts (a good 50 km2) and I sometimes wonder if this was an area that Capt Prevost might have traded and that perhaps Canada and British Columbia have quietly set aside should a land swap ever come to pass.
Seen from Europe... I live in Eastern Belgium, a 20-minute drive away to the borders with both Luxembourg and Germany, and the French border is an-hour drive away. As we have no more border or customs checks within the EU a/o Schengen Zone (and same currency), for me crossing into any of these countries, for leisure or for shopping, is so "normal life" that I sometimes don't really pay attention to which country I'm in. Having to go thru border checks each time I change country would be both annoying and weird.
The main difference is that most Americans don't live within 15 hours of a border so it really isn't an issue to most people
Seen from Europe (Denmark) the covid vaccinations are paid by our free helthcare. It might be tax based, but we do get a lot back. Basic social security, health insurance, education, libraries, etc.
Yeah, but the entire EU (including the UK) is literally less than half the size of America. And there's just over half as many countries as we have states.
And while we don't have many different languages to deal with, the culture across this entire country is quite varied.
@@lastboyscout6437
It's tax based, and it's a LOT cheaper than what we pay, mostly thanks to the republicans.
Before Covid, the EU paid $2,500 per capita for health insurance. America paid $10,000 per capita.
And for that extra $7,500, we have more stillbirths, more SIDS, and both men and women have a shorter average lifespan than the EU.
@@lastboyscout6437 Quick note on that, and it might just be a translation issue...
We do not get free health "insurance" in Denmark. You still have to pay for that yourself.
We do have free health "care/services".
BTW, add "Sault Ste. Marie" to your mispronounced bucket. It's silly, but most people (including almost all locals) pronounce the town like "Soo Saint Marie," as read in English. So "Sault" sounds like "Sue" and "Sioux." And "Ste," which is the French abbreviation for "sainte," is pronounced like the English word "saint." But "Marie" is pronounced as you would expect, not like the English name "Mary." Just to keep you on your toes.
EDIT: Also, "Sumas, WA" is pronounced like "SOO-mas," not like "SUM-as." You can go there to get some as, but you don't pronounce the city that way.
EDIT2: I think "Derby Line" is also pronounced like "Darby Line."
Also "Sumas" is pronounced "Soo-mass".
@@michaelgodwin6158 You must have gotten here before my edit. You beat me to it.
And Sumas is pronounced “soo-mass.”
The French language will get you every time.
Was looking for this one ☝🏻
In the mid-90's a rabid animal was found in Point Roberts. This created a big problem...the US-approved rabies vaccine was not approved in Canada, so it couldn't be brought through, and people couldn't bring their animals through the two borders to get them vaccinated on the mainland US. Eventually, the US Coast Guard did a 'training mission' from their base here in Seattle to Point Roberts to bring the vaccine (and a veterinarian to administer it) via the water route. Neat little town, only about 900 residents. As mentioned below, from 5th grade on up the kids all get on a bus and take a 1-hour trip through two international borders to get to school in Blaine, then do it again at the end of the school day.
My understanding of how the school bus stuff works, the contents of the bus don't legally enter Canada as they just drive through, so they could have just sent the vaccine over on the school bus.
Yes. The rabies vaccine wasn't approved in Canada - because it wasn't labelled in French.
FYI, it's pronounced Soo St. Marie, hence why the boat locks are named the Soo Locks.
He didn't do much research, obviously. Kids these days aren't learning much in the publik edumucashun systom 🤣
His pronunciation of Tsawwassen is also iffy, and Sumas is not "sum-mas". It's "soo-mas".
Came to say the same thing, love Half as Interesting (and Wendover) but yes, Soo, Soo Saint Marie
Thank you! I came here to correct also.
I litetally LOL'd when he pronounced the city I have always called 'the soo'.
CGP Grey called the treeless Canada-US border the "No Touching Zone". Still one of my favorite videos to this day.
Another interesting place is Angle Inlet, MN, which was also affected by COVID pretty badly. Even when the borders partially reopened, you needed a negative COVID test to cross but Angle Inlet is so small, it doesn't even have a hospital, let alone a lab to run tests.
As a former Sault Ste Marie resident (the Canada side) I HAVE to inform you that it's actually pronounced like "Sue Ste Marie". Look forward to seeing this corrected in the yearly mistakes video ❤️
I doubt he'll fess up to the mistake. He skipped the Northwest Angle/Oak Island area entirely. Obviously research is not his forte.
He also pronounced Tsawwassen with a silent "T". Here in the Vancouver area we pronounce the name with a silent "S"
Thank you. Absolutely cringed when he said it.
TIL, thank you
C’mon Canuck, you SHOULD know that it’s Soo, NOT Sue!
Sault is pronounced “soo” because anglophones find French to be an enigma.
