El Cochinito

Last week I happened to be driving along Avenue 0 east of the Aldergrove border crossing between British Columbia and Washington. The country road parallels the Canada/USA border on the Canadian side; there is literally only a small ditch separating the two nations. Check it out on Google Maps Street View.

I came across some kids playing football along Avenue 0 and was curious - what happens if they accidentally kick the ball into the USA? I for one would take my chances, run across the border, grab my ball and run back.

Just something I wondered about. Had a nice weekend visit in the Abbotsford, BC area before heading over to Lynden, WA to take care of some business.

cynicAAl

I have several friends in Lynden. To them, the "border" is just a line on a map.

FliesWay2Much

I hope it stays that way. It wasn't the case for a VT(?) border town where the volunteer fire departments and EMTs used to back each other up. DHS put an end to that.

El Cochinito

I had to meet with an attorney in Lynden. Nice town!

cynicAAl

I assume he/she is Dutch.

nachtnebel

Was just up there a few weeks ago, attending a graduation. My fellow travelers wondered if a US Predator would fire on you if got off the road too far on the US side, or more seriously, what kind of surveillance was in place.

To answer your question, if the Canadian authorities caught the kid coming back, they'd want duties on the ball. If the US authorities caught the kid, they'd stick him on a bus to Memphis and let him go. Katch and release.

Not too far west of there is a pristine coastal town called White Rock. Unspoiled. Check out Hemingway's.

alapah

Interesting about the town in VT. I believe that Hyder, Alaska still receives medical and fire support from the neighboring town of Stewart, British Columbia, as they have no such services in Hyder. If wikipedia can be believed, the RCMP even occasionally provide police services.

Blogndog

you may remember the infaous incident a few years back, in which CBP delayed a Quebec emergency services vehicle that was responding to a request for assistance from New York

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/pract...ntry-safe.html

It's getting difficult to tally all the needless deaths DHS is responsible for.

FliesWay2Much

Thanks for digging this up. This was the incident I noted upstream. There are other instances where CBP used eminent domain to seize farmland for large checkpoint operations.

seawolf

Haskell Free Library and Opera House straddles Quebec and Vermont.

Gogie

The Aroostook Valley Country Club (Maine/New Brunswick) was established during prohibition with the course and clubhouse located on the Canadian side of the border and the parking lot and pro shop on the US side. In this way US golfers could get around prohibition by having their 19th hole drinks in Canada!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aroosto...y_Country_Club

El Cochinito

I asked my attorney about that very thing when I saw the fake windmills, flower boxes and Dutch bakeries in downtown Lynden. He isn't Dutch but told me a lot of folks from the Netherlands settled in this area. The town started to capitalize on the Dutch heritage but the effort sort of faded away over the years. For instance that big old windmill downtown - used to be a hotel? - is closed. The Dutch bakery down the block is still open and I had lunch there. Several antique stores downtown if you're into that sort of thing.

I need to go back to Bellingham and Lynden several more times; I'll take a drive over to White Rock, BC as suggested by nachtnebel. Was also curious about the Pt. Roberts, Washington exclave so I might go look around there on one of these trips as well.

usafwso

Last year when driving up to Vancouver, we parked the car in a parking lot very close to the boarder so that we could walk down to the Peace Arch park. There were a few cars in the lot as well as a U. S. Border Patrol agent watching all the people.