PREVIEW ONLY — UNCORRECTED PROOFS IMAGINARY LINE 650-0_ImaginaryLine_PRF1.pdf 1 6/14/2011 5:14:425:18:17 PM PREVIEW ONLY — UNCORRECTED PROOFS Also by Jacques Poitras Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy (2007, 2008) The Right Fight: Bernard Lord and the Conservative Dilemma (2004) 650-0_ImaginaryLine_PRF1.pdf 2 6/14/2011 5:14:425:18:17 PM PREVIEW ONLY — UNCORRECTED PROOFS IMAGINARY LINE Life on an Unfinished Border Jacques Poitras 650-0_ImaginaryLine_PRF1.pdf 3 6/14/2011 5:14:425:18:17 PM PREVIEW ONLY — UNCORRECTED PROOFS Copyright © 2011 by Jacques Poitras. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). To contact Access Copyright, visit www.accesscopyright. ca or call 1-800-893-5777. The poem “Driving to Fort Kent in a Mid-Spring Snowfall” is © Laurence Hutchman and Guernica Editions, 2007. Used with permission of the copyright holders and of Broken Jaw Press. Quotations from Samuel Leonard Tilley’s correspondence used with permission of Archives and Special Collections, Harriet Irving Library, University of New Brunswick. Quotations from William Odell’s correspondence used with permission of the New Brunswick Museum. Map of marine boundary claims around Machias Seal Island reproduced with the permission of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, © Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, 2011. Edited by John Sweet and Clare Goulet. Cover and page design by Jaye Haworth. Printed in Canada. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Poitras, Jacques, 1968- Imaginary line: life on an unfinished border / Jacques Poitras. Includes bibliographical references and index. Also issued in electronic format. ISBN 978-0-86492-650-0 1. New Brunswick — Boundaries — Maine. 2. Maine — Boundaries — New Brunswick. 3. New Brunswick — Relations — Maine. 4. Maine — Relations — New Brunswick. I. Title. FC182.P64 2011 971.5’1 C2011-902887-5 Goose Lane Editions acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF), and the government of New Brunswick through the Department of Wellness, Culture, and Sport. The author acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts under the Creative Writing Program. Goose Lane Editions Suite 330, 500 Beaverbrook Court, Fredericton, New Brunswick. CANADA E3B 5X4 www.gooselane.com 650-0_ImaginaryLine_PRF1.pdf 4 6/14/2011 5:14:425:18:17 PM PREVIEW ONLY — UNCORRECTED PROOFS For Giselle, Sophie, and Zachary 650-0_ImaginaryLine_PRF1.pdf 5 6/14/2011 5:14:425:18:17 PM PREVIEW ONLY — UNCORRECTED PROOFS From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines, Going where I list, my own master total and absolute, Listening to others, considering well what they say, Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me. I inhale great draughts of space, The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine. — Walt Whitman, “Song of the Open Road” The boundary between Canada and the United States is a typically human creation; it is physically invisible, geographically illogical, militarily indefensible, and emotionally inescapable. — Hugh L. Keenleyside, Canadian diplomat, 1929 650-0_ImaginaryLine_PRF1.pdf 7 6/14/2011 5:14:425:18:17 PM PREVIEW ONLY — UNCORRECTED PROOFS CONTENTS List of Maps ............................................................................ 11 INTRODUCTION: GATEWAYS ................................................ 13 PART ONE: DRAWING THE LINE .......................................... 23 1. Wicked Close ........................................................................ 25 2. Oswald’s Folly ....................................................................... 43 3. Partition .............................................................................. 61 4. Godfathers of the Valley ........................................................ 79 5. “A few miserable Frenchmen” ............................................... 97 6. Remains ............................................................................. 113 PART TWO: HOLDING THE LINE ......................................... 129 7. Good Neighbours ................................................................ 131 8. Invasions ............................................................................ 147 9. The Persistence of Atlantica ................................................ 163 10. Give Me a Break ............................................................... 183 PART THREE: BLURRING THE LINE .................................. 201 11. “We Fraternize on this Road” ............................................ 