The smallest US or Canadian border checkpoint you've ever used.
 

What is the smallest (lowest daily volume) CBP / CBSA border facility you've ever used?

For me - CBP - Ambrose, North Dakota, which averages about four people per day. CBSA- Northgate, SK, averages about thirty people per day.

For Ambrose.... is it like a small country town in Australia would be... where the Border agent is ALSO the local Postmaster, barber, newsagent and taxi driver? :D

Ambrose, North Dakota is for all intents and purposes a ghost town as the population has dropped to 20 people or so.

Indeed. I couldn't resist looking the place up after the OP's post.

I cannot answer your question, but there is one border crossing between Canada and the U.S. that is now one-way:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chur...order_Crossing

Data of the ten US-Canadian border crossing with the lowest number of vehicles crossing in the month of February, 2022. Data obtained from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
https://www.bts.gov/browse-statistic...singentry-data

1. Hannah, North Dakota - 1 vehicle
2. Ambrose, North Dakota - 13 vehicles
3. Nighthawk, Washington - 28 vehicles
4. Opheim, Montana - 33 vehicles
5. Pinecreek, Minnesota - 46 vehicles
6. Sarles, North Dakota - 47 vehicles
7. Maida, North Dakota - 56 vehicles
8. Whitlash, Montana - 62 vehicles
9. Hansboro, North Dakota - 63 vehicles
10. St John, North Dakota - 71 vehicles

Overlooking the Windsor Detroit Tunnel from the office; we've been through Beebe Plain, VT (which was a ton of fun--ended up talking at length with the agent about he just couldn't see himself working at anything so busy as Windsor, and we've also done the water/ferry crossings at Walpole Is/Algonac, MI (where they are in effect booze cruises, as people cross with a handtruck to pick up beer in the US)

Lubec, Maine and Campobello Island, New Brunswick when running the Bay of Fundy half marathon. They arrange race packet pick up so your immigration paperwork for both the USA and Canada is verified then and the chip on your race bib is not for timing like it usually is but rather to check you into and out of Canada during the last few miles of the race. (Anyone with a race number got waived through the crossing rather than having to stop there)

Los Ebanos. The last hand-operated cable ferry into/out of the USA.

It looks like there is quite a bit of foot traffic at Los Ebanos (Rio Grande City) border crossing.

Rio Grande City's crossing is the Starr-Camargo Bridge. Los Ebanos is 20 miles away, and I would consider to be part/near La Joya. The latest numbers I can find are from 2018, where there about 60,000 crossings a year, split roughly in half between pedestrians and vehicles. The Starr-Camargo bridge gets 400,000 crossings per year. Most folks in the Rio Grande Valley cross at the Pharr, McAllen, and Brownsville bridges at several million per year

Then there's the "Your neighbor is on the other side of the street AND border".

Skagway, Alaska in 09/2001.

We got picked up at the Whitehorse (Yukon) airport & got to the Skagway CBP station very late (maybe around midnight). They were closed at that time of day, so you had to get out of your car, push a button & look up at the camera & say your name & why you were there !! :-) We may have had to hold up our passports, but I can't remember anymore.

I would imagine that they don't do it like that there anymore (this was a week or so before Sept 11th occurred).

Don't forget "The Slash" -- Self-service immigration and customs:


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...6b0b0990c3.jpg

Same type thing happens on the Detroit Free Press marathon which crosses into Canada.

Richford, VT,
Dec 23, 2005

At the time, I had recently moved to Vermont and my mother lived in Quebec. I wanted to use this route away from the 133 since it was closer to my mothers other house in Vermont so I choose the one in Richford.
But on my first attempt at Richford POE in my SUV with California plates. He questioned my CA plates and told him I'll deal with it when I felt like it. He ran the MRZ and flipped through my passport and told me to park my car where it was, in front of his station (and blocking one lane) and told me to follow him inside the station. At his desk, he was again flipping through my passport and was interested in my travels to the Russian Federation, UK, Japan, Malaysia, and Thailand and was interested what I did for a living. It was just me and him sitting across from each other for 30 minutes. During this chat, I told him " I was busy" as to why my passport had a bunch of stamps and a visa from the Russian Federation. No messing around with computers like they do nowdays, no touching my car, he was just looking through my passport and a chat at the beginning of primary to secondary.

He stopped bothering me after subsequent passes...

These days if you're going chat with a CBP officer in secondary, they are going to be tying stuff into their computers and it's going to be more formal, with customer service desk like setting...

If that same officer saw me to today, he's going to see a lot of entries from Mexico, a lot...