# US-Canada Border St. Lawrence River **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 13, 2015, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340 "2015-12-13T18:07:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2015, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340/21 "2015-12-14T03:55:32Z")
> [@RadicalPi](#): > > This border was not created before the US existed. Here’s a map of the [British colonies in North America in 1771.](http://clements.umich.edu/exhibits/online/1759/1759-Items/16c-Kitchin.British.Empire.1763.JPG) The south bank of the St. Lawrence is included in Canada. The exact boundary between the US and Canada was determined by the Treaty of Paris, but dividing the cities of Montreal and Quebec was not a consideration, because no one ever proposed the St. Lawrence as being a dividing line. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2015, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340/22 "2015-12-14T04:50:04Z")
> [@RadicalPi](#): > > This border was not created before the US existed. The part of the US-Canadian border east of the Lake of the Woods was decided in the Treaty of Paris. Disputes caused by poor geographical knowledge led to other treaties later on, including the Webster–Ashburton Treaty of 1842, which settled the boundary of Maine, among other things. They still haven’t figured out Machias Seal Island. Way over two centuries since the American Revolution, and they still haven’t settled whether it is Canadian or American. > [@](#): > > In 1995, the Canadian Coast Guard dramatically reduced the number of manned lighthouses on the Atlantic coast as a cost-saving measure. Today, all lighthouses in Eastern Canada except for the station on Machias Seal Island are unmanned.[4] The Machias Seal Island light had been automated several years prior to the announcement, but Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs is now covering the Canadian Coast Guard’s costs to maintain lightkeepers on Machias Seal Island “for sovereignty purposes”. > > Using the residence on the island, two lightkeepers are flown by helicopter from the coast guard base in Saint John every four weeks to replace the two existing keepers.[1] These Coast Guard employees also assist the Canadian Wildlife Service in maintaining the Migratory Bird Sanctuary, as well as helping any wildlife researchers who may stay on the island for a period of time. That was my Uncle Geordie, until he retired a couple of years ago. > [@](#): > > In the past, private citizens in Maine have staked ownership claims of the island That was the fellow who boated over each summer from Maine for a fish fry and tea with Uncle Geordie. Such is the level of post-revolution international relations in Uncle Geordie’s Charlotte County. Come to think of it, when the Americans in Calais, Maine, didn’t have enough gunpowder for a decent Independence Day celebration after the start of the War of 1812-1815, Uncle Geordie’s Charlotte County cleaned out its St. Andrews blockhouse’s supply and gave it to the Americans so that Calais, Maine, and St. Stephen, New Brunswick could have a decent trans-national party – which they still do annually to cover both Canada Day and Independence Day, although to make travel arrangements easier, they’ve moved the big international party to four days in early August. Later in the war, we took over the northern coast of Maine from Calais on the St. Croix River down to the Penobscot River and inland to Bangor, and re-established the colony of New Ireland, but being gracious, we gave most of it back a few months after the war, and returned Eastport’s Fort Sherbrooke by 1818. We kept the customs duties levied from New Ireland and used them to found one of our top universities, Dalhousie, and also found a military museum, so in a round about way, you could say that there was a fair bit of international give and take – give gunpowder one year, take tax money a couple of years later. Anyway, we still haven’t settled the whether Machias Seal Island is Canadian or American, due to a crap map used in the Treaty of Paris that otherwise concluded the American Revolution. Now Uncle Geordie spent most of his career in the Canadian Navy, and finished up his career defending Canadian sovereignty over the sole remaining dispute of the American Revolution, so does than make him the last surviving veteran of the American Revolution? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2015, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340/23 "2015-12-14T05:19:32Z")
Every time you mention your Uncle Geordie, I have a mental image of Hap Shaughnessy from the Red Green Show, as played by Gordon Pinset. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2015, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340/24 "2015-12-14T05:27:08Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Every time you mention your Uncle Geordie, I have a mental image of Hap Shaughnessy from the Red Green Show, as played by Gordon Pinset. 🙂 Come to think of it, he also spent quite a few years [working on offshore oil rigs](https://youtu.be/AKmJxGz61_E). 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2015, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340/25 "2015-12-14T06:36:17Z")
Concerning the penis, here’s a simple way of looking at it: the Yankees failed in trying to change the shape of the penis, and the British failed in trying to change the shape of the penis, so when peace broke out, the penis remained. Viagra won, proving the adage make love not war. The pre-Revolutionary War boundary was mostly based on the St. Lawrence watershed and the St. Croix River. Travel in those days was primarily waterborne, so the Quebec colonial boundary based mostly on headwaters in that region was practical (the line was fixed by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 when the British took control of New France, other that a couple of islands in the St. Lawrence that are still part of France). The Passamaquoddy Bay/St. Croix River colonial boundary as extended with a straight line in the wilderness up to the Quebec boundary was also practical when delineating Maine and Nova Scotia, for Passamaquody Bay is a very large bay on the Bay of Fundy, and was historically significant due to an early (1604) settlement near the mouth of the St. Croix that included the cartographer Samuel de Champlain. (The next year, Champlain moved the settlement to Port Royal on the other side of the Bay of Fundy, making it the second permanent settlement in New France, and then in 1608 he and some of the colonists then established a colony on the St. Lawrence – the first completely garrisoned settlement north of Mexico – at what is now Quebec City, where Jacques Cartier had previously made a couple of attempts at settlement in 1535 and 1536.) During the American Revolution, the Yankees were whumped severely in the Battle of Quebec, upon which control of the St. Lawrence turned, and the British were whumped severely in their Saratoga N.Y campaign, upon which control of the the Hudson River and Lake Champlain turned. With neither side being able to make lasting gains against the other in either the Upper St. Lawrence or Lake Champlain and Hudson Valley, they just let things be when it came to resolving the new international boundary rather than quibble. Now Vermont, it quibbled, but that’s a who other thing. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2015, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340/26 "2015-12-14T06:46:33Z")
