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Carnett: ‘O Canada,’ you’re my second home

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Newport Beach, Orange Coast College, Canada, Vancouver Island, Victoria, the Canadian Rockies, Calgary, Montréal, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island

It’s one of my favorite international destinations.

And, conveniently, it’s located just across the Lower 48’s northern frontier. I speak, of course, of Canada.

It’s my observation that our northern neighbor is under-appreciated in this country. Canada is often portrayed as a cleaner, blander, colder version of the U.S.

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Au contraire!

We seem to know more about euros than maple leafs. I’ve been to Europe, Asia, Australia, and Caribbean and Pacific islands multiple times and had wonderful, life-enhancing experiences. But I keep venturing back to Canada.

Canada was the first foreign nation I ever visited. My favorite spots include Vancouver Island, Victoria, the Canadian Rockies, Calgary, Montréal, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

I’ve noticed during many auto excursions into Canada that miles and miles of empty U.S. territory go by before crossing the border. And Canada is rather densely populated. Can you believe your lying eyes? The U.S. has a population 10 times that of Canada.

Here’s the answer: 75% of Canadians reside within 100 miles of the U.S. border. By contrast, 12% of Americans live within 100 miles of Canada.

The U.S. and Canada share the longest non-militarized border in the world, at 5,526 miles. Canada has a population of just 34 million, and 3 million Canadians live full- or part-time in the U.S.

The U.S. has a population of 314 million, and only 1 million Americans live in Canada.

Canadians are well-acquainted with our country. I’d guess they feel a bit like you or I might were we forced to sleep nightly next to an elephant. We’d soon become habituated to snorts, sighs, belly rumbles and elephant breath.

Needless to say, most Americans know little about Canada

Though Canada is our neighbor to the north, almost 75% of Canadians live south of Bellingham, Wash. (not counting the snowbirds who live six months of the year in places like Palm Springs and Sarasota, Fla.).

Permit me to share three distinctive spots along the U.S.-Canadian border that fascinate me:

Point Roberts, Wash., is a small U.S. exclave (part of a country surrounded by foreign territory) that dangles below British Columbia’s Tsawwassen Peninsula into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, below the 49th Parallel. The peninsula — a geopolitical anomaly — is isolated from the main body of the United States and accessible only through Canada.

Eleven hundred people inhabit its 5 square miles. My wife, Hedy, and I spent a brilliant summer’s day there several years ago. We rubbed shoulders with lots of visiting Canadians who were purchasing cheap U.S. gas.

To travel from Point Roberts to the U.S. mainland, one must drive 45 minutes through Canada to reach the border crossing at Blaine, Wash. A boat may also be taken. Youngsters from Point Roberts attend schools on the U.S. mainland.

The second spot is the breathtakingly beautiful Upper Waterton Lake in the Rockies, straddling the border of Alberta and Montana. Hedy and I visited this summer.

We took a boat excursion out of the Canadian village of Waterton on the eight-mile-long lake. The lake extends three miles into the U.S., and its southern terminus is at Goat Head, Mont., home to an isolated U.S. border station many miles from the nearest U.S. highway.

Views are spectacular and the silence awe-inspiring.

Four years ago Hedy and I drove from Canada’s Maritime Provinces into New England. We encountered the lovely border village of St. Stephen, New Brunswick, before entering the U.S.

We stopped at the last Tim Hortons — Canada’s rather unimaginative answer to Starbucks — for coffee before crossing into the U.S.

After quaffing lattes, we settled into a long queue crossing the St. Croix River into equally quaint Calais, Maine. The wait was 35 minutes, but the river and the sister villages were a lovely distraction.

After entering the U.S. at Calais, we headed for Bangor, Maine. It was trees, trees, trees and not another American outpost for 60 miles.

If Canada’s military ever decides to invade, that’s the spot!

JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.

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