I don’t just mean the gaurded ones, I mean any road in the US, that goes into canada or mexico.
Are there unguarded border crossings? I would think not. If not, please alert your local smuggler.
There must be many unguarded places to cross, if only a loggers track or forest trail. For main roads…I wouldn’t know.
Even at the height of the troubles in Northern Ireland, it was exceptionally easy to cross from NI into Rep of I via back roads. Sometimes you wouldn’t even know you had arrived until you noticed the road signs in Irish.
With a border the size of the one with Canada especially, there must be hundreds of places to cross undetected if you wished. I know the Mexico border is much more strict (coming into the US), so probably less so there.
This link shows some of the major crossings into Canada, which are now automated.
When I was on holidays in the enterior of British Columbia a few years back, I stumbled into Washington state (or was it Idaho?) without even knowing it. I got onto a highway off of the dirt/gravel road I was on and ended up in a town that was in the US.
I knew at the time I was within a few KMs of the line, but had no idea I had driven as far as I had. I never crossed a marked (let alone guarded) border.
Right after 9/11, our local (New Hampshire) news team did a special on this. They showed that the US-Canadian border is nothing but a cleared strip through the woods, with some stone markers. The paved roads are guarded or blocked, but the rest isn’t at all. They found an old path and drove their truck right into Canada, and no one noticed them.
I think I see a lockdown coming…
All along the border with mexico there are places one can cross without any checkpoints. They have changed a lot of things since 9-11, but i’m sure it still goes on. I am mostly familiar with Texas along the Rio Grande. In many places people that live on one side must cross just to get to a store. They go back and forth all the time. There are several little towns just over into mexico that one reaches via a rowboat ferry or a burro ride. They are sleepy little mexican villas, and tourists go over for authentic food and to just wander around. One of these crossings was written about by an AP reporter about 6 months ago, speculating about terrorists crossing there. I related to them my experience that happened in Nov 2000:
I was visiting BBNP, and went down to this one campground as it was the only one with showers. It was about a 45 minute drive from anywhere, and no one else was there as the border crossing had been closed for a few weeks due to a robbery or something. I had bought some lunch, and was sitting at a picnic table near the river at the far end of a road where the rv’s would have parked if there were any (I’m serious, there was like no one around, the place was deserted) and all of a sudden about 6 cars full of middle easterners pull up. They had their families with them, but they were unlike any others i’ve ever seen. I’d never seen any in America before where the women were covered to this degree. They were covered head to toe. their face veils had little hooks so they could cover up when needed, but in the car they could let them down. they even wore long gloves so their arms didn’t show. The men were acting strangely for tourists, and talking wildly and gesturing toward the river. They left the women, and went down a trail that led to the river. I didn’t think too much of it, but i definitely felt an angry vibe among them (not at me, but at something). I left. In hindsight it is almost like they were planning to bring someone or something across the border, but with the crossing closed they were trying to find somewhere for them to come across without being seen. That would have been the place. This place is so remote its hard to explain to someone who hasn’t been there. its also the perfect place for anyone wanting to smuggle what the border patrol isn’t looking for, mainly illegal mexicans or drugs. With the women with them, they look just like tourists. Just one little border patrol shack between them and civilization a few hundred miles away. I still believe these people were involved in something untoward, even now almost two years later. The odd thing was how I even remembered it. After 9-11, my wife and I were watching Osama’s video, and the newsguys were saying that we were trying to identify the rocks to get an idea of where it was he filmed it. I joked that it looked just like Boquillas Del Carmen area in Rio Grande, and then it hit me that that is where I saw all those guys. No way was OBL there, I know.
Give me a break!
:rolleyes: