----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 7:40 PM
Subject: [BoundaryPoint] campobello
ADVERTISEMENT
Border hassles create gulf
between stranded Canadian island and
United States
Mon May 24, 3:14
PM ET
CHRIS MORRIS
CAMPOBELLO ISLAND, N.B. (CP) - New
Brunswick's Campobello Island is
separated from the state of Maine by a
narrow strip of water, but
border hassles are creating a growing gulf of
irritation and anger
between the international
neighbours.
The roughly 1,500 people who live on the
picturesque island in the
Bay of Fundy are proud Canadians, but they are
cut off from the rest
of Canada by the United States and a border that is
steadily
tightening to the point of strangulation.
"We're
isolated," says resident Holly Chute, as she headed into the
Campobello
Co-Op, the island's only grocery store.
"And we're vulnerable. If
there's another attack in the U.S.,
something like 9-11, and they shut down
the border, we're stuck."
From September to July, the only way on
and off the island is via
the international bridge to Lubec, Me. Each
crossing requires a
border stop, and Islanders complain that U.S. customs
agents are
making life difficult.
"It's like you're interrogated
every time you cross," says Chute.
Adds one of her friends standing
nearby, "I mean, it's not like
we're from Iran or
anything."
During the summer, a private ferry connects Campobello
to nearby
Deer Island and mainland New Brunswick, but there is no
ferry
service the rest of the year.
Eric Allaby, the Opposition
Liberal member who represents the island
in the New Brunswick legislature,
says Campobello Island is a
classic example of a "stranded community," one
of several in North
America now feeling the effects of the war on
terrorism, food scares
and heightened border security.
"The real
difficulty arises with shipments of groceries under the
bioterrorism act,"
he says.
"There are also concerns over getting prescription drugs
to the
island. There are a number of concerns relating to
different
commodities."
Allaby says discussions are under way
with the private ferry
operator to see if ferry service can be offered on a
year-round
basis to the people of Campobello.
He says it would
provide a reliable link between the island and the
rest of Canada, without
requiring the headaches and hassles of U.S.
border
crossings.
"As the border tightens, it may be necessary to have the
back-up
option of carrying truckloads of groceries to Campobello by
ferry."
Willa Smart, assistant manager at the Co-op, says the store
has
already experienced shortages in a number of items,
especially
products made with beef and beef by-products.
The mad
cow scare has shut down the Canada-U.S. border to the
movement of most beef
products.
"We can't even get a can of beef soup across," says
Smart.
Islanders still recall the recent spectacle of
one of their
residents trapped on the international bridge with a bag of
dog
food, which was labelled chicken but might have had some beef in
it.
Canadian and U.S. border guards kept sending him back and
forth
across the bridge, both sides refusing to let him enter
either
country.
He was on the verge of throwing the dog food off the
bridge, when an
arrangement was finally made in Lubec to return the food to
where it
was purchased.
"It's ridiculous," says Smart. "You never
know from one day to the
next what they're going to let
through."
Paul Cellucci, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, says the two
countries
are trying to smooth out the hassles.
"It's like
everything else. The rules are established and look
reasonable until you
apply them to a place like a Canadian enclave,"
he says of
Campobello.
"Then you have to find a different way to do it, because it
doesn't
make sense."
Although Campobello Island is Canadian
territory, it is a U.S.
tourism icon.
It is the location of the
former stately summer home of late U.S.
president, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In 1960, a famous movie call
Sunrise at Campobello was made about Roosevelt
and his fight against
polio. It starred Ralph Bellamy, Greer Garson and
Hume Cronyn.
The home is open to tours in the summer.
Some
islanders have speculated openly whether life would not be a
whole lot
easier if the island became part of the United States.
But Island
resident Glenn Alexander says that although life would be
easier, islanders
want to remain Canadian.
"I'm sure if you took a poll, you would find
that easily 97 per cent
of islanders want to be Canadian and wouldn't even
consider joining
the United States," says
Alexander.