> [@bananamber](#): > > Is there a real reason New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the penis strip aren’t part of the US? Quebec and Nova Scotia were not part of the group of 13 colonies that that declared independence and went to war against the British. Although the 13 colonies won the war, and although there had been some serious fighting in Quebec and some raiding in Nova Scotia, there were no permanent gains by the 13 colonies in Quebec or Nova Scotia, so at the end of the war Quebec and Nova Scotia remained outside of what had then become the United States of America. ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2015, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340/27 "2015-12-14T14:01:00Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > (the line was fixed by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 when the British took control of New France, other that a couple of islands in the St. Lawrence that are still part of France) There are islands in the St. Lawrence that are still part of France??? Which ones and why? ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2015, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340/28 "2015-12-14T14:10:00Z")
[Saint Pierre and Miquelon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pierre_and_Miquelon) ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2015, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340/29 "2015-12-14T14:25:48Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > As far as Quebec goes, the British made a better deal with them than they could have obtained from the USA, through which they preserved their religion, civil law and seigneurial system (the latter not a particularly good thing over the long term, but it was their thing). The Americans continued the Dutch Patroonship system in New York county post independence, which no doubt was equally noisome to democratic egalitarians ( if there were any in the revolutionary ranks, which seems doubtful ) so this seems like straining at gnats. Although the English at the beginning of the war took away their rights of patroons administering their own justice, and the Americans acceded to this innovation. Much of the settlement of Nova Scotia came from loyalists fleeing revolutionary brutality and seizure; so this balanced the English/Canadian expulsion of the Arcadians earlier: Canada got present-day Nova Scotians, and America got present-day Floridians. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2015, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340/30 "2015-12-14T14:44:13Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Much of the settlement of Nova Scotia came from loyalists fleeing revolutionary brutality and seizure; so this balanced the English/Canadian expulsion of the Arcadians earlier: Canada got present-day Nova Scotians, and America got present-day Floridians. Louisianans, mostly. The expelled Acadians (the spelling was changed from Arcadia by Champlain) became the [Cajuns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cajun) of southern Louisiana. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2015, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340/31 "2015-12-14T17:36:46Z")
> [@bienville](#): > > There are islands in the St. Lawrence that are still part of France??? Which ones and why? Poor wording on my part – should have said past the Gulf of St. Lawrence’s Cabot Strait off the south coast of Newfoundland. (St. Lawrence River -\> Gulf of St. Lawrence -\> Cabot Straight -\> open Atlantic Ocean) Here’s a link to it: [Google Maps](https://www.google.com/maps/place/46%C2%B047'00.0%22N+56%C2%B010'00.0%22W/@46.783333,-56.166667,12z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0?hl=en) Why? France wanted to protect its fishing rights. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2015, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340/32 "2015-12-14T21:21:45Z")
Does anyone know why the boundary between Quebec and Vermont **is not** the 45th parallel? There is a place on I-89 about a half mile (in other words .5 minutes of arc) south of the border that has a sign that says (approximately): “45th parallel. As far from the north pole as from the equator”. (Factually false as owing to the oblateness of the earth, it is further from the 45th parallel to the pole than to the equator, but never mind.) Why would whoever made those treaties have chosen such an obscure line as 45 00’ 30" or whatever it actually is? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2015, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340/33 "2015-12-14T22:02:03Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Does anyone know why the boundary between Quebec and Vermont **is not** the 45th parallel? There is a place on I-89 about a half mile (in other words .5 minutes of arc) south of the border that has a sign that says (approximately): “45th parallel. As far from the north pole as from the equator”. (Factually false as owing to the oblateness of the earth, it is further from the 45th parallel to the pole than to the equator, but never mind.) Why would whoever made those treaties have chosen such an obscure line as 45 00’ 30" or whatever it actually is? The boundary as defined in the treaty _is_ the 45th parallel. The deviations are due to surveyors’ errors. See [here (pdf)](http://www.internationalboundarycommission.org/docs/ibc-2009-01-eng.pdf), pg. 4. For some reason I am unable to copy text from the document. However, when a survey was done in 1843-47, the surveyors relied on blazes placed during the original survey in 1771-74. In places this line actually deviated from the 45th parallel both north and south. However, both countries decided to accept the line as actually demarcated. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2015, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340/34 "2015-12-14T22:45:58Z")
