Undefended no more

IN THE Haskell Free Library and Opera House, which straddles Quebec and Vermont, you can watch a show with one foot in Canada and the other in the United States. Built at the turn of the last century, when both countries boasted about the world’s longest undefended border, the cultural centre was created for Derby Line, Vermont, and Stanstead, Quebec. Nancy Rumery, the librarian, says the towns were a “single community that just happened to have an imaginary line drawn through it.”

Al-Qaeda’s September 2001 attacks on America put paid to that. You can still park in Canada and walk across the border to the front door. But now American officials watch to make sure you go back the same way. Elsewhere in the twin towns, movement has been curbed; gates have turned streets into dead ends. Although Derby Line and Stanstead share water and sewerage systems and a Rotary Club, they are no longer one community, says Brian Smith, a local politician.