That’s the title of a neat little movie by Errol Morris, but it doesn’t describe Point Roberts. How to describe Point Roberts? How about exotic, ordinary, and eccentric? The geographical location itself makes up much of the exotic quality. It’s just so strange to be outside one’s own country. Perhaps the Point should have been allowed to remain as a military reservation, whereby its geographical status would have been less of an issue: if not right in the U.S., it’s at least very close and the Navy could have shelled the peninsula for weapons practice. Perhaps it should have been made a Grand Duchy, like Luxembourg, or a Principality, like Monoco (which is 75 times bigger but has only 35 times as many residents) and everyone could have come here to be sophisticated or to gamble. But it isn’t any of those things. Wikipedia refers to it as “a practical exclave” (I’d have thought an impractical one) and a ‘small Census-designated place.’ Its exclave status, it says, is ‘similar to Alaska.’
When I am, say, in Bellingham, and I mention to a shop clerk that I am from Point Roberts, they smile and nod and say, “oh, yeah,” as if that explained everything. Somehow, I don’t think that saying I was from Blaine or Lynden would even begin to suggest an explanation for anything. You move to Blaine, you move to Lynden or to Bellingham: there’s a lot of reasons you would do that, reasons that have not much to do necessarily with those towns. But if you move to Point Roberts, it’s because you decided to go to Point Roberts and partake thereof of the exoticness and it marks you in some way.
Ordinary it also is, which is surprising in connection with its exoticness. I would think that exotic would require unusual, unlikely, rare, or something. But to see Point Roberts is, for the most part, to see an exercise in ordinariness. There’s really nothing special to see: houses are pretty straight-forward, no architecture to speak of (until very recently, alas, as pretentious, over-big, and too-big-for-the-lot have become more common), ocean full of water, land full of trees, beaches full of sand and rocks. There are boats in the marina but they don’t intrude much and they’re not all that big, as pleasure craft go. Its ordinariness is sort of like the ‘island that time forgot.’ Its ordinariness is soothing, pleasing; it does not stimulate the population (other than teenagers, perhaps) to long for more and different pleasures or stimuli. It says, ‘This is Enough!’
And, finally, Point Roberts is eccentric. It is possible that the exotic and ordinary qualities that are central to the Point draw out the eccentricity that is so abundantly evident here. But it may be that eccentrics are just drawn to the Point in the first place because of its exotic ordinariness. The eccentricity is demonstrated in lots of ways, but for the moment, I will focus on housing and personal style. The photos above are of two houses around the corner from me. Between these houses in reality is a house where the owner used to tether a goat on the roof of his shed.
Drewhenge appeared almost overnight. It wasn’t there and then it was. I have no idea who Mr. Drew (or Mr. Henge) is; I don’t think he has an airplane, despite the windsock. I’m pretty sure his gate was not architect-designed in any ordinary way and that he built it himself. I’m pretty sure it’s the only Drewhenge in the world. I love that it presents itself without explanation, and I love the perfectly ordinary house that stands inside the grounds of Drewhenge. Within the house may be other evidences of eccentricity. I hope I meet the Drews/Henges some day and find out more. But if I don’t, that’s OK too.
The other house I think of as ‘Wrapped Trailer with Iron Gate.” The owners of this place come here only in the summer and when they come, they unwrap the trailer; when they leave, they carefully wrap it back up again. There are many cottages and trailers here on the Point where people come only in the summer. This is the only wrapped residence I know of. The large iron gate provides a second level of eccentricity that is equally pleasing. It’s not as if you can’t walk on to this property anywhere along its perimeter except where is the gate. It’s a gated house as well as a wrapped trailer, but rather welcoming. I don’t know the residents, but I surely admire them. They have a fine sense of their own style.
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