A road sign along the U.S. border road near Coutts, Alta., on March 19.Jeff McIntosh / The Canadian Press
In the windswept Sweet Grass Hills lies Border Road, a 14-mile ribbon of hand-made gravel between the United States and Canada.
The shared road is on the Montana side, but Alberta maintains it.
North of the road sits Ross Ford.
In the south, it’s Roger Horgus.
Both are in their 60s, but they remember childhood days going back and forth across the invisible line of play.
It was a generational thing. In 1990, National Geographic magazine presented the two families as examples of love and the world’s longest unprotected border.
No more.
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In the era of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, with America’s concerns about drug traffickers crossing borders and illegal immigrants, the road will be closed to the Canucks starting this summer.
When that happens, the only member of Mr Ford’s family free to cross the road will be his black and white border Geordie.
“Unfortunately,” Mr. Ford, 64, said in an interview at his farm east of Coutts, Alta. “We are happy to enter the road without payment, I think about 80 years, before I was born.
“We have not been very close to our neighbors.
“Of course, they live in Montana and that’s not going to change — but we have this new obstacle.”
A gravel road near the Alberta-US border will be closed to Canadian traffic starting in July. Border Road is within the US border but has been shared by residents on both sides for decades.
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Mr. Horgus, 68, sits sipping coffee at the kitchen table on his farm near Sweet Grass, Mont., and nods toward his next-door neighbor, whom he has known forever.
Mr. Horgus said: “When we are growing up, I wouldn’t be surprised if some weeks every day we run across to play.
“[The road closure is] madness. I hate to see it because the Canadians have taken good care of us and the road, with the standards and all that. ”
Mr. Horgus said that US border patrol officers have told residents that there has been an increase in illegal traffic, but he has seen no evidence.
A silver marker on the hill overlooking Mr. Ford’s farm indicates the exact location of the boundary. In recognition of the 1908 Convention, it reads Canada on the north side of the sign and the United States on the south.
On a recent spring day, two US border patrol officers stopped in their cars on Border Road to chat.
Mr. Ford said the patrol is routine. But in the past, US officers pulled people over when a driver crossed to talk to a neighbor.
Soon, one road will become two.
Mr. Ford said a nearly identical gravel road will be laid just a meter away, on the Canadian side.
“In fact, the roads will be counted by the length of the road.
“And the border will be in the hole,” he said with a laugh.
Alberta Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen said the province was told last year that changes were coming.
“We were informed by Homeland Security that they are making sure that this area and other US land on the border will be enforced,” Mr. Dreeshen said in an interview.
“Obviously, we’ve done some work to make sure we can expedite this [road]working with Warner County to ensure local access for Albertans [was available] on the Canadian side of the border.
Mr. Dreeshen said $8-million has been allocated. Work will begin in April and hopefully be completed by summer.
He said he understands the confusion many local residents may have.
“Regardless of the line on the map, you will have farmers on both sides of the border, you will have family friends on both sides of the border.
“I think it’s clear that it’s going to continue.”
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