I am an Australian, but looking at a map it is easy to see the size of the Candian/American border. My question is, how easy is it to sneek over? I mean, how fo they patrol such a vast distance? Also, with WWII POW’S trying to escape, surely they could find SOME spot bordering another country which they could easily slip across. How do you guard/monitor an ENTIRE border? I mean, can a Frenchman easily slip in and out of Germany? Being an Australian, we don’t border any countries so I don’t understand what it is like.
The US-Canadian border is the longest undefended border in the world. It wouldn’t be particularly hard to cross over in places like North Dakota I imagine, but you will then be faced with the fact of being in North Dakota. Or you could try sneaking in through Maine or Vermont.
The ease with which you can cross between the two countries made Canada a popular staging ground for some terrorists last year.
There are checkpoints along all the highways. I suppose that if you can pull of a respectable sounding American accent and are driving a car with American plates, you’ll get waved right through.
It’s pretty easy. There was a story in the local tabloid a while ago of a couple who had gone to the beach for a picnic and inadvertently crossed the border. They had their lunch and were met by a US customs agent, escorted to the nearest border station, interrogated, and deported.
The Canadian/US border is the longest undefended border in the world. There are checkpoints on most of the roads that cross the border where you may questioned and/or searched (I’m told that at certain points you can tell when you’ve reached the border between Alaska and British Columbia when the paved road turns into gravel). There are many areas that are quite remote and difficult to patrol, a fact which causes much chagrin to the US authorities as it makes it easy to transport drugs and illegal migrants into the US.
The main reason that the U.S./Canada border is not much on an issue is that it’s really pretty easy to simply go through at normal crossings. We haven’t been at war since 1814 and we haven’t rattled any sabres since 1846, or so.
We don’t need passports to wander back and forth (adults should probably keep their drivers licenses handy), and generally we expect that people drifting back and forth across the border have a legitimate reason to do so.
Down on the Mexican border, things are quite a bit different and we do have a small army of people chasing down clusters of illegal immigrants, rather unsuccesfully.
The POW issue in Europe was that the only borders that provided safety were those of Spain and Switzerland. The Germans made all travel so difficult, that the border was not as much of an issue as reaching the next village. I believe that the Germans did run wire across most of the Swiss border and patrolled it, but I do not know how thorough the patrols were.
A POW escaping a Michigan or New York camp (where they were used as fruit crop laborers) might escape to Ontario–where they were still German nationals in a country at war with Germany. What was the point?
There was an escape from an Arizona POW camp with the intention of fleeing to Mexico. Unfortunately, they had planned to float down a “river” they found on a map, but it only had water for about six weeks a year after the spring snowmelt.
For general purposes, you can cross a lot of borders, but if you want to carry more than the stuff you can lift, you are limited to highways, most of which have guarded crossings.
Heck, even the Mexican border, which is patrolled and watched, sometimes seems to be as porous as a sponge.
As for WWII POW’s slipping over the border, keep this in mind- what border? Unless you’re talking about slipping into Switzerland or into Allied-controlled territory (the latter demanding that you cross through patrolled areas, as both sides would have armies in the area) there really weren’t any governments in Europe by '43 that wouldn’t have been perfectly happy to hand you back to the Nazis, or to look the other way as the Nazis stepped over the border in order to shoot you.
The border is watched and officials know where people are crossing illegally. Right now, in British Columbia, American and Canadian police are cooperating to snag pot smugglers. There are a lot of personnel plus infra-red and motion detection technology in place all along the easily crossible (non-mountainous)parts of the border.
Unfortunately a lot of the poor bastards are being busted on the American side. In Canada they would be looking at a short easy sentence but in the USA… international pot smugglers?
It is also estimated that over 350,000 New Englanders cross the border regularly to defraud the Canadian health care system.
Canadians going to the US are scrutinized and require at least a birth certificate and photo I.D. A passport is recommended. A dark complexioned girl I know, born in Canada, with a last name of “Abdul”, was refused entry to the US because all she had was a drivers licence.
Also, US customs like to run the dogs over Canadians and the slightest wiff of pot smoke (detectable by dogs for up two two or three days) and a load of misery descends on the poor Canuck. U.S. customs officials also like to ask Canadians if they’ve ever smoked pot. Some poor dummies say “Uh, yeah, 20 years ago as a student” and find themselves entered into the computer and barred from entry into the US. One Canadian student at Calgary airport (US customs are in Calgary Airport) had a grain of pot on a hat in his luggage. He was barred from entry plus he was escorted by a US agent to a bank machine and fined $500 cash for an administration fee.
