Posted on 05/25/2004 8:25:05 AM PDT by Loyalist
Campobello Island, N.B. — New Brunswick's Campobello Island is separated from the state of Maine by a narrow strip of water, but border hassles are creating a growing gulf of irritation and anger between the international neighbours.
The roughly 1,500 people who live on the picturesque island in the Bay of Fundy are proud Canadians, but they are cut off from the rest of Canada by the United States and a border that is steadily tightening to the point of strangulation.
“We're isolated,” says resident Holly Chute, as she headed into the Campobello Co-Op, the island's only grocery store.
“And we're vulnerable. If there's another attack in the U.S., something like 9-11, and they shut down the border, we're stuck.”
From September to July, the only way on and off the island is via the international bridge to Lubec, Me. Each crossing requires a border stop, and Islanders complain that U.S. customs agents are making life difficult.
“It's like you're interrogated every time you cross,” says Ms. Chute.
Adds one of her friends standing nearby, “I mean, it's not like we're from Iran or anything.”
During the summer, a private ferry connects Campobello to nearby Deer Island and mainland New Brunswick, but there is no ferry service the rest of the year.
Eric Allaby, the Opposition Liberal member who represents the island in the New Brunswick Legislature, says Campobello Island is a classic example of a “stranded community,” one of several in North America now feeling the effects of the war on terrorism, food scares and heightened border security.
“The real difficulty arises with shipments of groceries under the bioterrorism act,” he says.
“There are also concerns over getting prescription drugs to the island. There are a number of concerns relating to different commodities.”
Mr. Allaby says discussions are under way with the private ferry operator to see if ferry service can be offered on a year-round basis to the people of Campobello.
He says it would provide a reliable link between the island and the rest of Canada, without requiring the headaches and hassles of U.S. border crossings.
“As the border tightens, it may be necessary to have the back-up option of carrying truckloads of groceries to Campobello by ferry.”
Willa Smart, assistant manager at the Co-op, says the store has already experienced shortages in a number of items, especially products made with beef and beef by-products.
The mad cow scare has shut down the Canada-U.S. border to the movement of most beef products.
“We can't even get a can of beef soup across,” says Ms. Smart.
Islanders still recall the recent spectacle of one of their residents trapped on the international bridge with a bag of dog food, which was labelled chicken but might have had some beef in it.
Canadian and U.S. border guards kept sending him back and forth across the bridge, both sides refusing to let him enter either country.
He was on the verge of throwing the dog food off the bridge, when an arrangement was finally made in Lubec to return the food to where it was purchased.
“It's ridiculous,” says Ms. Smart. “You never know from one day to the next what they're going to let through.”
Paul Cellucci, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, says the two countries are trying to smooth out the hassles.
“It's like everything else. The rules are established and look reasonable until you apply them to a place like a Canadian enclave,” he says of Campobello.
“Then you have to find a different way to do it, because it doesn't make sense."
Although Campobello Island is Canadian territory, it is a U.S. tourism icon.
It is the location of the former stately summer home of late U.S. president, Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1960, a famous movie call Sunrise at Campobello was made about Roosevelt and his fight against polio. It starred Ralph Bellamy, Greer Garson and Hume Cronyn.
The home is open to tours in the summer.
Some islanders have speculated openly whether life would not be a whole lot easier if the island became part of the United States.
But Island resident Glenn Alexander says that although life would be easier, islanders want to remain Canadian.
“I'm sure if you took a poll, you would find that easily 97 per cent of islanders want to be Canadian and wouldn't even consider joining the United States,” says Mr. Alexander.
So, cry me a river. We have the opposite situation on the west coast with Point Roberts, where the school children must cross the border twice to attend high school.
So build a bridge from Canada to the island, otherwise shut the hell up.
MOVE!
Maybe not, but your government's efforts at keeping terrorists out of your country are not up to snuff...so we have to guard our borders. You want free access...get your government to start seriously protecting it, and our, border.
Why should we worry about the trevails of folks who 97% want to stay Canadians, and wouldnt consider becoming Americans. I would guess their attitude is one of the things that makes it hard for them to get along with the guards, because surely with only 1500 people there and them going back and forth regularly the guards have to recognise them, probably know most of them by name. If they are getting a hard time at the border its probably their own fault.
I wish we saw this level of vigilance on our southern border.
Let Canadia Worry about them Eh!
Let's see:
1. BUILD AN AIRPORT IF YOU DO NOT ALREADY HAVE ONE.
2. Sorry but it is a PC necessity that the US search old ladies from Canada and let Middle-Easterners pass unsearched. I thought that Canadians like this kind of thing?
3. How about joining the US which is geographically where your Island belongs?
Time to shoot a pig.
THE PIG WAR 1859-1871
The Pig War wasn't really a war. In fact, the Pig War might well have been forgotten in most other areas of the world. It might have been swept off the map, blotted out by larger historic machinations, but no, not so in Washington State.
The Pig War was a peacefully resolved would-be border conflict. The contested dead pig drew the United States and Great Britian to realize that both nations claimed the island. The troops were sent in only after a farmer had shot the pig.
The Americans established a camp on the south end of San Juan island. The British established a camp on the north end. The British built a prettier garden than the Americans, a garden that survives to this day. That was the war, dueling trowels, albeit a little Beckettonian in its grand strategy. Indeed, perhaps this Pig War was the first truly "modernistic" war.
To be fair, the British held the cards, called the shots, ruled the roost. They had more men, more cannon, and a navy. At the peak of the conflict, the Americans almost had five hundred men with fourteen cannon facing off against a total of 2,200 odd British soldiers and five warships touting 167 guns.
Most of the British soldiers were stationed on the ships, and they might have used their navy to pound the American camp to noodles. However, the island was almost a completely worthless rock and for both opportunistic nations, peace was clearly the profitable way out . . . even if they had to ask a German to pick favorites.
If it wasn't for the pig, there is almost nothing to tell, and without the pig, maybe nothing would have happened . . . the matter might have been settled by a drooling clerk.
The pig, however, set events in motion, which we now call the Pig War. For Washington State, the Pig War may be very well equivalent to what the Trojan War was for ancient Greece, and if that does not make the infamous pig at least tantamount to the famous Trojan horse, then at least this pig has been cast by fate as the unwitting epicenter of a historic farce.
</sarcasm>
My post wasn't directed specifically at you...you were the most recent post when I added my comment. But the point remains...we have to protect our borders, because the Canucks ain't protecting theirs. If we were not vigilant, a terrorist could easily land at one of the major Canadian airports, get to the island by boat, and waltz into America.
The whining is done by that kind anywhere.
The huge numbers of Canadians who drive across the bridge from St Stephens,NB(mainland) to Calais, Maine(about 40 mi from Lubec) to shop must face even more scrutiny.
Also you need to know that the Roosevelt cottage in an International park(joint US/CA) open summers only. I take visitors there and to lunch a couple times each year. Also a lotta US citizens still own summer places there and pay taxes.
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