Given the string of mispronounced city names right then, I'm guessing he did this on purpose lol
Well fine then, I'll pronounce it just like salt to make it even
I'm a Michigan native and I came here specifically to say that if it wasn't already said! 🤣😂
But it is pronounced Soo, both English and French
Oui.
For your future correction video: Sault is pronounced as "Soo/Sue/Sioux" for the respective cities on the locks
As is the "u" in Sumas.
He butchered a couple places. Sumas, is like SSM, its a Soo sound at the start.
Since it's a french name the french pronunciation "so" is correct as well
It sure looks like salt to me!
Also butchered Tsawwassen
As a resident near Derby Line, here's a nifty fact: If you're Canadian, you're allowed to enter through the American side of the Haskell Library--the only entrance--without checking in through customs, as long as you stay on the sidewalk. Also, we have Canusa Ave, a road half in the US, half in Canada.
This was more of a Mini-Wendover than a Half As Interesting. I, a Brit, went to Point Roberts in the summer of 2019. It was easy enough to get in back then, just pay seven dollars for the visa waiver and off you went. I found it a rather weird place which is good as I like visiting weird places. Whilst the border crossing was a busy place, there didn’t appear to be anything stopping the locals from walking along the beach to reach Canadian or American territory. Indeed, some houses on the Canadian side appeared to have gardens that abutted the border with nothing to stop their owners from stepping in to US land. I have a picture of me leaning against a wall which meant my arm was in Canada, the rest of me in the USA.
Walking across the boarder is usually a pretty easy endeavor. Driving a car is when it requires checkpoints and visa certification.
So you're one of these guys then? 2:00
There's a low wooden fence along one neighborhood at the northern edge of Point Roberts. It's the only barrier between the U.S. and Canada there. Look up 4 66a St, Delta, British Columbia and do a Google street view. You can easily hop over or squeeze past the fence if you wanted. I always through it was comical because a hundred feet away, it reverted to the regular prison-style chain link fence surrounded by a no-man's land on either side, with huge metal posts with cameras on top.
@@solandri69 have a look at 10 English Bush Rd in Street View. That doesn’t even have a fence.
Nothing stops people from crossing, but doing so would violate the law and could lead to severe consequences.
Several times throughout the video your border in Washington is wrong, you've got the San Juan Islands (and Whidbey Island at a couple points) on the wrong side of the line. The border doesn't trace Puget Sound since that's all defined as Internal Waters, and even then it's less than 12 NM wide and would be contained entirely within the Territorial Sea. The border goes around the San Juan Islands (which are in Washington) before cutting south of Vancouver Island (Canada) and down the Straight of Juan de Fuca.
We literally fought a "war" over this (The Pig War in 1859). Granted the only casualties were some potatoes and a pig, but it did ultimately lead to the establishment of that section of the border.
So your saying it was far more successful than the emu war but not quite as good as a cod war?
@@KelsaRavenlock Pretty much.
OverSimplifed?
@@KelsaRavenlock Don't mention the war.
I came to the comments to say this. That border is hilariously wrong…
Add to your list Hyder, Alaska (pop 87), and Stewart, British Columbia (pop about 500). Stewart is incredibly remote, making Hyder even moreso, though there is apparently a floatplane delivering mail twice a week.
Yeah, but you can still get Hyderized
Children in Hyder go to school in Stewart so covid seriously affected their education and their social lives.
there was a story in recent years about families of people who aren't allowed to enter the US visit a library in one such town where the building's back door opens in Canada and families can briefly unite inside. And of course the story ended with the US working to stop these meetings.
You are probably refering to the Haskell Free Library between Stanstead, QC and Derby Line, VT
You forgot Northwest Angle above Minnesota in Canada territory.
There's no equivalent Canadian town. And there's less than 200 people living there.
As a Michigander, I almost had a heart attack when I heard you pronounce SSM incorrectly lol
Ah yes, Washingtonians too collapse at his presumptions, Soo-Mass not Sum-ass 😮💨
@@dengxiaoping325 I had a brief moment of "wait have I been pronouncing it wrong this whole time?" when he said that lmao.
We Ontarians also had to do a double take
Well, the bloody word reads like "salt".
michigander? how bout some euro-style: michiganese...? 😂😂
Every Anglophone country when drawing a border
Straight Line?
Straight Line.
Oversimplified 👍
As a Canadian born and raised in Metro Vancouver I can honestly state Point Roberts is the weirdest place ever. I usually go to Tsawwassen to wave at Americans and have some conversations (obviously on our side of the border). Also funny how the most expensive place in Canada the metro Vancouver lower mainland is right across the cheapest housing market in the Northwest USA. Just a little under 1 Million starting price for a single bed condo in Downtown Vancouver yet down there it’s 200,000. Want a home? It’s over a million at least. Absolutely insane.
