The longest land border in the world made by the human being is a gigantic firewall between the US and Canada

One of the most controversial borders of the last weeks is, curiously, one in which there are no war conflicts: the one that separates Canada from the United States. It is a peculiar border, with numerous rural points without surveillance and whose straight line looks like a gigantic firewall visible from spaceliterally dividing what he finds in his path.

And, although it seems that something like this is a vote of confidence among good neighbors, the latest events show that even the world’s least monitored border can become tensions scenario.

The longest in the world. It extends along the whopping of 8,891 kilometers and, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris Of 1783, there were the first steps to define limits in the territory of future United States and British Columbia. It was the moment in which the United States War of Independence was put an end, but the final demarcation of the border would take more than a century to arrive, and would do so in the form of a gigantic firewall.

Literally:

The ‘firewall’. The upper image represents a tiny border segment, in one of the rural areas. It is taken from Google Maps Because it is a border of the most visual (and I encourage you to throw a rare sailing through the app discovering curious cases).

If a river or a mountain range does not physically separate the territory, Canadians and American are distanced by a gigantic firewall who, in much of the border, is still a straight line that divides forest, rural and even cities.

After the Treaties of Paris and Jaythere were still fringes that would not be resolved until decades later, but one of the decisive moments arrived at the London Convention of 1818. In it, the 49 parallel was established as the border between the two countries, from the Lake Forests to the Rocky Mountains. In 1846, the Oregon treaty The witness collected, continuing the decision that the 49 parallel marked the border from the roco mountains to the Pacific, except a Vancubert that remained in the northern domains.

Even so, there were borders that were still clear, such as Alaska, so arbitration was created specifically designed for that border. In 1908 the border was consolidated in the International Limits Commission. It was then that the decision was made to physically demarcate the division, creating an immense firewall or strip that definitely marked the limits of each country.

Together, but not scrambled. Imagine that you are playing a video game and you want to define a division without you care where the lines fall. Well, a similar case is the one that is lived in some locations that have part of the territory in the United States and part in Canada. It is not that there are curious cases such as Mexico City (which on one side of the street are in the State of Mexico and, in the other, in Mexico City), but that there are buildings with a division that marks that its plant is in two different countries.

An example is the Library of Derby Line, Vermont, or Stanstead, Quebec (depends on the side of the border on which you are). On the floor of the reading room there is a black line that marks the country where you are, being one of the most curious cases, but not the only one.

In Vermont and Quebec there are houses that catch in the middle of the border, cases such as the Halfway house, which was a tavern/hotel built in 1820 before that part of the border was established and other examples of land with part in the United States and another part in Canada.

Point Roberts. But there are not only lands split in half: also areas that belong to one of the two countries and those that are only land link through the opposite nation. Maybe Alaska is the most famous – also the largest – and, although connected by the Arctic and the Pacific through ship, if you want to go by land you can only through Canada.

Point Roberts is one of the curious examples. It is located in the state of Washington and is the ‘piquito’ of a peninsula only accessible by land through Canada. It is one of those cases in which you cross a street and pass from the Canadian city Delta to the American Point Roberts.

Something similar occurs with Elm Point, a small uninhabited cape surrounded by lake except by the north, being Canadian territory and the only way to access by land. There are many more examples like this, such as the island of Province whose southern end belongs to the United States and where we can see another example of that firewall we were talking about before.

Machias Seal. But of course, so many situations of a territory cut by the border gives rise to some tensions, and the best example of this is that of the Machias Seal Island. It is an island in the Gulf of Maine that is administered by Canada, but which the United States claims as theirs. No one lives, but there is a lighthouse built in 1832 in which Canada maintains Coast Guard personnel.

And the reason for this interest on the part of both is that the treaties such as Paris or Gante’s of 1814 show ambiguities that both countries interpret their way to exercise that right of sovereignty.

Pacific, but controlled. The most obvious question is … How do they control almost 9,000 kilometers from a border that divides cities, a lost forest, a private ranch or a public building? They are cases in which, literally, you can set foot in each country and there can be no border guard at all times. But yes, although the two countries maintain migratory collaboration agreements, there are 120 land entry ports, as well as other maritime points that facilitate the regulated traffic of people.

The most common is road traffic, for which there are control stalls in which American citizens are asked for a valid passport or documents such as a trusted traveler card or a ‘advanced’ driving card that certain provinces issue only. If the case is the opposite, Canadians wanting to enter the US, the requirements are very similar.

Detroit. Because they are allies and neighbors, but they are still different countries with different regulations. It is not as simple as moving from Spain to Portugal, for example, being a European citizen. And within the road binding points between them, there are some especially sensitive, being the Ontario-Detroit who takes the cat to the water.

This is the most important terrestrial crossing among countries due to the very high commercial volume. We do not speak only of people who cross country to work, but of transport of goods. It is also a tremendously controversial point, since for years that point of union between countries has been a private property bridge, so a single family has profit from tolls on either side of the border.

Right now there is a New public bridge under construction that will bite a good portion of these benefits and facilitate trade due to better highway connections for both parties. The Ambassador bridge is the commented private bridge, but as we say, there are other very important routes for international trade both by land, sea and air.

Agreements. And, as that migration is the order of the day, both parties have developed a series of agreements with the aim of promoting border cooperation and combating both organized crime and the management of the passage of people. Some are historical agreements, such as the intelligent border agreement, created in 2001 to, following the attacks of September 11, that both countries exchange intelligence information.

Also the agreement of the ‘third safe country’ that forces asylum applicants to submit their application in the first country they reach, be it Canada or the United States. More recently, and with the focus on the control of substances such as the fentanyl that The west coast of the USAs ravageCanada proposed the creation of a joint police force to patrol the common border and the hottest drug trafficking points.

Also a security plan of 1.3 billion dollars with helicopters, drones and surveillance towers to combat that drug trafficking. In fact, drug trafficking and fentanyl pass was one of the arguments that Donald Trump wielded when he mentioned the possible Tariffs both to Mexico and Canada during the electoral campaign.

Commercial War. And, precisely, we must talk about these more recent events related to the border and the fortification of both countries. Trump’s arrival at the White House for his second term has been an earthquake in many ways, the tariff one being one of the most famous having affected many countries. The United States is one of them, with measures by both:

• The US imposed a 25% tariff on almost all Canadian imports. Oil and other energy products were taxed with 10%.
• Canada responded with a proportional tariff: 25% to US products.

Estimates were catastrophic, with increased price in food, gasoline and materials such as wood for the US consumer. On the Canadian side, more of the same, something that forced a temporary postponement On March 7 by Donald Trump for some tariffs on automotive and agricultural products.

Beyond this controversy, which seems far from resolving, having a border of that magnitude with a neighboring and ally country where you cannot cover every meter of the division, highlights the curiosities that occur as the border that “falls where it falls.” Also how complicated it is to control everything, and that tariffs like this can favor black traffic not only of fentanyl, but of gasoline, corn or … wood.

And, curiously, the Shorter border in the world It is in … Spain.

Images | Google Maps, Altoclef, Tony Webster, P. Hughes, Hellcatsrt, Sebastian Wallroth, Mark Wagner, Traveler100, International Boundary Commission

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