Iraq war in focus: Home-front Journal
Isolation of 'Point Bob' can still border on bliss

By Ron Judd
Seattle Times staff columnist

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Along Roosevelt Way in this tiny American outpost tucked into southwest British Columbia, the left end of the longest undefended border in the world is marked not by a concrete wall, razor wire or snarling dogs. The border here is a series of backyard fences, some picket, some cedar plank, some simply sunflower or hydrangea.

No matter what's up in the rest of the world, spring occurs, the green stuff starts to climb all over those rain- and wind-worn "US/Canada" obelisks in Canadian back yards, and the Weed Whackers come out of the garage.

Basic housekeeping. You wouldn't want your American neighbors on the other side of the street to think you didn't care.

It's simply the polite, acceptable way of life in Point Roberts, one of the few pieces of American real estate in North America where being a Yank places you in a distinct minority. This has been the case since 1846, when the 4.9-square-mile thumb of land became a disconnected part of the United States after mother England agreed to honor the 49th parallel as the official border between the two nations.

Today, a clear majority of the 1,200 year-round residents at the Point, as it's known to locals, are Canadian. Nationality is important, sure. But it's not nearly so much a character reference as, say, the likelihood that you'll scoop up after your dog in the parking lot at the sprawling marina.

In this volatile age in which leaders in Washington, D.C., and Ottawa find themselves at uncomfortable odds, it is worth noting that the question of whether the Canadians or Americans are the real foreigners in Point Roberts was long ago rendered moot. They're all Pointers — a bunch of folks sharing driveways and barbecue smoke, with similar disdain for powers that be back East.

Through its history, the Point has been a pioneer settlement for Icelandic immigrants, a fishing village and, most notoriously, a weekend waterfront beer-binge scene for Vancouverites cut off from Canadian booze sales on Sundays.

Today it's a bedroom community with a permanent snooze button, a far-flung part of Whatcom County. It's home to retirees, snowbirding boaters, Vancouver movie-biz commuters and, increasingly, a new breed of immigrant — frightened, migratory West and East Coast Americans who can work from home and choose to disappear into the comforting arms of "Point Bob."

"We're a safe haven," says one 23-year resident, a woman who works at a local realty and doesn't like to see her name in the paper. "This is a little piece of heaven."

Heaven? Before America was gut-punched 18 months ago, such lofty praise for a place devoid of its own movie theater, let alone a Costco, would have drawn snickers. These days, you start to think the woman might be on to something.

It is a beautiful place, surrounded by gentle salt water, with broad, gravelly beaches that draw the eye to watercolor views of islands and mountains. It's blissfully quiet; at high noon at a waterfront park, the whir of a small electric motor closing the automatic door of a Honda minivan seems intrusive.

But the Point offers another intangible that modern money simply can't buy: security. It is surrounded on three sides by water, on the fourth by a border crossing. It thus is a virtual gated community, guarded day and night by border patrollers who keep closer watch than ever on who goes in and when they come back out.

Nobody can remember the last really serious crime at Point Roberts, which is patrolled by a pair of resident Whatcom County sheriff's deputies. Some years ago, a wayward man did attempt a stickup at a local business. He got some cash but was recognized by the victim, who called customs and relayed the news. They were waiting for the guy at the border.

This has always provided peace of mind to residents here. Today it offers peace of soul.

"All you hear at night these days is frogs croaking, coyotes and crickets," offers Linda Krahm, a longtime server at The Reef, known as the most boisterous beer hall in the region (snow shovels, she recalls, were employed to clear the beer garden of empty cans on Monday mornings) before the Sunday booze ban was lifted in B.C. in the '80s.

Now, "There's no traffic here, no sirens," she says, smiling. "And no bang-bangs."

Surprise City it is not. At the gates of town on the day of our visit, a pair of border guards, informed by a pair of Toyota-pickup-embedded journalists that they were here to report some news, burst out laughing.

"In Point Roberts? Nothing much happens here."

It does not occur to them that people waking up at night in cold sweat might find that, in itself, worth knowing.

Actually, Point Roberts is not so much isolated — stores, doctors and other public services are found in Tsawwassen, just outside the border gate — as it is insulated, sealed from the mainland as neatly and tightly as a triple-cellophaned compact disc.

Simply getting here by car from Washington state proper requires crossing through Canadian customs at Blaine, driving 25 miles through rural B.C., then passing muster again at U.S. Customs.

The isolative effect is largely psychological: Lummi Island and the San Juans are in plain sight across the water to the south. But it is nonetheless profound, perhaps more today than ever.

Consider: Point Roberts is only a long boat ride from the greater Seattle area, a place where many residents are fully consumed by events overseas. It's about a three-minute EA-6B Prowler flight from Oak Harbor, where yellow ribbons hang in prayerful tribute to hometown Navy pilots mixing it up in the Gulf. And it's only a long kayak trip away from Bellingham, where lawyers, students and grandmothers have spent lunch hours parading in the streets, essentially declaring America an outlaw nation.

But you can search the Point for an entire day for signs of this turmoil, and find none. Perhaps in deference to the mixed nationalities, few flags, either starred-and-striped or maple-leafed, hang on homes. No protests, signs, ribbons or raw emotions are seen. Surely, the latter exists inside residents. Just as surely, there it stays.

On America's ninth day at war, at the precise moment a missile struck a shopping center in Kuwait City, the big-screen TV at the Reef tavern was tuned to golf. Across town, two sanitary-disposal artistes pondered what junk-deco would replace their latest stacked-appliance creation, "Fridgehenge," at the town dump.

And two blocks east of the Reef, the biggest event of this spring weekend was creaking to life.

"Life goes on," chirped event organizer Clay Ambrose, a cheerful Canadian with a semi-permanent residence on U.S. turf here, happy to change the subject from war as he stretched a rope across a damp, grassy field.

Ambrose was plotting, from memory, the archery course for the annual Mini International Scout Jamboree, a coming together of Boy Scout troops from Canada and the U.S.

They would spend the weekend camping out and doing what Scouts have always done and, it was hoped, take home a taste of the stuff that made solid citizens of their fathers and grandfathers: Self-sufficiency. Determination. Resourcefulness.

When their vans pull out tonight, they will return to the world of televised body counts, and Point Roberts will be left to its usual, exceptional silence.

It is an American island unto itself, an oddly displaced chunk of a nation at war, a place where peace remains something you eat a picnic lunch in, not spray-paint on a sign.

Just as it was a day ago, a week ago, a year ago, five decades ago, it is waves on the beach, bingo at the fire hall, boats bobbing in the marina, people living their lives.

Ron Judd writes an outdoor column for The Times. He has covered the Olympics several times and wrote from Oak Harbor, Wash., during the Persian Gulf War. Reach him at rjudd@seattletimes.com or 206-464-8280.

Harley Soltes was on the team that was a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize in news photography for coverage of the WTO riots. He has had lengthy assignments in sports and with Pacific Magazine. Reach him at hsoltes@seattletimes.com or 206-464-8145.