Oh dear lord….a mill for a studio is mind boggling
@@KAlovesherkitties Well not really 1 million anymore they rose sharply and dropped insanely cause British Columbia is full of money laundering. The B.C Libéral government were in on it too and it was a big scandal involving the B.C Lottery and Casino’s, real estate agents and wealthy Chinese families. Now under the New Democrats prices are going back to $100,000- 300,000 for studio condo’s 700,000 for a 3+ bed condo and just under a million for a single family home. People were literally buying them just for the sake of owning more homes. It became an investment and not something you’d live in.
My grandparents live in Tsawassen and back when I was a kid my grandpa would launch his boat in Point Roberts as it was the closest public launch to their house (plus the bonus of cheaper gas). Back then when we crossed the border the guards cared more about the boat and the fish we caught than us.
As someone who lives on the US border literally right in the area you mentioned this video is both incredibly inaccurate and incredibly painful to watch lmao
It is incredibly inaccurate you mean. The video border line shows all of Puget Sound including south of Seattle and the San Juan Islands as being in Canada.
@@ImaginetMedia i think the map you're referring to was just attempting to show a land border, for simplicity.
@@ImaginetMedia also the butchering of local pronunciations
@@ImaginetMedia you're saying that to someone who lives there. It's like trying to tell magnus carlsen that his moves are wrong, and you found a better one in the same amount of time it took him to find the move he played
@@koohikoo thats just a part of the full HAI experience
We accidentally went to Point Roberts on vacation once when we just figured that any border crossing would get us back to the US.
It's also apparently a hotbed for people in the witness protection program.
It has a very low crime rate as well...
I mean, you were *technically* back in the US
@@Rapidashisaunicorn It was a bit interesting explaining to Canadian customs that our purpose of visiting Canada was to get back to the US, although it probably happens a lot since it's the closest border crossing if you're following the coastline south.
I don't understand why Point Roberts can't use a ferry, it seems like it would solve all its problems
A ferry would not nearly cover the amount of traffic as a land border does. It is pretty impractical overall and would only be able to cover certain times.
no one's ever gotten around to building it
Because a car ferry would cost over $100 million to set up, take longer than driving overland, and have to be paid for entirely by the state since it wouldn’t cross an international border.
My understanding is that it just wouldn’t be very competitive. Ferries are slow and usually work in Washington when connecting to areas that literally have no other form of transportation or the land connection is unbelievably inconvenient
Point Roberts though even with the annoying border crossings still has a good enough land connection that a ferry just wouldn’t make sense compared to just crossing the border
@@jarjarbinks6018 Hk used ferries all the time and is way more populated. I know an island where car ferries arrive every 6 mins. Supplemented by people ferries. Its just a mental block not to use them.
You missed one! (And maybe your sources did too?) Akwesasne NY/ON is a really interesting one, it actually has a fairly long stretch of land between the checkpoints for the 2 borders, and in one sense belongs to the Mohawk nation rather than to either of the 2 countries. It also has a Canadian exclave on a peninsula for the same reason - straight border lines don't leave much room for natural shapes.
The border enforcement there has been very strict in recent years, it really sucks for the people in the community. I just drive through on my way to see my family though.
Also nice to see Fort Blunder mentioned, that's right near where I grew up!
As a Canadian, I'd like to thank you for ceding us all the wonderful San Juan Islands formerly of Washington state, as well as all the bays and estuaries of its coastal mainland.
We would have been more than happy with just Point Roberts.
Oh, and Sumas, like Sault Ste Marie, is also pronounced with a soo (rhymes with zoo). Soo-mass, not some-ass.
As someone who lives on the border, I must say life couldn't be better. City is empty, no neighbors, no people coming and going... life is great
As a former resident of Vancouver and semi-frequent visitor to Point Roberts, a few corrections:
- The T in Tsawwassen isn’t silent (it’s “Tuh-wassen”)
- Sault Ste. Marie, ON is pronounced “Soo Saint Marie”
- Sumas, BC is pronounced “Soo-mass”
- The passenger ferry to Point Roberts wasn’t for tourists. It was primarily for Point Roberts residents who needed to get out of Point Roberts for medical appointments, work, shopping, and other essential purposes. Tourists were actually asked to stay away to make sure there was capacity for locals. There was (and still is) also airline service between Bellingham and a grass airstrip in Point Roberts for those wanting a quicker trip and/or visiting and not wanting to use ferry capacity.
The T is silent for the Tsawwassen First Nation but most locals say the T
I'm still convinced that Vancouver BC is named after Vancouver WA... because they missed us when the border got drawn 😅
Both are named after George Vancouver. Vancouver, WA is actually older one (and was founded by the British, the Oregon Country was shared between the Britain and the USA until they extended the border to the West Coast).
th-cam.com/video/69s6MrUiwLc/w-d-xo.html Here's a video from the old mayor of Vancouver (BC)
There's a good Kumtuks video on this called Two Vancouvers on the West Coast
Tell me, is Hudson's Bay named after the Hudson River? Are they connected?
