CAN for Canada, USA for the United States
and the actual border is the centre line of that road.
Well let me introduce you to the border.
We have houses that are divided.
If we were to look around there, probably there is a hidden camera.
Uncle Sam is watching us.
It's odd that it would slice it right in two, but I don't know what, what the logic was.
I was told the line was supposed to be back probably about a quarter of a mile back in the States.
They thought the border was going to be on the 45th parallel and it's actually about a half a mile north.
It's basically that mistake, that we have today.
You can see that line where the border is and it's not straight, it curves.
My geography teacher said it was alcohol involved but you know, who knows.
It's mostly sleepy. It's certainly not like the Mexican border.
You know there's things going on but nothing terribly exciting –
and all the locals know how to get things across.
The first customs officer described the people in this area as the most lawless people that he'd ever seen
and the most disregard for the law that he'd seen
because the people were very accustomed just to crossing back and forth across the border
without any questions being asked.
People got a little more accustomed to it, but they still did a fair amount of smuggling
and it's not quite as prevalent today, but there's still as some that goes on.
For many, many years it was sort of a novelty, that novelty sort of worn off in more recent years.
Well years ago it was completely different. It was very friendly. We say "There's a friendliest border in the world.
As a young boy I remember we used to pedal across.
We used to go down in Newport to get milkshakes or freezies and we get on our bikes and pedal across
and we just wave to the custom officers. But since 9/11, it's changed drastically.
Over the years it [the border] had grown in tremendously and it was hard to even see where the border was
and then they have these cement posts every so often that demark the actual border.
I think the world has changed and we've had to change with it.
I think it's a wonderful place to be, it's like we are at the centre of everything.