Point Roberts
Monday, 20th April 2009 by Alex Steinberger
Point Roberts, Washington, USA, is a small seaside community with just under 1,500 residents. It boasts a small main street, 2 gas stations, and one supermarket. What makes this village unique is that by virtue of being on a 4.9-square-mile peninsula, its only border is with Canada – and is completely isolated from the rest of the United States.
An unforeseen side-effect of the 1846 Oregon Treaty, life in this U.S. exclave moves at a much slower pace than on the mainland, but at the cost of some major conveniences. Residents of Point Roberts have to drive over an hour and through two international border crossings just to see a dentist, seek medical attention, or even go to school past the 3rd grade!
Located only 30 minutes outside of downtown Vancouver, Point Roberts is also popular with vacationing Canadians for its relatively inexpensive real estate.1
Despite its isolation from the rest of the country, this bastion of United Statehood actually has its own border crossing (pictured above) and is the self-proclaimed "greatest gated community in the United States". Though, if you think about it, isn't it just like a small Alaska?2
There's more about Point Roberts at Wikipedia.
Thanks to Keith, Didier, Deron Husak, and Peter.
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The entrepreneurial-minded also visit for the cheap gasoline and relaxed Sunday Shopping laws. ↩︎
About the author
Alex Steinberger is a starving graduate student studying urban planning in Portland, Oregon. He will work for food.
Honestly…why wouldn’t they just have made it part of Canada in the first place? hahaha. It makes no sense.
I thought you might like to see some photos of Point Roberts at ground level. I’ve been there before and it’s indeed a fascinating spot. The drive from Blaine, Washington and back requires four international border crossings but it’s well worth it to visit this geographic oddity.
Nah, the town of Baarle-Nassau – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baarle-Nassau – is better: it’s a town in the Netherlands with exclaves of Belgium, which have in turn even smaller exclaves of the Netherlands.
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Alex Turnbull actually wrote about that in a previous post: Complicated Borders
Angle Inlet, MN is cut off from the US mainland by Canada, as well.
This is probably the only place (or one of very few) in the USA where you can find gasoline sold by the liter, priced in US dollars. Most stores have two tills; one for USD and one for CAD… which makes it also one of very few places in America where accepting non-American currency is the norm.
You can drive adjacent to nearly the entire length of the border, which is clear-cut from shore to shore (this is called “the vista”) and lined with a four-foot ditch. Beyond the ditch, you see Canadians’ backyard gardens, which you could otherwise just walk into, except that there is some sort of intrusion detection system (just cameras, I guess) running down that line.
There was a border dispute here last year when a household built a wall too close to the border, and it blocked the cameras: http://blog.fumbledmumblings.com/2008/10/dennis-schornack-responds.html
Cute place, nice views, NPTVBIWWTLT.
Ahhh, a Nice Place To Visit But I Wouldn’t Want To Live There. I just got it.
Cameras? A security ditch? Are they afraid that thousands of Canadians are going to try to get into the US to… find that they have to go back to Canada to get to anywhere else in the US? I say that we should just do away with the border altogether. Maybe Canada can make all the Americans living there into dual citizens.
Another amazing site are the two piers in British Columbia just north of Point Roberts. One of them in particular, apparently a coal dock, is enormously long.
The other one is the BCFerries terminal, for ferries going to Vancouver Island (where, incidentally, Victoria, the capital of BC, is located). Note the playground and the marketplace, to give the poor sap tourists something to do while they wait for the next ferry or two.
The ferry from lower BC to Victoria actually crosses into US waters, as the US-Canadian sea border is just a few hundred feet south of the dock, before it bends sharply around Vancouver Island.
Based on the, what looks like, man made marina at the south end of the peninsula and all the boats in it, everyone gets to the USA by boat.
I also understand that there is quite a thriving P.O. Box business in Point Roberts where local canadians can have their US-origin internet-ordered goodies shipped to.
Point Roberts is also often the home to American born hockey players that play for the Vancouver Canucks. By keeping their residence in the US, they can avoid paying the higher rate of income tax that Canada has for high income individuals.
I find it interesting that there is a border crossing here and border control when one could potentially get in there boat and drive it right around the peninsula into point roberts from canada or vice versa.
also people don’t need to cross the border four times, just use your boat to get to the mainland.
An article from the Epoch Times gives a warning about crossing the international border by boat from Point Roberts:
“If you prefer beachfront dining, you can boat over to Canada’s Crescent Beach across Boundary Bay. But be prepared. You’ll have to have your NEXUS card or ID ready, as the waters are appropriately patrolled by the U.S. Coast Guard. “
So I guess as long as your boat is reasonably fast, you’d probably make it, but there’s a chance you might end up in jail…
oh , when i was an international student in vancouver, that’s my most visited USA city… since, i sometimes drive down there just for a pack of US brand cigarette. Have a puff, then bring it back, and i assume it won’t cause any smuggling charge i guess
Question is whether there is a reliable boat / ferry service from Pt Roberts to the mainland US. If so, that would open up possibilities of all sorts, positive and negative, and make the existing border security rather necessary. It doesn’t look like there is a ferry service, although one was proposed in 2007. Good boat transport may help school children reach mainland schools in Blaine, but it is still probably faster to go via land.
There is no ferry service from Pt Roberts to anywhere. Pt Roberts is a waste of money for both governments who have manned border crossings. It’s good only for cheap gas (compared to Canada) and a US mail address. From the border you can walk to several mailbox places. Even the US consulate in Vancouver gets its mail there. Now that a murderer has walked across the border, it will be even more of a pain to get in and out.