@@stvdagger8074 both are named after the same guy Henry Hudson. So I guess similar to the west coast having so many Vancouvers.
The first "S" in "Tsawwassen" is silent.
Canadians, particularly those in Vancouver, LOVE Point Roberts, because we can order domestic shipments like Amazon orders from the USA, and have them shipped there, and cross the border to pick them up and save a bundle on shipping.
I do it all the time :)
Also, get things that are exclusive only to the US :) I was there today
The first nation there change it. Though the English spelling is still the same, their Indigenous name is sc̓əwaθən and pronounced st͡sʼəwaθən. In short, it's S, with silent t.
Can't we all get along come on American and Canada has never fought a War against each other I even get along with the French Canadians they're the best love you Canada
@@tommyfaulkner7374 Umm.... War of 1812, where we burned down White House? Pig War of 1859? Even Alsaka boundary dispute can be seen as UK settle boundary withotu consulting even their own colonists.
We have good relationship now, but not always.
Local here. The T is silent.
Point Roberts is a favourite location for the American witness protection program to relocate witnesses to. The only way someone from the US looking for the witness can get there is either by crossing an international border twice, or by taking a boat there, either of which increases their chances of being noticed and stopped (especially if they have a criminal record) and leaves more of a trail of evidence behind than if they were able to just drive there unimpeded.
1:34 where’s the great lakes Sam?? Looking forward too Part 6 of mistakes
The border at Point Roberts is shown correctly on the map in the video, but the border through the Strait of Georgia is hilariously wrong. On the other hand, against all odds, Sam pronounced "Tsawwassen" correctly, so I guess it evens out.
Pretty sure it is pronounced Tawassen by the locals.
Also he pronounced the first term of "Sault Sainte Marie" as "soul" when all the consonants after the S are completely silent - it's effectively "so".
No, Sam didn't pronounce the place correctly (I don't blame him, usually T is normally silent with "Ts" combo)
@@avrowolf I live nearby. He pronounced it correctly.
@@LOLokBuddy I'm one of those locals. Tawwassen has become more common recently, but until the 1990s, it was only ever pronounced Sawwassen.
A very good friend of mine was born an American in 1928. He didn't finish high school, moved to Canada and got a job with Chrysler, which had factories in Detroit and across the border in Windsor. His job was a messenger and crossed the border many times a day. The border agent greeted him by first name and let him travel freely until his 18th birthday. He tried to cross the border like he always did, then the border agent grabbed his arm and told him to register for the draft. He soon joined the army and was sent to Japan as a medic, where the army was staging soldiers for the operations in Korea. So the border agents do pay attention to who comes and goes.
The same thing happens over here on the East Coast. I'm from New Brunswick ( I know most Canadians don't even know where that is despite our country only having 10 provinces to remember). Campobello Island is owned by Canada. FDR had a summer cottage there, so Maine built the FDR bridge on the US side. There are also 3 tiny Seal Islands that are contested and US fishermen use them as an excuse to fish in Canadian waters during the season. We have FN communities that cross the border and some of the largest employers/landowning companies in both NB and Maine. Closing the border caused a bunch of drama for those of us living on this side of both countries too.
Maby we can scede the land out west and we get the land out east. Or ya remove the stupid ass hard border.
There's also a US National (well International) park on the island...
I was fortunate to visit Campobello Island and FDR's summer home back in 2016 or 17 from Maine. It is quite beautiful and quaint in that area of the world. I also took a small boat whale watching tour around Fundy bay there too.
Imagine not being in the Schengen Area and caring about borders
Best thing that happened to Europe, (together with EU).
@@android199ios25 Yes, very convenient.
Even before Schengen European countries weren't as obsessed with their borders as the US is. The only instance where borders looked like the US/CAN or US/Mex one was the Iron Curtain. But the last time I checked the US and Canada weren't pointing nukes at each other. xD
@@StYxXx For us with Soviet passports, Germany border (already after unification) looked pretty much as our Soviet border :) . French, though, did not
An interesting followup video could be about the flooding that happened last fall that caused massive damage to Abbotsford and Sumas "Sue-mas," and the surrounding areas. Just an interesting topic due to the flooding affecting two countries.
The atmosphere at the US-Canada border looks more relaxed and friendly than my home in Texas on the US-Mexico border , I live in Nye , Anna ave street . My house is near the Rio Grande River. Just open the back door and see Nuevo Laredo Mexico.The border here is only a river separating the two borders
more relaxed friendly coming into usa from canada--sucks going to nazi canada
You can also fly into the grass airstrip at Pt. Roberts has as well. That's something that i used to do working for San Juan Airlines.
Just gonna skip the Angle?
Listening to your pronunciation of "Sault St. Marie" was brutal. Hoping it makes it into your next correction video
Episode idea, why British Columbia high school plays NFL rules and not CFL rules football.
