Point Roberts: Foot In State, Heart In Canada

POINT ROBERTS, Whatcom County - The knee-high concrete barrier wouldn't keep out a determined toddler.

It's at the end of Roosevelt Road in Point Roberts, state of Washington. On the other side is a dead-end street in Tsawwassen, province of British Columbia.

The barrier is a symbol of the quintessential undefended border.

Nearby, in the lush shoreline forest on the western edge of Point Roberts, there's another symbol - a 130-year-old stone-block obelisk, 20 feet tall, that marks the border between Canada and the United States. It's neglected, its base overgrown.

Canadians invade the Point almost daily, crossing the undefended border in search of U.S. cut-price delights: cheap beer and groceries, discount gas and penny-ante gambling. With the sea at their backs, the 500 Americans who live in Point Roberts have no place to retreat.

Their Canadian neighbors take the Point almost for granted - maybe because they own 90 percent of its 3,200 acres.

Once part of pre-Confederation British Columbia, the American community now depends on the province for economic survival.

Point Roberts is a geographic aberration. To get to this thumbnail of land owned by the United States you have to go through Canada. The Point juts into Georgia Strait, 18 miles south of Vancouver and just a tad below the 49th parallel. Point Roberts's only connection with the rest of Washington state is a view across Boundary Bay.

To leave the Point, Americans must cross into British Columbia at Tsawwassen, then curl around the bay to Blaine, Wash., about 27 miles away, facing customs inspections in both places.

They pay other penalties for living on the Point.

There's no school, no hospital, no doctor, not even a drugstore. Kids who don't make the three-hour round trip to school in Blaine pay to attend classes in Tsawwassen. Some residents see British Columbia doctors, paying cash for their treatment.

Even the Point's garbage must be shipped in bonded trucks through Canada to Washington landfills.

The Point is almost square, 3 1/2 miles by 3 1/2 miles. A motorist driving south from the border passes homes, gas stations, a general merchandise store here and there and a marina at the end. There's no conspicuous "downtown."

For Canadians, it's an easy 25-minute drive from Vancouver. That closeness made bucolic Point Roberts ideal cottage country for Vancouverites, who swell the town's summer population to 4,000. But the cross-border shopping explosion has tipped the balance.

The Point now has 140 gas pumps, mostly giant gas bars owned by Canadians and supplied by U.S. tanker trucks. With gas prices 20 cents a liter lower than in Tsawwassen, the gas bars have become a magnet for Canadian drivers. Cross-border traffic tripled in the past 10 years to 2.4 million vehicles in 1990.

The flow through the single customs point is so heavy that on weekends the lineup back to Canada can run all the way down to the marina, almost 1 1/2 miles away.

"That effectively cuts our community in two," says Helen Cunningham, a Californian who retired to the Point with her husband.

And Canadians don't come just for the gas.

"Alcohol keeps us extremely busy," says Deputy Will Stakelin of the Whatcom County Sheriff's Department.

Kiniski's Reef Tavern is a 400-seat bar. It's empty most afternoons, but the bar and its outdoor beer garden fill with Canadians at night. Owner Nick Kiniski, 30, likes to keep things mellow. For entertainment there's a karoake singalong machine. The Breakers, a 1,000-seat tavern across the street, draws the rock 'n' roll crowd.

"I'm here a lot," says the tall, massive Kiniski, who like his father, Gene, is a former professional wrestler. "I don't let people screw around."

Canadians come to the bars not only for the cheap booze but also for the pull-tabs. At Kiniski's place on a typical afternoon, a knot of white-haired ladies stand at the bar, going through pull-tab cards like free beer nuts. The bartender is doling out the pull-tabs from a row of bins - 25 or 50 cents each, they offer a chance to win up to $200 (U.S.) by matching the slot-machine-like symbols.

The Reef is the second-biggest gambling money-maker in Washington state, with patrons dropping as much as $200 (U.S.) a night. Kiniski pays out thousands of dollars in prizes.

The Canadian connection is everywhere in Port Roberts, from the Vancouver newspapers at Ben's Department Store to streets named Ontario, Quebec, Regina and Toronto, among others.

Canadian boats take most of the 400 slips in the comma-shaped marina and Canadian developers, some with offshore money, are behind most of the big real-estate projects on the Point.

But American identity apparently hasn't suffered. Real-estate agent James Julius, born on the Point, says he doesn't feel cut off from the States.

"Protected is a better word," he says. "They have guards on the gate paid by the federal government.

"Some people the border really bothers, others it gives a sense of security."