Southern Alberta residents face loss of ‘Border Road’ used for generations

For generations, it has been a symbol of the close relationship between residents of Warner County, on the Canadian side of the border, and their friends and relatives in Toole County, on the American side.

Officially located in Montana, Border Road, which parallels the international border, also provides farmers, ranchers and others in Alberta with an easy way to access their properties, rather than make the 15-minute drive it takes to get to the official border crossing at Coutts and Sweetgrass.

But starting next July that’s going to change, and area residents will need to cross the border just like everyone else.

“We’ve got a lot of friends on the north side of the border,” said Jackson Nagy, who has lived in Montana’s Toole county for the past 27 years.

“Myself, I grew up playing hockey in Warner for eight years, you know, so I have a lot of buddies that are on the north side of line that this is going to impact — and I mean, living here my whole life, you just, you get used to seeing Canadian traffic going up the road, right? You get to know the neighbours and just noticing what they’re doing on their operations and stuff like that,” said Nagy.

“So it is kind of a bummer that they’re going to lose access to it. It kind of sucks, the fact that it has to come to that because like I said, a lot of folks around here, not just myself, have a ton of good Canadian friends and a lot a family up north, too, and so it definitely affects more people than you realize, probably,” added Nagy.

Warner County Coun. Ross Ford, who has lived in the area all his life, said the road, which was built in the 1940s, is used by people on both sides of the international border.

The Americans supply the gravel and the Canadians make sure the road is properly maintained.

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“I live right across the road from my neighbour in Montana,” said Ford.

“His dad used to walk over and see my dad to have a visit and and it was never, never an issue.  I mean, they knew about it but, you know, it’s just neighbours being neighbours and after 9/11 we were told that we had to go through (customs) if we wanted to visit our neighbours — we had to go through a port of entry.”

Although shutting down the Canadian’s easy access has been talked about for years, it finally became a reality after the election of President Donald Trump who promised to secure the U.S. border from drugs and illegal immigration.

It’s an argument that might play well in Washington, but not for neighbours around Border Road, which Ford describes as “one big community.”

“Its more concerns with, you know, some of the criminal activity that’s going on. Not that there’s really much happening here. But you know, if they’re going to secure the border, it’s the whole border. ” said Ford.

“So, you know, we understand. Sure, we’re not happy about it and our neighbours are not happy about it.  But you know, Washington basically is dictating and the people on the ground are just doing their job, I guess,” added Ford.

Terry Kimmet, a commissioner for Toole County, Montana, isn’t happy with the change either.

“We’ve had a great relationship with the County of Warner and all the people up there and people on both sides of the border.”

“I mean, I used to play softball and they have softball fields right on the border — and if you hit a ball hard enough, you could hit it into the U.S., which is kind of iconic.”

“So what do you have to do (now) – go to customs to get your softball back,” asked Kimmet sarcastically.

“It’s worked so well — but we’ve never ever had a problem with it up until now.”

Kimmet says the land around Border Road is so flat “you can see for probably five miles in any direction,” so anyone or anything along the road is “very visible.”

“All the people on there, they’re the best eyes and ears for the Border Patrol if they see something illegal crossing in the area,” he added.

Kimmet believes a more effective way of patrolling the border would be to “just put up a couple of well-placed towers and cameras (that) could capture everybody coming and going along that road.”

He’s said he’s given tours to all the senators and congressmen from the area.

“A lot of times we’ll drive that whole eight-and-a-half, nine-mile section and we don’t see anybody. We don’t see any RCMP. We don’t see any border patrol.  Nothing,” said Kimmet.

But so far to no avail — the politicians in Washington seem intent on making everyone cross the border at Coutts and Sweetgrass.

Randy Taylor, Reeve of Warner County, attended a meeting with representatives of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security at the end of July.

While he was initially “shocked” by the decision to cut off Canadian access to the road, he said after the American government explained its point of view, he realized “it’s got to change.”

Taylor also met with Alberta’s Minister of Transportation, Devin Dreeshen, who he said has promised to build a new road — this one on the Canadian side of the border — once funding can be secured.

“In the end we are going to have our own road. Any access going north off our road is 100 per cent fine,” said Taylor.

And residents of Toole County will now need to foot the bill for maintaining Border Road.

“They’re really worried about the maintenance on the road, like it’s been a really good shared road and now the County of Werner’s taken out of that picture,” added Taylor

Across the border, Nagy is also concerned about the future of Border Road.

“If you drive any further south, you would see this is one of the best roads around.  So we really appreciate having the Canadians, you know, maintaining this for us and keeping it gravelled all the time — and it’s always plowed in the winter.  My wife works in Sunburst and sometimes instead of taking the shorter way she’ll come this way just because it’s actually plowed and it’s a solid road.”

“So its just kind of a bummer to see it going down the way it is,” said Nagy.

Despite the change, he remains hopeful they’ll continue as good neighbours.

“It seems like a big issue — and then maybe once they get a new road built up north, it will kind of just fizzle out and be become normal. And then maybe, you know, it’s water under the bridge sort of thing.”