I was in Hyder in 1992. No border stations back in those days. Just cross, but there was a sign with a phone number to call Canadian Border Security to report questionable products into Canada. The stores in Hyder were selling lots of handguns.

Hyderites were strange people. For food, they relied mostly on the monthly ferry than on the grocery stores in Stewart. Houses in Hyder were pretty ramshackle, almost as if the people there were only going to spend a few years to make a quick buck on the tourist trade.

About the same time, the US Government asked the Canadian government to set up proper border control in the Northwest Angle. It seemed it was a good place for smuggling bad things into the US as American boats coming from the Northwest Angle to Minnesota could not be challenged without just cause. The Canadian government asked the US just hand over that territory to Canada. Then the US could challenge any boat coming from "Canada." The US government did not like that idea. Neither did the few Native Americans who lived in or had connection with the Northwest Angle.

It's strange some of the borders we have concocted--and can't seem to change them to be more practical.