Governance

Living on the edge: The personality of a border community

Of the millions of people that live in the Great Lakes region, there is a group of us that see—on a daily basis—a special partnership between the two countries responsible for protecting the Great Lakes. For residents of cross border communities like Buffalo, New York and Fort Erie, Ontario, seeing a foreign country is an everyday experience. When I kayak on the Niagara River, not only can I see Canada, they can see me.

Mythologized as the world’s longest undefended border, a new era of heightened security concerns have changed the way border communities interact with their international counterparts.

In March of this year, I was excited to be back on the water, putting my kayak in a section of the river that I knew would be free of ice in early spring. After a short hour-long paddle very close to the American shore, some other individuals knew that section of the river would be ice free: Border Patrol. Acting upon a supposed “call from a concerned citizen” I was greeted at my car by an unmarked Border Patrol vehicle. Before our encounter was over, four more Border Patrol trucks had the parking lot secured.

By the end of the meeting, the Border Patrol officers and I were laughing about the situation. But, it is a reminder that there is a lot more occurring on the narrow connecting channels of the Great Lakes than the flow of water. As vast as the Lakes are, there are only a few areas where you can pass over the lakes easily.

And while humans may have trouble crossing an arbitrary and imaginary line in the water, other creatures do it without second thought. The Niagara River, which separates New York from Ontario for about 37 miles, connects Lake Erie and Lake Ontario and includes the mighty Niagara Falls. It is also recognized as a vital corridor for bird migration. These cross border regions are essential to the vitality of the entire system.

On any given day, the free movement of people, goods, and animals happens without any noticeable resistance, until one side of the equation shifts the equilibrium.

One of the busiest border crossings, the Peace Bridge does not do much to inspire. In a city known for its architectural achievements, calls for a ‘signature bridge’ were quieted last year when the flight pattern of the common tern, an endangered species, was found to be disrupted by the cables of a proposed bridge design.

A year later, our community is divided on this and other issues, such as where an expanded plaza for the Department of Homeland Security should be located. While Fort Erie may have more available land, sovereignty and economic concerns have left the proposed plaza on top of about 80 homes on Buffalo’s Lower West Side and part of Fredrick Law Olmsted’s park system.

Regardless of which side of the issue you find yourself, the fact remains that I am still kayaking under the same dreary bridge that was built in 1927. For a task that seems relatively simple to many, the cross-border social, economic, and ecological realities are all too apparent in Peace Bridge discussions.

In spite of the debates and controversies, this past April, signs of life on the Niagara River persisted. New man-made habitats were constructed for the common tern near the breakwaters of the Buffalo Harbor, just south of the Peace Bridge and the crew teams of the West Side Rowing Club have begun preparing for their spring regattas on the Black Rock Canal.

Just as American college students will always cross over to Niagara Falls, Ontario to enjoy the lower drinking age and Canadian shoppers will continue to take the trip over the bridge to enjoy the lower sales taxes, life in our border communities will continue for the bird, fish, and other animals that do not realize they are zig-zagging across an international boundary that has been peacefully managed for 100 years.

© 2009 Great Lakes News.