What's so great about those two countries that makes the border control to be overly diligent?
Canada's Toughest Border Crossing
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Re: Canada's Toughest Border Crossing
#12The Haskell Free Library in Derby Line and Stanstead Quebec is quirky. Half in Canada and half in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskell_Free_Library_and_Opera...
Both towns are fascinating as well. Worth a visit in the summer/fall.
Re: Canada's Toughest Border Crossing
#13What's so great about those two countries that makes the border control to be overly diligent?
They both have a surplus of bored and/or vindictive officials.
Re: Canada's Toughest Border Crossing
#14There's an entertaining CGP Grey video about other oddities in the US-Canada border. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMkYlIA7mgw Considering how inconvenient it is in some geographies and how small the patches of land are, I'm always surprised the State Department doesn't negotiate a land exchange treaty with Canada to fix what are essentially cartography bugs. Both sides would spend a few tens of millions compensati…
I grew up in Delta near Point Roberts. It's a part of America located on the southern end of a peninsula, the rest of which, is part of British Columbia. They have an elementary school but not a high school in point roberts. So, when I was in high school, most of the people from Point Roberts would be bussed into Tsawwassen but we had a bus that would bring a few of them to the high school I went to.
That seems like a perfect area that could be part of your land exchange idea. All the teenagers there end up going to school in Canada anyway. There's only one crossing between Point Roberts and Canada.
Re: Canada's Toughest Border Crossing
#15There's an entertaining CGP Grey video about other oddities in the US-Canada border. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMkYlIA7mgw Considering how inconvenient it is in some geographies and how small the patches of land are, I'm always surprised the State Department doesn't negotiate a land exchange treaty with Canada to fix what are essentially cartography bugs. Both sides would spend a few tens of millions compensati…
I grew up in Delta near Point Roberts. It's a part of America located on the southern end of a peninsula, the rest of which, is part of British Columbia. They have an elementary school but not a high school in point roberts. So, when I was in high school, most of the people from Point Roberts would be bussed into Tsawwassen but we had a bus that would bring a few of them to the high school I went to. That seems like…
Then where will Canadians deliver their EBay, Amazon and other US vendor packages?
Have you seen how much cheaper auto parts are in USA?
Re: Canada's Toughest Border Crossing
#16The policy under which they might gain the right to mobility - proof of ancestral custom - fixes in place what would have been a continually evolving aspect of historical culture. The Orenda discusses a particular huron tribe picking up their whole village, including their dead, and moving it somewhere else - a practice they would repeat every few years or so. They couldn't recall any one place to say "thats where ou…
By that same logic, every noble house in Europe would have gone extinct by now. It's not hard, especially when you're dealing with isolated communities, to keep a lot of genetic continuity for a long time.
Re: Canada's Toughest Border Crossing
#17Back when tobacco tax were much higher in Ontario and Quebec, the Akwesasne reserve was a key smuggling area for bringing low tax US cigarettes into Canada. I remember seeing videos of Ski-doos hauling sleds stacked high with cartons of cigarettes.
Eventually Ontario and Quebec (and a few other provinces) dropped their tobacco taxes to remove the incentive to smuggle.[1]
[1]https://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/09/world/canada-cuts-cigaret...
Re: Canada's Toughest Border Crossing
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
I grew up in Delta near Point Roberts. It's a part of America located on the southern end of a peninsula, the rest of which, is part of British Columbia. They have an elementary school but not a high school in point roberts. So, when I was in high school, most of the people from Point Roberts would be bussed into Tsawwassen but we had a bus that would bring a few of them to the high school I went to. That seems like…
Then where will Canadians deliver their EBay, Amazon and other US vendor packages? Have you seen how much cheaper auto parts are in USA?
Blaine. :)
Re: Canada's Toughest Border Crossing
#19A short summary of what’s going on here:
The land in question involves an aboriginal reserve that has a border going through it.
Canada used to have its border post at the physical border. But felt that this allowed too much smuggling with the reserve all around it.
So the feds move the border post inland: at the border of the reserve and the rest of Canada.
As a result, the “correct” procedure to enter the Canadian side of the reserve is to:
1) exit USA
2) drive past your intended destination to the border post (I suppose they could create the world’s largest duty free or free trade zone)
3) drive back to wherever you were going.
Re: Canada's Toughest Border Crossing
#20There's an entertaining CGP Grey video about other oddities in the US-Canada border. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMkYlIA7mgw Considering how inconvenient it is in some geographies and how small the patches of land are, I'm always surprised the State Department doesn't negotiate a land exchange treaty with Canada to fix what are essentially cartography bugs. Both sides would spend a few tens of millions compensati…
I grew up in Delta near Point Roberts. It's a part of America located on the southern end of a peninsula, the rest of which, is part of British Columbia. They have an elementary school but not a high school in point roberts. So, when I was in high school, most of the people from Point Roberts would be bussed into Tsawwassen but we had a bus that would bring a few of them to the high school I went to. That seems like…
I don't understand what you're trying to say. US residents can't register their children for public school in Delta or Surrey. There is a school bus that goes from point Roberts to Blaine every day, with special permission to bypass the border checkpoint, which takes all of the Point Roberts high school students to the HS in Blaine.