Washington State/Canadian border mons

Although there is a distinct line, it is merely a formality. The border is about 100 yards wide.

I once left the US...drove 100 yards north and was refused entry into Canada because I accidentally left my wallet in Montana. I was instructed to proceed around the guard shack,and drive the 100 yards back to the US. So in reality they did let me in Canada - if not but for a brief moment. This caused some problems.

The US will let you out without showing ID, but it is very very difficult to get into the US without your driver's license!
I eventually lost my patience and asked them if Canada won't let me in and you guys won't let me in...where the heck am I?
The answer was "no-mans land".

I spent several hours in "no-mans land" filling out paperwork - swearing to this and attesting to that. It was serious business as far as they were concerned.
I always wonder what the heck all the paperwork was for. I was supposed to get a visit from a border agent when I got back to California for a follow up interview but it never happened. This was back in the 1990's.

Hopefully some of these well-made stone cairns still exist? Otherwise, it makes you wonder if they were removed.

"Those original 19th-century surveyors marked the boundary way back then with piles of rocks called cairns, and those cairns stood, in some cases, for more than 50 years. Moore says that nowadays, the cairns are all long-gone.

J.T. Moore says that in addition to the cairns being well-made, the original surveying also appears to be the work of skilled craftsmen."

The times have a changed post 9/11 Imaudigger. A drivers license won't get you back over the US border as it's not a federally recognized ID. I know this because in order to reach Skagway Alaska by road from where I live you need to drive through Canada. Few years back I made the trip to visit some family that were docking there in Skagway on a cruise ship and shortly before leaving I realized my passport had expired and decided to play ignorant. The Canadians were gracious enough to let me through with a casual reminder to get it renewed when I get home. The US border officials at Skagway refused to acknowledge my drivers license as a valid ID and spent an hour intimidating and threatening me and only let me pass after reading me the riot act. I don't think they wanted to deal with the 300 pounds of hounds barking and growling in the back of my rig. Needless to say it was not a pleasant experience.

My wife and I went to Canada about 25 years ago, with my young daughter, this was before you needed a passport but also before she was a citizen. The Canadian guy asked if we were US Citizens, my daughter and I were, but she was not. He asked for her green card, she did not have it with her. He gave her a paper saying she never left the US so that the US guys would let her back in. So we saw Niagara Falls from the US side only on that trip. Incredibly, she and a friend of hers both forgot to bring their green cards a year or two later when she and some friend went. You would think she would learn...

In May of last year I was coming back from Canada, crossed by car near Buffalo about 1 AM. The US agent scanned my passport and asked why I had multiple visits to Nuevo Leon, Mexico (cartel area). I told him my daughter lived there (she has been in Monterrey for about 8 years now). He said he used to work that area, and he thought it strange that I had been there so much. So I guess they see your history on their screen when they scan your passport. But I have never had any issues at all crossing from Mexico into the US.

I had a project surveying US-Canada border crossings a number of years ago (a couple of years after 9/11). There was one town where the border went right through town, no fence, just a line down the street. Another area had a sign that said "Welcome to Canada, please go to xxx town to check in". Up in Alaska at Poker Creek we surveyed a crossing that was closed for the winter, no one on either side. You could freely go back and forth.

I Had another project doing control on the US-Mexico border from the Gulf to Big Bend area in Texas. Here was an interesting crossing...called Los Ebanos. This picture is looking south from the US border post to the Mexican side...

http://www.texasescapes.com/TOWNS/Los_Ebanos/Los_Ebanos_Texas.htm

[SARCASM]Probably a surveyors fault...[/SARCASM]

You can do everything right and still get held up getting back into the US. The guy across the street from me went to Central America a couple years ago with an agricultural group of some kind.

On the return everybody else in his group had no difficulty. It took four hours for him to get cleared, just because his name is common and someone else with that name is on the "Bad" list. You'd think that a passport, a government issued photo ID, would be sufficient to distinguish between you and somebody else with that name, but apparently not.

It really makes me want to never cross the borders.

imaudigger, post: 410788, member: 7286 wrote: Although there is a distinct line, it is merely a formality. The border is about 100 yards wide.

I once left the US...drove 100 yards north and was refused entry into Canada because I accidentally left my wallet in Montana. I was instructed to proceed around the guard shack,and drive the 100 yards back to the US. So in reality they did let me in Canada - if not but for a brief moment. This caused some problems.

The US will let you out without showing ID, but it is very very difficult to get into the US without your driver's license!
I eventually lost my patience and asked them if Canada won't let me in and you guys won't let me in...where the heck am I?
The answer was "no-mans land".

I spent several hours in "no-mans land" filling out paperwork - swearing to this and attesting to that. It was serious business as far as they were concerned.
I always wonder what the heck all the paperwork was for. I was supposed to get a visit from a border agent when I got back to California for a follow up interview but it never happened. This was back in the 1990's.

Same thing happened to me!!!

I crossed at Niagara. When asked for my drivers license I handed them a passport. When asked about a driver's license and reason for not having one (long story from my college years, bad stuff [emoji17] ) they wouldn't let me in.

I then asked where to make a U turn and was told I couldn't. Apparently since I was in this no man's land I wasn't allowed to leave either!

I was instructed to pull off to the building next to the immigration booths and go to speak to the immigration officers in the office.

Took a while, lots of explaining and finally they gave me paperwork to 'leave' wherever I was.

I sure was glad to hear the words 'welcome home' from the guy working on the US side.

John,
Were you working for Micheal Baker at that time. I did all of the crossings from Cut Bank, MT west.

John Putnam, post: 411081, member: 1188 wrote: John,
Were you working for Micheal Baker at that time. I did all of the crossings from Cut Bank, MT west.

Yes, it was for Baker. We did a bunch of crossings in the Northeast (NY going east) and then four in Alaska.

The southern border work was a different project altogether. That was control for aerial mapping. I imagine that is being used to design "the wall". Someone else did the work west of Big Bend.

That was a fun project. We made two passes, the first year was just photo control and then we went back a year later and did detailed ground surveys for design for the new crossing stations. I even got to go do a little more topo on one site for another design firm when the did some rework.

As for drivers licenses getting you across the border. If you live in Washington, or any other border state I think, then you can get license that allows for surface travel across the borders. Not to get political, but it seems like if the Feds say I have to show proof of citizenship to get my state sponsored drivers license then they should take it as the quasi national ID that it has become.