The US-Canada Border Runs Through this Tiny Library.
Meet the only library that operates in two countries at once.
by Sara Yahm (c) of Atlas Obscura
Rumor has it the 18th-century surveyors who drew the official line between the U.S. state of Vermont and the Canadian province of Quebec (*) were drunk, because the border lurches back and forth across the 45th parallel, sometimes missing it by as much as a mile. But the residents of the border towns didn’t particularly mind, mostly because they ignored it altogether.
Enjoy
Joe
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* Editor note: actually the British colony of Lower Canada. The line was to be surveyed as the international boundary per the Treaty of Ghent at the conclusion of the War of 1812, which was signed on Christmas Eve, 1814, and formally ended the war. We will never know what would have happened if Col Andy Jackson and his ragtag army, allied with locals and pirates, had not defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans, just a few weeks later.
I was there in January 1974. Friends from St. Catharines thought I should see more than “just” the ‘falls. I loved the memories that came back. Except that word: Quebecers. I prefer Québécois. Doesn’t sound so much like a hockey team that way.
Nice. It’s now on our list, too. You must’ve been about 4 years old. Isn’t St Catharines way over in Ontario near Niagra Falls? That’s wa-a-ay on the other side of Lake Ontario. Thanks for commenting, Michelle.