In the first half of the 1770s, the surveyors from the provinces of Quebec ([John Collins](http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/collins_john_1795_4E.html)) and New York ([Thomas Valentine](http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/collins_john_1795_4E.html) who may have been replaced by [Claude Joseph Saultier](https://books.google.ca/books?id=eFEiAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA220&lpg=PA220&dq=surveyor+thomas+valentine&source=bl&ots=uj_C1dxBhq&sig=cZyz6obhfh8IPJxO6PA79QCAHFY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQo6KDrdzJAhWFkx4KHWYgBQwQ6AEIIDAB#v=onepage&q=surveyor%20thomas%20valentine&f=false)) screwed up. The division line they surveyed was supposed to be the 45th, but they were off by 3/4 of a mile. Life went on, with no one the wiser when a couple of years after the conclusion of the War of 1812-1814 the Americans started building a significant fort ([Fort Blunder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Montgomery_(Lake_Champlain))) on the wrong side of the real-world 45th to defend themselves against Canadians. Before the fort was completed, the surveying error was discovered, construction was put on hold, and locals pilfered the building materials. In 1842, the [Webster-Ashburton Treaty](http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/br-1842.asp) dealt with the problem my creating the legal fiction that the actual line demarcated by the surveyors was deemed to be the 45th, which had the effect of making the real-world “45th plus 3/4 of a mile” the public international law world’s “45th”. The ever practical Daniel Webster and Lord Ashburton came up with the following treaty wording to pull this off: “_ **. . . the old line of boundary surveyed and marked by Valentine and Collins previously to the year 1774, as the 45th degree of north latitude, and which has been known and understood to be the line of actual division between the States of New York and Vermont on one side, and the British Province of Canada on the other . . . .** _” This let the Americans have the strategically located point where they wanted to build a fort – which they started from scratch, resulting in Fort Montgomery. ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340/35 "2015-12-15T11:09:10Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > [Saint Pierre and Miquelon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pierre_and_Miquelon) > [@Muffin](#): > > Poor wording on my part – should have said past the Gulf of St. Lawrence’s Cabot Strait off the south coast of Newfoundland. > > (St. Lawrence River -\> Gulf of St. Lawrence -\> Cabot Straight -\> open Atlantic Ocean) > > Here’s a link to it: [Google Maps](https://www.google.com/maps/place/46%C2%B047'00.0%22N+56%C2%B010'00.0%22W/@46.783333,-56.166667,12z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0?hl=en) > > Why? France wanted to protect its fishing rights. Thanks! Still kinda bizarre to me (I’m fascinated by crazy exclaves and tiny seemingly insignificant overseas self-governing territories and the like) but not quite as bizarre being so close to the open Atlantic as if they truly were within the St. Lawrence River. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340/36 "2015-12-15T11:14:21Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > The boundary as defined in the treaty _is_ the 45th parallel. The deviations are due to surveyors’ errors. See [here (pdf)](http://www.internationalboundarycommission.org/docs/ibc-2009-01-eng.pdf), pg. 4. > > For some reason I am unable to copy text from the document. However, when a survey was done in 1843-47, the surveyors relied on blazes placed during the original survey in 1771-74. In places this line actually deviated from the 45th parallel both north and south. However, both countries decided to accept the line as actually demarcated. There’s a very interesting photo journey along the entire border, from east to west, here, in six parts with lots of background info: [United Divide | The Center for Land Use Interpretation](http://www.clui.org/section/united-divide-a-linear-portrait-usacanada-border) ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340/37 "2015-12-15T14:10:47Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > There’s a very interesting photo journey along the entire border, from east to west, here, in six parts with lots of background info: [United Divide | The Center for Land Use Interpretation](http://www.clui.org/section/united-divide-a-linear-portrait-usacanada-border) Nifty! ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340/38 "2015-12-15T20:09:57Z")
> [@bienville](#): > > Thanks! Still kinda bizarre to me (I’m fascinated by crazy exclaves and tiny seemingly insignificant overseas self-governing territories and the like) but not quite as bizarre being so close to the open Atlantic as if they truly were within the St. Lawrence River. Many oddities like this… The island of Lesbos is in the news, many of the islands right off the coast of Turkey are part of Greece. Similarly, the Channel Islands just off the coast of France belong to England, the Isle of Mann is technically a separate jurisdiction… the islands in Hudson Bay are part of Nunavut (former part of the Northwest Territories) putting part of the territory further south than Edmonton. Plus, there was a recent thread about the cross-river enclaves of various US states created from the meanderings of the Mississippi. ---
**Author:** ![Ignatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2015, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340/39 "2015-12-16T02:45:58Z")
Penis ensues. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2015, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340/40 "2015-12-16T05:27:29Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > There’s a very interesting photo journey along the entire border, from east to west, here, in six parts with lots of background info: [United Divide | The Center for Land Use Interpretation](http://www.clui.org/section/united-divide-a-linear-portrait-usacanada-border) That’s a fascinating site. Thanks for it! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-canada-border-st-lawrence-river/740340.md?page=3)