I just formed an ambition to cross the US/Canadian border. Repeatedly.
Perhaps this should be in the Game Room.
For example, starting from Port Angeles, take the ferry to Victoria. Drive to Sidney and take the ferry to Anacortes. Thence cross at Blaine, make your way to Prince Rupert or Port Hardy where you can catch a ride up the Inside Passage to Skagway. Drive from Skagway to Dawson, where you should be able to take the Top of the World highway to Fairbanks. From Fairbanks, you take the Alcan to Whitehorse, thence south to the crossing at BC-15/WA-543.
That is as far as I have gotten, so far. The idea is to cross the border legitimately, in a vehicle, as many times as possible without retracing your path or going through a crossing more than once (e.g., you cannot cross at Point Roberts or the NW Angle, because there is no other legitimate vehicle route or regular ferry back across).
How many times can one zig zag across the US/Canadian border in this way from one end to the other? And what kind of overall distance of travel would that be?
In BC alone, I believe there are 13 border crossings along the 49th, from Blaine to the Alberta border.
The first four are in the Fraser Valley, then you have to jump to the Nighthawk crossing just west of Osoyoos. I think there are 9 from Nighthawk to Alberta.
I have done most of them, but what one has to be careful about is that a number of them are not open 24 hours a day. They open around 8 or 9 in the morning.
Btw, Nighthawk is my favourite. Very laid back for a border crossing. Even the American guards there can sometimes have a relaxed sense of humour.
To cross all of these would be somewhat challenging, at least on the US side. You would have to drop down quite a ways into Washington, Idaho and Montano at times to drive over to the next crossing. But it would be a cool trip.
Most of the crossings out of Ontario are over water. Major ones west to east: Rainy River, the one south of Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Sarnia, Detroit (2 crossings, the bridge and the tunnel, plus one under construction), Fort Erie, Niagara Falls (3 road: the Rainbow Bridge, the lower deck of the Railway Arch Bridge, and the Queenston-Lewiston bridge), then all the way to the other end of Lake Ontario: Kingston, Cornwall, Ivy Lea… and I’m sure there are some I’ve forgotten. Particularly ferry crossings.
I’d make sure to plan for a Detroit - Windsor crossing (if not using both the bridge and the tunnel for two). It’s the one place in the continental US where Canada is at the south end of the crossing.
Between Ontario and Michigan there’s the Marine City-Sombra ferry.
I wonder how you would count the Blue Water Bridge(s)? It used to be just the original historical bridge, and then they build another bridge adjacent to it in a new style. They’re each unidirectional, but is that one crossing or two in your eyes?
