Photostory #469: International Survey Task Stretches 5,525 Miles: Along the Canada-USA Boundary

Photographers
Ted Grant , Mines and Resources Dept. of Energy
Maker
National Film Board of Canada
Release Date
May 25, 1968
Collection
CMCP fonds
Credit Line
Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography fonds, National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives
Main Text
Keeping strict mathematical control of the 5,525.1-mile-long boundary line that divides the world's most valuable piece of real estate is a continuous task for the Canada-United States International Boundary Commission. Along this far-reaching, neighborly border, stretching west from Atlantic to Pacific then north to the Arctic Ocean, the survey engineers of the commission maintain many thousands of markers that delineate the international boundary along its varied course. Through dense forests, across broad lakes, atop towering mountain ranges and over rich grass and farmlands runs a combination of a 20-foot-wide swath cut through vegetation, lines of floating marker buoys, and solid weather-impervious monuments set from hilltop to hilltop, all serving to amicably join, rather than separate, the territories of two major nations. Checking the boundary on its journey across the continent, as it cuts through private houses, a monastery here, a gas-station there, or as it runs parallel with precipitous mountain slopes, along eroding river banks, over the soft ooze of marshes and past other natural and man-made obstacles to surveying, is a year-by-year field activity for the staff of the commission. Meticulously, with modern scientific instruments and techniques, they measure, traverse and triangulate to keep the boundary exactly known at all points and well marked by monuments of the utmost permanency. Yet this long international boundary remains a friendly division. Citizens of both countries move freely across the border without visa or passport and its often casual acceptance is itself a prime example of strong cultural and economic bonds stretching vertically over the face of temperate North America.
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