Located next to Derby Line, Vt., it isn’t uncommon to see houses, office buildings, residential streets and even a public library split in half by Canada’s border with the United States.
“You could cook dinner in the U.S., walk into your dining room and eat it in Canada,” said 73-year-old Sydney Flanders, who has lived in Stanstead his entire life. “It’s definitely something unique, almost bizarre about our town.”
But the modern era finally caught up to Stanstead last week, when the RCMP closed the last unguarded border station to cars in the town of about 3,000.
Police say the unmanned Church St. crossing, which has been fenced-off with a row of flower pots, was closed because of an increase in criminal activity and illegal immigration along the span.
“We consulted with the town and with our partners at the U.S. Border Patrol and everyone seems to be fine with it,” said Constable Eric Gasse of the RCMP.
“Well, everyone except for the drug smugglers.”
Two similar crossings, on Ball St. and Lee St., were closed in 2009. In addition to sharing streets, fields, forests and other land-based access points, Derby Line and Stanstead also rest along the shores of Lake Memphremagog. The lake is heavily patrolled by both Canadian and United States border guards.
Gasse said the latest closing was also done to prevent the relatively common occurrence of tourists accidentally crossing the border illegally.
“I had a friend who accidentally crossed into the U.S. when he was looking for a house. He ended up being caught and fined $5,000 for that mistake,” said Flanders, who lives just a couple of hundred metres from the border. “It’s silly, when you think about it.”
Many of the Stanstead’s residents have dual citizenship or work in the United States and make the crossing every day. The town has a long history of ties with its U.S. neighbours, dating back to when it was founded by New Englander Johnson Taplin in 1796.
Like so many hamlets in the Eastern Townships, Stanstead was essentially a safe haven for United Empire Loyalists fleeing the American colonies during the Revolutionary War. With its granite quarries, acres of rich farmland and influx of British-American immigrants, the town was the commercial centre of southeastern Quebec until it was overtaken by Sherbrooke in the mid-1800s.
For people like Flanders, who grew up before the border became so heavily guarded, there was a time when residents would cross into Derby Line to visit friends without ever reporting to the border agents.
“We would leave home in the morning, walk up the hill into Derby and play ball with the American kids all day,” Flanders said. “We wouldn’t check in with anyone, we just visited and left. It was like the border didn’t exist.”
In 1904, Martha Stewart Haskell, the Canadian wife of a U.S. sawmill owner, built a library and opera house that cuts through the border to symbolize the cozy relationship between Stanstead and Derby Line. To this day, a painted line in the library’s reading room shows visitors where Canada ends and the United States begins.
“It’s neat, it’s really one of those things that just doesn’t seem possible in the modern world,” Flanders said.
In the aftermath of 9/11 the coziness that prevailed throughout town made way for caution, with fences being erected along the border and regular Homeland Security helicopter patrols overhead.
“We used to know the border guards by name because they were locals from Derby Line,” said Dale Elliot, whose wife works in Vermont. “They would just barely get out of their chair. Now it’s more questions, people being searched and just a really impersonal experience. I guess that’s the price of security.”
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Christopher Curtis
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