Poor, Sweet, Innocent Canadians (Part Deux)
Those loyal readers among you will remember fondly (or with exasperation) my troubles in June with U.S. border officials over a little bit of smoked meat (that's pastrami here in the States). Well, here is a story that tops all that and easily. As the Christian Science Monitor reports, the residents of Campobello Island, in Canada, have to cross into the United States (Maine) if they want to get gasoline, or go see a movie, or get to a hospital. Geography, the road system, and our borders with our friendly neighbors have made it so. But with a new border crackdown brought on by terrorism fears, the ability of island residents to make the crossing has been difficult and it is about to get worse.
Soon, everyone crossing into the States will have to have a valid passport. This includes, the Monitor reports, school-age children travelling by bus to play in intramural sports. "For generations," writes Colin Woodard, "residents of Campobello, Lubec, and other communities on the U.S.'s easternmost frontier hardly paid a thought to the border. The ease with which they crossed between the two countries meant Canadians and Americans dated and married one another, and gave birth to their children in one another's hospitals. Their fire departments responded to each other's emergencies." All this is jeopardized by the standard rules the government intends to apply in the name of stopping terrorism. But it gets even more bizarre.
"Earlier this year," Woodard writes, "an islander was bounced back and forth between the U.S. and Canadian customs posts on each side of the Campobello bridge because neither side would let him enter the country with a bag of dog food purchased at Lubec's supermarket, 500 yards away. (Beef products can't be brought across because of concerns about mad cow disease.) 'The other day, on the U.S. side, they stopped a guy who had a hot dog and made him stop eating it and throw it away at the border,' says Mr. Hooper. 'That doesn't make much sense when you realize that the garbage truck that collects our trash takes it ... over to the transfer station in Marion, Maine, hot dogs and all.'
Instead of forcing residents to get a passport, how about allowing resident to register with border agents-- to create a pre-approved "short list" not unlike the kind they are pitching these days for air travel? The turnover rate, among border agents and residents alike, can't be all that intense to make such a list unworkable. And for the love of Pete how about stopping the obsession with the already-cooked, salted, cured meats (as Jerry Seinfeld used to say)?
By Andrew Cohen |
August 9, 2006; 4:15 PM ET
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Posted by: Peter Gardner | August 9, 2006 08:17 PM
I would suggest U.S. Customs to take a look at how they do it in Kleinwalsertal, Austria. We go there to hike every fall. The valley is a cul-de-sac. Only one way to get in or out.
To get to Kleinwalsertal, you have to go by Oberstdorf, Germany. The border is situated at the beginning of the valley. They call it an "Anschlussgebiet". Before the euro, you could pay at stores and buses etc. with either Shilling or Deutsche Mark. Everybody goes back and forth without any problems. Of course, Austria and Germany are E.U. countries, but before that, the same solution existed, since Kleinwalsertal is impossible to reach but from Germany, unless you climb over the Grosse Widderstein, which is a 2.533 m. high mountain!
Here in our own Belgium, we have even odder situations : the border between the Netherlands and Belgium. There are two villages, originally one : Baarle-Hertog and Baarle-Nassau. The border there runs through houses, cafés, official buildings, farms, you name it. Worthwile looking it up on the internet!
Campobello residents, you have my wholehearted sympathy !
Julie Du Breuil, Linden, Belgium.
Posted by: Julie Du Breuil | August 10, 2006 07:59 AM
Thank you, Julie.
Mr Cohen will find that information useful when he officially denounces his US citizenship and flees to Europe.
Personally I think stopping Cohen at the border is about the best evidence that our security might be working.
What this left-wing nut doing crossing back and forth across the border constantly anyway?
Posted by: man without a country | August 11, 2006 02:23 AM
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I've read that in some places, where a town in one country is only accessible via another country, the town is placed within the customs borders of the second country. This might be a good solution here.