The Border Area

As I headed north from Seattle towards the Canadian Border I felt the need for coffee to fortify myself. Fortunately just south of the border is the town of Blaine.

Blaine was once a fishing and industrial area with the world's largest salmon cannery, the site has now been converted to a waterfront destination resort on Semiahmoo Spit. There were also several (long gone) saw mills operating on Blaine's waterfront, and much of the lumber was transported from here to help rebuild San Francisco following the 1906 fire.

Today Blaine's has two large marinas which are home to hundreds of recreational sailboats and yachts but a small number of local fishers provide visitors with dockside sale of fresh salmon, crab and oysters.

As a link with the past the MV Plover that conveyed workers to and from the cannery in the 1930s today ferries tourists from Blaine to the resort on Semiahmoo Spit.

Here is a view of the waterfront today.


	A welcome site, to me at least, was the Little Red Caboose Cafe just off the waterfront.




		The Blaine waterfront features a number of pieces of artwork, some examples are shown in these three photographs.

A number of interesting vehicles were to be seen in Blaine.

The Chevrolet van (top) was in use to make deliveries.

The Ford pickup (bottom) was for sale outside one of the stores.

As I approached the border I saw signs pointing to the Peace Arch Park so I decided to explore this before joining the queue of cars going north.

Peace Arch Park is a park that straddles the International Boundary between the United States and Canada at the Douglas border crossing where Highway 99 in British Columbia and Interstate 5 in Washington State meet. It is an international park and so has two names, it is the Peace Arch State Park on the United States side of the border and the Peace Arch Provincial Park on the Canadian side.

The park contains the Peace Arch that was constructed to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the The Treaty of Ghent that ended the War of 1812. Visitors to the park are free to explore the entire park on both sides of the actual physical border.

Approaching from the US side you find this sign.


	The Canadian and US signs for the park


	A view across the park towards the Peace Arch looking slightly south east towards Blaine. Everyone is going to Canada - it must be the beer.


	The actual Peace Arch that sits on the border taken from Canada (note the flags).




	These posts mark the actual border, I walked around them to photograph them from both countries. A very bizarre experience to walk in and out of the US without anyone asking for my passport.


	The park contains a number of memorials and statues, this is an example (from 1936) that commemorates the unfortified boundary between the Dominion of Canada and the United States of America. The lower plaque was added in 1964 to commemorate 150 years of peace between the two countries.


	Then it was time to join the northward migration and go to Canada.

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