The Canada-U.S. Border
Maintaining a 5000-Mile Line Across North America
Dateline: 04/03/00
The Canada-U.S. border stretches more than five thousand miles across North America. Nearly 22 million Canadians, or about three out of four, live within 200 miles of the border, which goes a long way towards explaining the inordinate influence American culture has on us.
The transcontinental border is carefully surveyed and maintained by the International Boundary Commission. The Commission's main responsibility is to keep the border clearly marked and free of obstruction. The Commission has two commissioners, one for each country, each with their own staff and budget. The staff repair, relocate, and replace damaged markers and buoys, keep the 20 foot-wide vista through forest and brush clear, and put up new markers when needed.
The Commission also regulates construction within 10 feet of the boundary. Construction can be anything from billboards to airstrips or extensions to existing buildings. To do any type of construction work, even digging a ditch, on the 20-foot wide border vista requires a letter of authorization from the commissioners.
A thousand survey control stations on the border tie in with the survey networks of both countries.
Things seem well organized now, but it has not always been that way. James Polk won the U.S. Presidency in 1844 on the slogan "Fifty-four forty or fight", referring to the wish of U.S. expansionists to extend the Oregon boundary to the southern boundary of Russian America (latitude 54° 40'). The British claimed the land down to the Columbia River. The Oregon Treaty in 1846 was a compromise solution putting the boundary along the 49th parallel through the Straits of Georgia and Juan de Fuca to the Pacific. Possession of San Juan Island in the middle of the channel was still hotly contested though, and it wasn't until 1873 that arbitration by German Emperor Wilhelm 1 settled the matter in favor of the United States.
Approximately 200 bilateral treaties are currently in force between Canada and the United States. Ten of those deal with boundaries, and 21 with boundary waters.
More on the Canada-U.S. Border
- Canada Customs and Border Services
Before you or your goods cross the Canadian border, be sure you are aware of Canadian government customs regulations and services. - Immigration to Canada
If you are planning to move to Canada, be sure to investigate Canadian government information on the requirements and application process, and on the basics of living and working in Canada. - Shopping and Shipping Across the Canadian Border
Getting goods through Canada customs at the Canadian border - duties, taxes and customs brokerage fees. - Canadian Consulates in the United States
Contact information for the Canadian Embassy and Consulates in the United States.