Simon Fraiser University played NFL rules until 2001 and then switched to CFL rules before switching back to NFL rules in 2010.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Fraser_University_football
Yes. Living on some piece of barbed wire fence might be a bad idea.
Still better than California
@@dolphinrpg8854 California ain’t that bad if you can afford it. That is *if you can afford it. Or go you’re homeless I guess lol
Still better than New York (overrated)
Still better than any southern state besides Texas and Florida.
@@MagicalBread nobody wanna live in commiefornia
@@MagicalBread idk about the non-new york city areas of new york state, but i would NOT want to live in NYC
Your video brought back some really great memories. I was raised on the US/Canada border of Youngstown, New York, and Niagara-on-the-lake, Ontario, with only the slim line of the Lower Niagara River in between the two. For young boaters with their own dingys or row boats the border was no problem. We left the NY side and 15 minutes later tied up on the Canadian one. Customs was almost non-existent. After 9/11, when I came back to visit my hometown, I could not enter Canada without a passport. I completely sympathize with the much greater problems faced by my west coast cousins! Still, what "border" memories I have of those simpler times!
My family and I have a boat and every summer we cruise up and down on the Niagara River in Youngstown. We don’t attempt to dock our boat on the Canadian Side but it’s very common for boats to move up and down the river very near the shores on both sides. You rarely see Border Patrol but understand that if you attempted to go a shore on the Canadian side that they would show up promptly and that you would be subject to a long list of questions.
In the past it wasn’t uncommon to cross the bridge to Canada for dinner,shopping or just for an evening stroll. You simply answered a few questions at the bridge and off you went.
Something interesting to add... until 1985, Pt. Roberts was serviced by BC Tel; until 2019 they were served by Delta Cable (a Canadian Company).
The US and Canada made a huge mistake by tightening the borders between their countries, and instead should have worked together to secure access to the continent. It would have been a lot cheaper in the long run, and would have actually been a meaningful change, instead of the placebo that the current restrictions represent.
Very much agreed
"...and instead should have worked together to secure access to the continent."
The Bush administration formally proposed that in 2002, but the Chrétien administration effectively said hell no. The idea has not been revisited since.
@@mg2779 Yet another reason to not have like Jean Cretien
@@teg24601 Jean Cretien had the courage not to take us to Iraq. For that I would forgive him everything else
Sumas is pronounced Sue-Mass. Always love these videos about Point Roberts and other towns that are similar to it!
summice
I lived on the Canadian side of the Point Roberts border in the fall of 2002. We frequently visited Point Roberts to visit people, pick up mail, and buy groceries and gas (which were way cheaper). I'm American, but I don't remember experiencing any real delays trying to cross the border-we always had to stop and show passports, but the passing was pretty forgettable (this was 20 years ago, so I could be forgetting things). Maybe the border was even quicker prior to 9/11 but it didn't seem like the border was causing people problems (but this was a year after 9/11 and I'm American, so the experience may have been different immediately following the attacks or for non-US citizens). Point Roberts was definitely a very quiet town without many people, and maybe that was also different pre-9/11.
It's jokes like "barrel enthusiasts" that make me love this channel
I live north of Canada on the us Canada border and honestly these changes don’t really effect us that much you just have to have a password or special license to cross if needed. It’s not that big of a deal.
Whats the password?
I can remember when travelling to the US was very easy, you just drove. At the border, they simply asked what you're up to. But back in the '90s, things started to change. It was no longer simply a matter of showing your ID, stating your business, and off you go. I was driving cab in '92, and one of our contracts was with Burlington Northern, where we would pick up the twice daily dispatches from New Westminster and take them to Burlington. I did that once, and never again. When I got to the border in my cab, I was pulled aside and given the fifth degree while my cab was searched. Finally, after 45 minutes, I was allowed to complete my fair (not getting paid for the time delay). Then crossing back into Canada, I once again had to go through 20 minutes of questioning. And this is all on the background of cabs from our company doing this twice a day, and had been doing it for years. Shortly thereafter, the cab company stopped the service because of too many complaints from the drives not getting paid in accordance with the time it took.
Since then, I have only gone across to the US twice more. Once before 9/11 and once after. The time before was a gong show at US customs. The time after went fairly smoothly, but I had gotten my passport prior to going south, and that seemed to be the key.
The moral of this story is that before 9/11 the US customs was getting harder to deal wth for reasons I cannot explain. In the '70s and early '80s it was a piece of cake, by the '90s it was a growing chore. Noticebly, my cousins who had summer property in Point Roberts all sold out around this time.
0:03 as a resident of this area please never say sahwwassen again thanks, the s is silent not the t, you sound like someone who’s never been to Tsawwassen before
and the world kept spinning xx
Actually, if you check in with the Indigenous people whose demonym provides the name to that area, the way they say it in their language actually sounds more like suh-WUH-sen. What you assert is correct is actually an anglicized pronunciation. Neither are incorrect, just multiple ways to say it.