It ain’t exactly the world’s longest undefended border.
A Canadian poet wrote a poem a few years ago about an affair with an American woman. His final line was something like “and then we slipped across the world’s longest undefended border.”
I find this number a bit unbelievable. Perhaps 350,000 AMERICANS have falsely obtained medical help in Canada, but if you look closely at New England, you realize that in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont (the states that Border Canada) there just over 2,000,000 people. Are you saying that a SIXTH of the population of these states has driven to Sherbrooke or Montreal for a free dose of penicilin? It’s even more absurd when you consider that the only New England city over 30,000 people within an hour’s drive of the Canadian border is Burlington, Vermont. Other than Eastern Maine and Northwestern Vermont, most of the New England/Quebec border is unsettled wilderness. There aren’t 350,000 New Englanders living within a reasonable drive of a sizable Canadian medical facility to make that number real. Maybe you want to invesitgate your source a little more closely. Not that I condone people doing this (if it’s true, even 350,000 total Americans would put quite a measurable strain on the Canadian Health Care system) but you should make sure your propaganda is reasonable before your attempt to redistribute it.
Now, I DO know that there are MANY people who go to Canada to buy over-the-counter medications not availible in America without a prescription, but I doubt that Candian pharmacies are complaining about the extra cash that these sales bring in.
Back to the O.P., U.S. customs officials are MUCH more zealous than their Canadian counterparts. Driving from Chicago to visit my folks in New Hampshire, I often travel across Southern Ontario from Windsor to Hamilton (saving about 15 minutes driving time and $15.00 in tolls compared to the U.S. route) and must say that I have never gotten much more than a wave through by Canadian officials, but have often been extensively questioned, and once searched, by U.S. officials. The U.S. definately defends the border much more than does Canada.
The Germans had many ways of controlling border areas within Europe during the war. A multiplicity of passes and documents were required for travel, and special passes were needed to enter certain security zones, for example the coastal area of France. You can see the zones in this scan of a silk map carried by Allied aircrew. There are more scans in the thread “POW Escapes” over in GQ.
The Swiss-German border (which meanders confusingly) was very heavily patrolled day and night, often with dogs. Many escaping POWs made it to the border area, then were picked up within sight of their goal. Even so, you could screw up: the Schaffhausen salient is part of Switzerland that sticks up into Germany, bu has a very short “neck.” At least one British POW actually crossed into this area at night, and, without realising, crossed back into Germany, where he was caught. Much of the area at the time seems to have been small semi-rural villages, where any outsider was noticed quickly. Children were the bane of Allied escapers, as they seemed to notice small details more than adults, and commented on them.
There were many escapes in US and Canadian POW camps holding German POWs in WWII, but most were just to get into town and try and get a beer or two before recapture. Many of the camps in Canada were in remote areas, and survival would not have been easy. Besides, where were they going to go? (At least after December of 1941!)
There was one successful “home run” from North America, by a Luftwaffe pilot named Franz von Werra, who had been shot down during the Battle of Britain, and sent to Canada to a POW camp in Ontario (following a near-successful attempt to steal a British fighter!!). He busted out in the middle of winter (January 1941), and crossed a semi-frozen river into the then-neutral US. He got back to Germany, but later went missing in action. A book about von Werra, The One That Got Away, gives the full story.
Here’s a very good site with info on German POWs in Canada.
I know what you mean. Being a Kiwi myself, and having previously only crossed borders at airports, I found it quite exciting to drive through the Peace Arch border crossing from British Columbia to Washington State.
I was working in Vancouver, and my wife was visting. So there we both are, in a rental car, and dressed in medieval clothes (for an SCA event in Bellingham, WA). We finally got to the US checkpoint, and the guard leaned down and eyed us both up.
He asked a couple of normal questions, where?, how long?, and then asked if we had any dragons or swords in the car – which was just a wee bit strange 
– after which he just waved us though. Odd thing is he never even asked for any ID or our New Zealand passports.
I crossed the US/Canada border very easily w/o any customs.
Was visiting a friend in M.I. and he lived on a canal that lead to a river between 2 great lakes (no I won’t look that up!!!). using to jet skis, we found ourselves crossing the boarder many times and I believe it was right in the middle of the river. during the trip we headed over to the Canadian side and ,(shhhh) got off the jet skies on Canadian soil.
