So I was randomly looking at google maps. I started around Niagara Falls and ended up in North Dakota. I noticed there is what looks like about a 20 foot wide swath of no trees or shrubs right where the border is. I thought there was a fence that ran the entire length of the country. I guess I was wrong? What really surprised me was I can see united states farm fields and some of them appear cut 40 to 50 feet across the border. Is that allowed? Does the farmer carry a passport? I would think something like that would be shut down immediately. Maybe it’s just so rural no one cares? The exact area is just west of Boundary Lake. So what say you besides “GET OFF MY LAND EH!”?
here’s a lovely website on the border: http://www.clui.org/section/united-divide-a-linear-portrait-usacanada-border
Most of the border is fenceless.
Are you saying that there are USA farms on the Canadian side of the border? What makes you think that they aren’t Canadian farms? Please post some links to the exact spots that you’re looking at.
But to get back to your OP, nope, no fence. Clear-cutting wherever possible to indicate the border.
In the Prairie area, you can have farms on either side going right up to the border. Maybe that’s what you’re referring to?
I don’t know how to link a Google map shot. If you look for Boundary Lake in North Dakota and go just to the west you will see it. I am guessing it is u.s. farmers as 90% of the field is in North Dakota.
This is what the OP is talking about.
I’ve swerved down Line road at the CAN/VT border like a damn drunk driver, “I’m in Canada, I’m in the US, I’m in Canada, I’m in the US, I’m in Canada, I’m in the US”. Line Rd is a dirt/gravel. There are farm fields on the northern/Canadian side of the road with the sharp edges of corn stalk leaves the biggest impediment from getting into the country.
If only the Mexicans could figure this out, they could get into the country so much easier. :rolleyes:
Yeah, in their never-ending efforts to use more screen space, they end up hiding these features so that we can’t use them. I can no longer find where they hid “Create a link to this map”, or whatever it used to be called.
Try these ideas instead:
- Just copy the whole long web address that’s at the top of your browser. It will probably begin something like “Google Maps…”
- Right-click at a good point on the map, and select “What’s here?” That will give you the latitude and longitude of the place you clicked. For Boundary Lake itself, that’s about “48.995204, -100.210954”. The first number is the North Latitude, and the second is the West Longitude. (A positive number would have been East Longitude.)
Thank you, Spiderman. Now that I understand the situation a little better, I would suggest that the portion of the farm that is in Canada might be subject to Canadian laws, Canadian taxes, etc etc.
It is not unusual for a building or home to straddle the border of two adjacent towns, and you might also be interested to read about this library that straddles the border of Vermont and Quebec.
There are all kinds of peculiarities along the border of farms, roads, and even (in at least one case) a building – the Haskell Free Library and Opera House – that are partially in both countries at the same time, although I understand that many of these have been tightened up in recent years. Half the library is in Vermont and the other half in Quebec, and there’s a line on the floor to tell you which country you’re in.
Looking at the area you mention, I strongly suspect that the actual border is not the white line with Canada on one side and United States on the other. I think that is Google Maps’ approximation and that the actual, enforced border is the terrain feature which goes east/west just north of the white line. It’s not scrupulously straight, but it looks like a 20 yard clear cut (with possibly a ditch or trench) to me.
There’s a very similar feature on the east side of Boundary Lake which IS directly under the white line.
The longest undefended border in the world.
Really, we’re more alike than different. Politics aside, we’re just really good neighbours.
You actually thought there was a fence along the border? No, anyone can walk/drive/boat/swim across anytime they want to. Oddly, this is not a problem.
To be fair, parts of the border do have a fence. I’m thinking Blaine in Washington State where I5 crosses into Canada.
That’s what I thought at first too (Google’s representation of the county lines in my area are off farther than that), but the path of the clearings through the wooded area to the west would appear to cut off a little bit of the field.
The US-Canada border is maintained by the International Boundary Commission. The Commission has one Commissioner from each country. As far as I can tell, their main jobs are to maintain a clearcut of 10 feet on either side of the border and to keep any buildings or other structures from being built in that area. Any buildings in that area are from before the current Commission, which seems to date from 1908.
One thing to note is that while a couple treaties specify that much of the border is along the 49th parallel, the actual border is where the boundary markers are. So the actual border zigzags a bit due to not-quite-as-precise-as-modern-surveying in the 19th century.
And then there’s that odd little bit of Minnesota that sticks northward near the Rainy River…
Sometimes it’s hard to think of you guys as damned furriners, until you spell neighbor wrong 
Remember, the British were spelling the words that way before we Americans were on the scene; so their Canadian descendants spell them the same. We are the odd ones out. So there.
While I never thought there was a continuous fence between Canada and the US, I had no idea there was a clear-cut No Touching Zone. I learn so much on The Dope.
(No Touching Zone sounds like something from a church-run sex ed class.)