I work for a freight company in the Northwest, and we deal with five "island" carriers in the Puget Sound area -- Vashon (Island) Trucking, Friday Harbor Freight (San Juan Island), Orcas Island Freight, Lopez (Island) Freight, and Point Roberts Auto Freight. Because Point Roberts might as well be an island, even if you can drive there, nobody else is going to do it. ^_^
The “secured” border stuff is ridiculous. It makes life crappy for millions, is ridiculously expensive, and does absolutely nothing to increase anyone’s security.
exactly what the US wants. Or - lets say - its masters in the shadows.
It is rumored that many folks in witness protection are in Point Roberts, since you need to cross two international boarders to get there from the US.
Angle Inlet is another interesting one. Access through Manitoba by road.
I believe there is no border guard, but a phone at the town which you must use to call the customs station at Warroad.
So what I heard is that Point Roberts should be part of Canada, I would be fine with that.
It says "deparment" instead of "department" at 2:18.
What is also Half Interesting is that TH-cam allows advertising for Nebula
It's pronounced "sue st. Marie" not "Sault ST Marie"
Next time say Mackinac in your video to drive us Michiganders and Canadians crazy also
I actually went to Point Roberts like 4 months ago to pick up a package cause it was cheaper than shipping it up across the border and it is the strangest place I've ever been. I barely saw anyone, most of the houses I saw were currently empty vacation homes it seems, they had 1 grocery store that looked like you'd get murdered in it, 1 restaurant that was closed the day I went in and like 4 different parcel services and 8 gas stations or something like that. At this point the main draw as I see it for point roberts is as a cheaper alternative for Vancouverites and others in the GVA to get expensive packages shipped to them as well as sometimes get cheaper gas, especially if you live in Tsawwassen so the hop over the border is like a run to the store especially if you have nexus. Easily the strangest 4 hours of my life when I just popped in.
Canadian day visits began to decline when adult films became freely available in Canada.
@@Mister_Pedantic and a lot of oversite on the Marina there from the US Feds.
The border near Vancouver is a bit off, the San juan islands are American territory.
He must be salty that the brits left san juan island
The actually decision on the islands boundaries was made in arbitration agreed to by both parties: I believe they entrusted The Kaiser at the time to make the arb. decision.
@Dwight st. john I'm pretty sure you're right, the Germans arbitrated the dispute. Didn't realize it was the Kaiser though, that's even more amusing.
Point Roberts has always been a handy place for residents of Greater Vancouver to get cheaper gas and receive parcels in their P.O. boxes. Hopefully the border becomes less encumbered soon. Crossing used to be much simpler before 9/11.
The Haskell Free Library (Derby Line, VT and Stanstead QC) is a great place to visit if you ever get the chance. One of the few places you can personally straddle the border, and the formal crossings within town are some of the least built-up you will ever see.
A fun story, the old principle at Blaine High School was let go of because he was part of a drug ring that was smuggling weed across the border on elementary school busses. This was back in the early 2000’s.
Thats fucking crazy
It’s pronounced Sue St. Marie. “Sue” as in I will be forced to sue Sam if he doesn’t research his pronunciations. Or even worse, I might have to start calling him Simon Whistler. 😂
Ironically he also pronounced Sumas wrong, and it is also Sue-mass. Similar issue, different sides of the country!
I can only imagine the look on Sam's face when he first tried to figure out how to pronounce Tsawwassen (the town that borders Pt Robert's). He did get it correct though. Weirdly, everyone that lives there pronounces "t-wah-sen" even though we know it's not correct.
The TFN (Tsawwassen First Nation) people don't have the English S sound in their language, so no, Sam's not right either. In the TFN's written language, it's sc̓əwaθən. I admit that, despite having lived here for40 years, on and off, I have never sat down to discuss language with an older TFN member.
I live here and everyone pronounces it Saw-waz-sen.
Yet he failed to pronounce Sault Ste. Marie correctly.
@@ImaginetMedia lived in Ladner for 27 years and have yet to meet anyone who pronounces it like that, except for the ferries.
@@locketom I live in Boundary Bay. Everyone says Saw waz Zen. We also pronounce Ladner as Sir-E. :-)
"..."
"..."
"Straight Line?"
"Straight Line."
North Michigander here, hey Sam, love your videos 😊 Sault St Marie is pronounced like Soo Saint Marie. We’re sneaky like that 😂
A little pronunciation aid for you Sam: Sault St. Marie is pronounced "Soo-saint Marie" (aka The Soo) at least in Canada. I have no idea how they pronounce it in Michigan.
I drove down to point Robert's. What an odd but beautiful place
@2:25 - I had to laugh several times on how the narrator mispronounces "Sault" in Sault Sainte Marie.
