http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/th ... atlas-page
...except that I've never been to it, although that was where I used to hang out in another life. well!
2 country library
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2 country library
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/th ... atlas-page
...except that I've never been to it, although that was where I used to hang out in another life. well!
Re: 2 country library
No passports are needed to enter the library. THAT is truly amazing.
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times sure have changed. pity. i'd be driving around either stanstead or rock island (they're connected) and stop to read a sign and it'd say "you have entered the united states of America. report to the immigration immediately!"
naw, I don't think I will. i'll just meander off back into Canada... probably the next street over...?
Re: 2 country library
Interesting!
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quirky things about places are so quaint...
I would love to visit Canada one day...
I would love to visit Canada one day...
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I think Point Roberts suffers from the same dual identity and border problems over there in southwest Vancouver, ya hey dere.
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Re: 2 country library
I think the story is that they drew a line along the 49th parallel and called that the border between USA and Canada. That was fine for many years and is still the demarcation point. Port Roberts, however, sits on that latitude - partly in Canada and partly in USA.
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ah, I see, this is pretty straight forward though:
https://www.google.fr/maps/place/Point+ ... 23.0568693
ok, that's funny!
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https://www.google.fr/maps/place/Rock+I ... -72.098477
I was led to believe the border followed the tomifobia river - and well, it does; briefly, then just follows its straight line back and forth across the river. at one point it cuts across the butterfield's factory, which is straddling the river. (I think it's shut down now)
lovely scenery, especially looking from Chemin Young, across the valley and into Vermont...
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So ... if you are cruising down the river on a Sunday afternoon, by the time you get to Tivoly's you jog in and out of the United states. Changing the map to it's earth view, however, shows how they cleverly put a dams across the river just before crossing the border. It's a clever way of keeping kayaks from straying across without the customary customs check. It's easy enough to cross over east or west of that point. Why they simply didn't use the river as the demarcation point would be a good question for the treaty writers. I'm guessing it was a lot easier to draw an line than to describe a snakey river.
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The parents of one of my old schoolmates lived on a family farm bordered on two sides by the same river. The river itself was the dividing line between two counties.
Their house was high on a hill so despite the occasional flood, the water never reached their house, but they were often trapped and couldn't leave until the water went back down.
After one major flood, the river totally changed course, and the main channel now ran on the south side of their house, instead of the north side like it had for as long as they could remember.
The change in the river left the old river like a horseshoe lake, but they were not trapped, as a rise left them with a means of access, but they now had to drive like two miles around to get to the road.
Although they still live in the same county, they have to rely on the adjoining county for all their police, fire and ambulance services now, because they are on the other side of the river, hi hi...
I'm using the details of their incident in one of my stories, but not with a house, I chose to make it a popular park instead. It just worked out better that way in the story.
Where my brother used to have a fishing cabin, every time there was a flood, it was another ten to twenty feet from his cabin to the rivers edge. Once when the water was so low you could step across the river, he brought in a backhoe and removed all the gravel and mud only in front of his property, and built a forty foot long pier from his cabin out to where the new edge of the river was. When the river got back up to its normal water level, the water was eight to ten feet deep from the front of his cabin out to the end of his fixed height pier, then alongside that at the end, he had a floating boat dock. Enough fish took up residence in the cleaned out area, you could catch anything fishing off the pier.
A storm knocked a tree across his cabin, and they would not let him rebuild, since he was in a flood plain.
The fellow he sold the property to used the pier to place a large tent on when he came to fish.
Their house was high on a hill so despite the occasional flood, the water never reached their house, but they were often trapped and couldn't leave until the water went back down.
After one major flood, the river totally changed course, and the main channel now ran on the south side of their house, instead of the north side like it had for as long as they could remember.
The change in the river left the old river like a horseshoe lake, but they were not trapped, as a rise left them with a means of access, but they now had to drive like two miles around to get to the road.
Although they still live in the same county, they have to rely on the adjoining county for all their police, fire and ambulance services now, because they are on the other side of the river, hi hi...
I'm using the details of their incident in one of my stories, but not with a house, I chose to make it a popular park instead. It just worked out better that way in the story.
Where my brother used to have a fishing cabin, every time there was a flood, it was another ten to twenty feet from his cabin to the rivers edge. Once when the water was so low you could step across the river, he brought in a backhoe and removed all the gravel and mud only in front of his property, and built a forty foot long pier from his cabin out to where the new edge of the river was. When the river got back up to its normal water level, the water was eight to ten feet deep from the front of his cabin out to the end of his fixed height pier, then alongside that at the end, he had a floating boat dock. Enough fish took up residence in the cleaned out area, you could catch anything fishing off the pier.
A storm knocked a tree across his cabin, and they would not let him rebuild, since he was in a flood plain.
The fellow he sold the property to used the pier to place a large tent on when he came to fish.
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the reason the shoreline was washing out was because a) they built a bridge and positioned it wrong, so there was a backwash churning everything up. b) the twits didn't keep the river flowing steady, but would suddenly let massive amounts of water come down and flood the place. and c) blasted beavers kept stealing the trees I tried to grow to keep the soil in place! I put a 4' wire mesh around them and they were coming along nicely. until the idiots flooded the river again. so, when I came up, all the trees had been neatly lopped off just above the mesh....
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You bring up a point that nobody seems to be concerned about, but a point which is far more dangerous than any drug crazed Mexicans invading Texas. That large expanse of forested border along our northern states is perfect for shielding transport of anything imaginable across the borders. If you shielded nuclear weapons well enough so that IR satellites could not detect them, all them Islamic Muslim Terrorists those Canadians like to harbor can invade this country any time they wanted to. But, as you point out, nobody is talking about walls to the north.pilvikki wrote:still, you can drive back and forth across the border so i'm wondering why they'd be fussier about the river? also, I wonder how they keep track of all the forested areas?
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what? did Canada run out of room? are you joking?
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This country was started by a bunch of refugees so that giving them a bad name wasn't popular until the current president showed up. Then again, there are constraints. Due to limited resources, any given country can only be so kind to the world's less fortunate. Canada isn't that easy to get to, which is why you don't see more refugees infiltrating than is happening already. But, the increase in numbers suggests the problem isn't getting any better. The downtrodden are being rejected by more and more countries while the motives for them to immigrate are becoming more and more urgent. What to do about all of this is a problem for everyone. It's not just despots fighting wars against their own people. Natural disasters (caused by global warming) are at work too. If the north pole melts down as some people think it will, then a lot of people from coastal communities will be moving inland. Those wild ideas about establishing colonies on mars are starting to look better and better these days.
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and what will happen to the netherlands?
I mean, they already live below sea level.Re: 2 country library
New Orleans (home of the Mardi Gras) is below sea level too. The only thing stopping it from flooding is a series of levees ringed around the city. I don't know how much the ocean has to rise for that to cave in.