203 12. The Great Game ................................................................ 223 13. Collisions on the Bay ......................................................... 241 14. Saving Champlain ............................................................. 257 15. New Brunswick on the Penobscot ...................................... 273 16. Beloved Isolation .............................................................. 287 EPILOGUE: ÎSLES AUX PERROQUETS ............................... 303 Acknowledgements ................................................................. 317 Sources .................................................................................. 321 Photo Credits ......................................................................... 331 Index ..................................................................................... 333 650-0_ImaginaryLine_PRF1.pdf 9 6/14/2011 5:14:425:18:17 PM PREVIEW ONLY — UNCORRECTED PROOFS LIST OF MAPS The Saint-François River and the Upper Saint John Valley “New Ireland” Boundaries claimed by Britain and the United States, 1817-1842 The Madawaska Settlement The Russell Road Forest City, Maine and Forest City, New Brunswick The European & North American Railway and the Western Extension Three proposed LNG sites on the Maine-New Brunswick border The “true” Saint Croix: the Schoodic and Magaguadavic rivers The islands of Passamaquoddy Bay and the extension of the border The marine boundary claims around Machias Seal Island 11 650-0_ImaginaryLine_PRF1.pdf 11 6/14/2011 5:14:435:18:17 PM PREVIEW ONLY — UNCORRECTED PROOFS INTRODUCTION GATEWAYS IN JANUARY 2010, STEPHEN HARPER, the prime minister of Canada, travelled to New Brunswick to cut the ribbon at a new border crossing with the United States. The ceremony was a mere formality. For two months already, eighteen-wheeler operators, commuters, and tourists had been driving across the new black asphalt spanning the St. Croix River in barely the amount of time it took to take their passports out of their pockets. So the bridge, the third to connect St. Stephen, New Brunswick, with Calais, Maine, was already achieving the objective for which it had been designed. As Harper himself pointed out in his speech, in eight short weeks, commercial traffic crossing the border between the two communities had increased by twenty per cent. The bridge was also fulfilling a secondary purpose: the historic downtown of St. Stephen, linked to Calais since the nineteenth century, was no longer choked by long line-ups of transport trucks stretching to the edge of town. And local residents, many with relatives on the other side of the border, were no longer subjected to long waits when crossing for a visit or to buy inexpensive milk or gas. Traffic was moving more efficiently on the two older bridges as trucks diverted to the new one. By January, when Harper arrived, people on both sides of the St. Croix were already wondering how they had ever managed to function without it. Still, politicians and their communications advisors love a good ribbon-cutting, and they positively adore them when the facility to be “opened” offers an apparent solution to a complex problem. 13 650-0_ImaginaryLine_PRF1.pdf 13 6/14/2011 5:14:435:18:17 PM PREVIEW ONLY — UNCORRECTED PROOFS IMAGINARY LINE And no problem has been more complex for Canadian prime ministers than relations with the United States, particularly following September 11, 2001. The new bridge may have made it easier for folks in St. Stephen or Calais to visit their American aunts or Canadian cousins, but what really needed to keep moving across the border was money. The modern checkpoints at each end of the new bridge featured the very latest in high-tech equipment — weights, scanners, digital imaging, and a myriad of other tools — to ensure that commerce was not impeded by tighter security. For Harper and his government, the bridge was part of the so-called “Atlantic Gateway,” the latest in a long series of slogans used by various governments to give a visionary sheen to a new round of spending on highways, bridges, and other transportation infrastructure. This one, at least, had some basis in history: the idea was to strengthen Atlantic Canada’s ties to one of the most lucrative markets on earth, the densely populated eastern seaboard of the United States. Merchants and their goods had been crossing the St. Croix for more than a century before the border had even been drawn there. The priority now was to ensure that trade continued. And so Harper opened a bridge that had been open for two months. At his side