Let’s be clear: this “problem” is all the making of the US. I had my Canadian sail boat at a Point Roberts marina before and after 9/11. Sailing sucked after that date. Gave up crossing the border long before COVID as the dignity factor had plummeted to sub-zero levels.
Fact is we've caught more terrorists from the Canadian border than the Mexican border......
@@markstevens1729
Ooh, a Canadian that acts like an American trumptard supporter.
Don't see many of those.
Don't even get me started on the number of suspected terrorists that have been stopped at the Canadian border. So no telling how many of those have slipped through.
Wait until you tell the US government about Schengen and what options it provides
Didn't you watch the video? The US did have that until 9/11, hell for the longest time you could get what's called the "Enhanced Drivers License" in Ontario which allowed you to cross the US-Canada border without a passport, but they have since retired that
@@coastaku1954 I did. And shocker: There were terrorist attacks in Europe as well. And the borders still weren't shut because of it. Only Covid ended up closing the borders
@@Hendricus56 A truly open border could never work in North America
@@coastaku1954 we used to have one...
@@Steven_Edwards No we didn't, there was always a checkpoint
Hey I'm from BC and I have a house in Point Roberts. just wanted to say that Tsawwassen is pronounced "Tuh-wassen". I physically recoiled when you read it as it is spelled. Canada is all about Butchering Native names
One of my best friends lives in Blaine, Washington (you mention it in the story). The view out of his front windows is of Canada.
You missed the fact that while Point Roberts does have a Washington state elementary school, it does NOT have a middle or high school.
So, the students from Point Roberts have to cross the US Canada border 4 times a DAY (Morning: US to Canada, then Canada to US, then reverse in the afternoon) Not only does this take well over an hour and a half each way, PLUS driving time, it essentially prevents Point Roberts students from participating in ANY after-school activities-one bus trip each way per day, period. And they can't get detention, as it would take their parents hours to go get them home. So they have to get up tremendously early, and get home late every day.
There is also essentially no medical care in Point Roberts. Pre-pandemic, one RN lived there and helped US citizens. But when they needed a doctor, dentist, etc., they had to make the trip (over an hour) to the rest of Washington state to visit a doctor or hospital.
In the summer, Point Roberts was primarily populated by wealthy and elderly Canadians, as the lower US taxes made it easier for them to purchase a summer home there.
I think the US and Canada need to work out a way to make Point Roberts part of Canada. You would have to compensate the citizens for their holding and inconvenience of either becoming Canadians or of moving back to the mainland.
The other locations are not as bad, as they are not physically separated from the rest of their country.
Sault is pronounced as "Soo" / "Su" not even close to Salt. Lol. The l and T are both silent letters that modify the diphthong "au".
Sault \ ˈsü \ : a fall or rapid in a river.
Wow. That was a good, and I mean a very good 6:40 long ad.
Not going to lie, the US-Canadian border is one of the few things that make me genuinely upset at how stupid they are. Absolutely mind-boggling how US officials think they're necessary.
dont you know canada supplies most of the United states Heroin there very necessary im still sad trump never actually built the canada border wall he promised
ive been saying this but the us-mexico border
@@ReXox35 i mean the us-canada border is also there for a reason
And the Canadian officials are equally Kafkian, requiring ALL travelers to use the stupid "Arrive-Can" app. That has led to a precipitous drop in Americans visiting Canada.
@@ReXox35 and what's that reason that couldn't be applied to the us mexico border
As someone who is now a part-time resident of Point Roberts, you've earned a hell of a "Well, ACTUALLY..." for this video.
While COVID did do a number on Point Roberts, you've glossed over significant improvements that have happened in the past several months, including the Remote Border Community exemption as of early 2021 that provides for cross-border travel again... for residents, at least, which admittedly only solved half the problem. Removing testing requirements in April has made additional improvements, mostly for Canadians visiting the Point. The last major hiccup -- vaccination requirements for non-resident Americans to enter Canada -- is proving to be part bug and part feature, as Canada doesn't exactly see this as a problem. 🤷
Unlike the other border towns you mentioned in your video, Point Roberts has unique properties (and as a result been granted additional exceptions by the governments of both countries!) as a remote border community, more akin to the Northwest Angle or Hyder, Alaska. While failing to mention the Point at all would be a grave oversight in a video about the US/Canada border, there's enough unique about its status as a remote border community that using it as the focus of your video about everyone else's border issues makes most of your discussion about the Point itself a gross oversimplification, almost to the point of misinformation.
Good to know I guess.
Except the testing is still administered...just on a random basis. You need to budget time for a possible test each time you cross the border back into Canada. I've been flagged twice for a test....colossal pain since it took almost 24 hours to get the appointment completed the first time before I could be released from quarantine.
