Marking the Border

We went down to check out the new trail from the bluff to the beach on the northwestern corner of Point Roberts at Boundary Marker Park yesterday. I think it’s been there for awhile, but this was the first time I’d tried it. It’s certainly a great improvement going down with its broad, switchback trail, but it looked like more of a challenge than I thought my knee might like on the way back up. Thus, Ed and the (younger) visitors made their way back up to the car, while I walked alone down the beach to Gulf Road where they picked me up.

It’s a lovely beach walk (one of the Point’s more special hidden treasures) as long as the tide isn’t too high. It wasn’t; in fact it was very low, as the tides have been recently. There were little pools closer in here and there, but mostly the swimming ducks were a long way out. Nevertheless, on a spectacularly beautiful summer day, not too hot, not too cold, not too breezy, not too anything, and with the Point apparently still full of tourists, I was the only person on that long stretch of beach. That’s the kind of thing that amazes me about this place—how isolated one can be here, even when the place appears to be hosting crowds.

About twenty to thirty minutes of walking had me probably half-way to Gulf. Only then did I see anyone; a woman of indeterminate age, sitting up at the top of the beach, on a log, just looking at the water. I walked fairly close by, offered a greeting, and she responded by asking where I was heading. I told her what I was doing and she asked about the new path, which she hadn’t known was there. She said that she had come down the steps to the beach. I didn’t know what steps she was talking about, but I often don’t know things like that.

“Who built the path?, she asked.
“The County, I imagine.”
“‘Oh, am I in the U.S.?”
“Well, yes; you crossed the border back there where the marker says B.”
“Really? Does it matter?”

Our conversation extended a bit longer while we discussed border issues and whether the CBP agents were likely to be down on the beach and preparing to deport her or something. I remembered one of the first times I ever got into an extended discussion with a border agent, maybe 13 or 14 years ago, when he said to me with either irritation or despair, “Don’t you realize that these are different countries?” And I felt more empathy at this moment for his long ago irritation/despair. The beach lady, who had grown up in Ladner, declared that she felt the border people were intimidating. “Don’t they understand that we’re friends? That we wouldn’t do anything to hurt one another?” Hard for me to know quite how to respond to this. I can only imagine the despair in the air if she said it to the CBP people.

It’s a good walk: you start at the boundary marker on the beach (at least that would be my recommendation) via the new trail, and you end at the Tiki marker on Gulf. You're in the U.S. all the way. Good to know that if you are out walking.

Park Right Here

N.B. Yesterday’s post noted that the Lily Point purchase had been completed by the Whatcom Land Trust. It should also be noted that private fund raising continues for this purchase. This is because the Land Trust was coming up against a deadline and used about $250,000 from its reserves to complete the purchase. However, the Trust needs to recoup this funding. And that is why private fund raising continues, including an event this weekend, April 26, at the Point (open to the public: meet at the cemetery at 10 a.m.). So it’s not only not too late to contribute to the future of the Point, but it is close to a real duty, in my view.

Lily Point is the new park, right at the southeast corner of Point Roberts. For unknown but aesthetically pleasing reasons, there is a park at each corner. At the northeast corner is Maple Beach, which has no maple. At the southwest corner is Lighthouse Park which has no lighthouse. And at the northwest corner, high up above the ocean, is Monument Park, which doesn’t have much park but does have a monument.

The monument was built, I am told, in 1861, while the U.S. was engaged in its very own civil war, so it was nice of them to take the time, to make the effort. I assume it was a follow-up to President Buchanan’s decision to hang on to Point Roberts as a military asset when the border was set at the 49th parallel (instead of the much more memorable ‘54-40 or fight’ that I learned in elementary school; apparently, no fight happened and the bottom half of Vancouver Island went away, too). It’s twenty feet high and undistinguished, but perhaps in 1861 it looked better. Perhaps in 1861, not much of anyone was looking. It is the first monument placed by the International Boundary Commission which is responsible for keeping clear a 6-meter space on each side of the U.S.-Canadian border.

The International Boundary Commission has managed to make news in recent years now that we have an administration unimpressed by International anythings. The Commission has a U.S. and a Canadian commissioner, each of whom is appointed by the appropriate country. However, it is not a Commission that is ‘owned’ by either country: it is an international commission. A few years ago, in connection with a suit about property on the border owned by an American, the Commissioners argued that the property owner could not build a fence right up to the border, because the 6-meter space is supposed to be kept clear and has always been kept clear.

The Bush Administration, displeased with this reasoning, then fired the American Commissioner and appointed someone else to replace him. The American Commissioner whom the administration was trying to replace pointed out that the treaty that created the International Boundary Commission permitted the two countries to appoint one Commissioner each or to fill a vacancy should it occur, but it did not permit either country to fire a commissioner once appointed. The administration appointed someone else anyway, the Canadian Commissioner said he didn’t have a dog in this fight, and the previous U.S. Commissioner maintains he is still the Commissioner. You can hear this whole story on This American Life, whose archives are located here. The relevant program is March 28, 2008, and is titled ‘The Audacity of Government.’

Point Roberts itself may be some kind of monument to the audacity of government, of course.