Then, having nothing to do there, got back on and when home
Something similar to this happened to, uhh, a friend. And I can tell you that he has had problems because of it for 15 years. Although he can get into the US, it is always an ordeal.
Were there any lakes on the border between germany and switzerland? Because i read a book about escapees going across in a boat.
Having never crossed the Canadian/US border, I have nothing to add to that discussion, but I have crossed a number of other borders. They’re always interesting experiences.
Americans travelling to Mexico generally have no problem. I’ve never crossed on the land, but upon arrival in an airport in Mexico, all that is required is a birth certificate proving that one was born in the US. Very easy, no problems. I imagine it is not as easy for a Mexican vacationing in the US.
In the EU, border checks are very loose. I took the ferry from Britain to France and wasn’t checked, which made me kind of nervous, but when I went back to Britain, we were all unloaded off the coach; the EU citizens were all rushed through, and us few poor unfortunate non-Europeans had to answer a couple simple, politely asked questions. When I ferried from the UK to Ireland, there were signs all over that said “Irish and UK citizens do not need passports.” When I reached the Irish side, I was kind of nervous, and told a border guard that I was neither Irish nor British - did he want to see my passport? His response was “You’re an American? Don’t worry about it.” I was kind of bummed, no new stamp.
My most exciting (ie, possibly dangerous) border crossing was the Israeli-Egyptian border. I went with two friends, one of whom was an American-Israeli dual citizen. She only had her American passport with her, and her Israeli army exemption was in her other passport. The Israelis wouldn’t let her through as a result, which wasn’t fun.
Appolyon, the guards at Blaine are pretty well used to SCA folks crossing in garb, since the SCA kingdom of An Tir covers both BC and Washington (along with a lot of other territory.
On of the Canadian kings of An Tir once told me the story of how he was stopped at the crossing on his way back from his coronation. The guard asked him what the event was, he told him, and the guard said, “So who’s king these days?” His majesty said, modestly, “Well, actually, I am.” The guard then bowed deeply and waved the car through with no further questions. He never found out if the guy was actually a member of the SCA.
Sorry for the hijack.
I have a friend who lives in San Diego who claims that he accidentally crossed the Mexican border while windsurfing, and was escourted back to the US by a small boat… can’t vouch for the truth of this one!
Myself and a few friends were enourmously hassled while trying to drive from Maine to Canada on a road trip while we were college students… there was nothing illegal in the car, and no reason to suspect that there was (aside from our appearances! Damn hippies! :P) All illegal substances had been ingested a few hours before, and the effects (mostly) slept off…
All was well until the Canadian border guard came up to the window and said “Where you folks from?”
Our driver (name withheld for obvious reasons) looked up at him and replied “Duh! AMERICA!!”
Next thing I heard was “Outta the car!”
We spent several unpleasant hours there while they stripped the car down… bummer!
PS: fascinating account of illegally crossing the French/German border during the aftermath of WWII in the book “Iron Coffin” Highly recommended!
Well, there’s your problem. Never, EVER joke around or be impolite to a border guard. They all have had their sense of humor surgically removed. This goes for airport security guards, too.
Dice,
I didn’t approve of the driver’s answer… but none of us was asked ahead of time… provided many a laugh later, though…
Oddly during my last trip across the US-Canada border in May at the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, the Canadian border officials were really on my case. When I crossed back into Detroit later the same day, my interview by the US Border Official went this way.
Q. Citizenship?
A. U.S.
Q. Anything to declare?
A. No
Q. OK
Much of the border between Minnesota and Ontario is made up of either lakes or rivers. I’ve crossed the border back and forth in a fishing boat many times. The only time I was questioned was when a Canadian game warden (whatever they call them) checked to make sure that I hadn’t imported any live minnows.
You don’t have to sneak across. You can cruise across in broad daylight.
Astroboy, your story reminds me of one belonging to a friendly acquaintance of mine. She’s from Seattle, and when her boyfriend was visiting her during the summer, they decided to go up to visit a friend in Vancouver. They had a WEE bit of marijuana (I mean, really tiny amount), which they (kinda) hid. Upon reaching the border, they found the questions amusing (bad move) and laughed. Promptly had the car searched, the “hidden” pot was discovered in a minute, and they were arrested, detained, and strip searched for drug smuggling. Not possession of an illegal substance, but drug smuggling.