Border towns should be illegal. Honestly, look at the problems these two countries have caused for these residents. On top of that, I kinda feel like point Roberts should be a part of Canada. The fact that the US wants to keep such a small useless price of land is pathetic
Why? Border towns make it really easy to experience another country. As a Torontonian, one of the right of passages living there is that you make the pilgrimage 1.5 hours (3hours with traffic) to Buffalo, NY for some good ol' cross border shopping. There is nothing wrong with having a town on one side and another on the other side, so long as the needs of the people can be met on the side they live on. My family is from Sault Ste Marie, ON and whenever I visit, I never say "God I need to get to this store but oh no... it's on the other side of this border, which is on the other side of this massive St Mary's River..."
@@coastaku1954 Oakville born and raised here, I don't think either of our cities really count as "border towns", y'know? I still get your point though
@@DDRWakaLaka I'm talking about Fort Erie, ON and Buffalo, NY. Buffalo is RIGHT on the border, meaning you don't need to drive far into the US to get to the fabled Target
@@DDRWakaLaka Also I'm from Mississauga, I say Torontonian because people have heard of Toronto, no one has heard of Mississauga outside of Ontario
I live on the Canada / US border - however it's heavily guarded and enforced over here.
Also it's been at least 15 years + that we needed identifaction to cross.
I thought it was longer than that maybe 25 years, it doesn't seem to be guarded that much ? but i guess you would know since you live up there. I saw on the news once some guy walked his dog on the road, since there's no fence to the right, and some patrol told him never do that again, typical assholes !
Huh, an HAI video that's more informative than funny. I thought I'd never see the day.
A good video! Lots of things to think about. Borders can be very fascinating.
The title:
Literally nearly all of Canada's population: But i dont have any other good enough optionಠ_ಠ
Escourt Station Maine has less than 10 people. It is the only place in U.S. with Quebec phone number.
The gas station was shut down after U.S. and Canadian residents were driven out by the Patriot Act and the border stations being closed after 4pm.
This is why drawing a straight line on a map and calling it a day is often times a bad idea.
"a border free North America". Mexico is literally North America.
You can also tell you have only read some of those names. "Sault" in Sault Ste Marie is pronounced "Soo". It is of French origin, and as with many French words the final consonant(s) are silent.
So some rather pedantic local nitpicking history. Modern day Abbotsford is actually a collection of smaller towns and villages that popped up in, for the most part, a century ago. The actual split community was a small neighborhood effectively called Huntingdon. Bonus history is that we have one of the closest international airports to a border crossing in the world, which made its initial construction for training pilots in WWII a contentious issue.
When I was a kid growing up in Michigan my parents used to go out to a Chinese place in Windsor, Ontario known as Peonies. All they did was ask why we were entering the other country and if we had anything with us, and then waved us through. Now they ask you these things and want to see an ID; Where's the problem? I have a US Passport and a US Passport card that allows me to go into Canada or Mexico without my actual passport. I see Port Roberts when I am flying into Vancouver and always thought it looked like a fascinating place, I didn't realize that it was such a hassle to show an ID in order to go to the grocery store and buy a six pack of Molsons....
In the US in the past when states lines were being laid out, they typically avoided "hanging areas". If you look at the northeast corner of Mississippi, you will see that there is a chunk lopped off and given to Alabama. This was done because of the river that runs through there. If the eastern state line of Mississippi had not been cut off this way, there would be a section of the state across the river. This poses a problem for criminality. You see, they would have either had to build a bridge across that river or build a police station for this tiny area. Otherwise, police would have to go out of their jurisdiction in order to answer calls in that area and the driving distance would be large. Organized crime would recognize this and set up shop there. Instead, they adjusted the eastern border of Mississippi slightly east and gave that notch at the top to Alabama and called it even.
As someone who lives in Canada bordering Point Roberts I cried inside by the way he pronounced "Tsawassen."
But he probably spelled it correctly - 2 ww's,
@@cliffordcunningham4155 I still make that mistake it to this day.
I grew up in Fort Erie, Ontario - being able to see the Marine Midland Building (in Buffalo, New York) from my doorstep. Back in the old days, as a teenager, I once cut class to walk across the Peace Bridge and catch a Pearl Jam concert. It was a different age!
I must admit: during the COVID lockdown, I wondered how the town with the Haskell Library was dealing with things. Thanks for the info!
As a resident of Sault Ste Marie, it's pronounced 'Soo' Ste Marie.
2nd oldest settlement in the United States.
They put the border between one city after the war of 1812.
It's been here since the 1600s.
1:18 -- "Bolth" I guess we know what side of the border this was made.
I lived in Tsawwassen for the first few decades of my life, and it was always fun having our own corner of the USA just 5 minutes away to call our own. Cheap gas, cheese, and beer!
As someone living on a border city, I love it. Metro Buffalo includes Niagara Falls, NY/Niagara Falls, ON. While yes its more difficult to cross over the Niagara River, there are so many benefits of being on the border. I wouldn't trade it away for anything.