Encore, Une Fois!

Apparently the goofy Atlantic Cities post about Point Roberts triggered a new story on Point Robers from Canada's National Post.   This one features a little more sensible talk, arising from interviews with proprietors of various businesses around the Point (Neilson's, Brewster's, Jim Julius Realty, TSB Shipping, etc.), but it yet again gives us an advert for the urban legend Witness Protection Program.  I suppose if you are a journalist on a slow day with a pointless (pun intended) story, it must be hard to resist the WPA.

If you are interested in a rehearsal of recent criminals racing cross the Point, you get that.  And a terrific account of a road grader chase from back in the 70's.

Jim Julius weighs in with his assertion that Canadians come here only for milk, gas, and cheese, forgetting the thriving business in butter and poultry.  They come for all those things of course because they're much cheaper here.  But it made me think about the things we go to Tswwassen to buy, things we could buy in Point Roberts if we wanted to.  Nothing is likely to be cheaper.  But it can be better: e.g., Canadian flour is, to my taste, vastlynsuperior to American flour, not least because it doesn't have so many additives (barley, in particular) and it is made from harder wheat/higher protein.  Bread made from Canadian flour has a much better flavor than from U.S. flour.  Demerrara sugar is another favorite.  Can hardly get it in the U.S., I know not why, unless it's a historic victim of the Cuba foolishness.  It's a very soft and crystalline brown sugar.  And not to overlook Sultana raisins.  So much jucier and tastier and sweeter than Thompson's seedless, which is pretty all the U.S. has to offer.  Canadian grocers, to my amazement carry and charge more for the remarkable not-privilege of having Thompson's, instead.  And finally there are all of the fruits of the Okanagan in the summer which so vastly surpass the taste of whatever fruit comes through U.S. shipping to us here.  Washington and Oregon fruits are pretty good at that time, but they show up here weeks from the picking, whereas the Okanagan produce is more timely arrived.

So, think about what you get over there because you prefer it to the variety you could get down here.  And then offer to write an article for the National Post.