Point Roberts, WA.... A Short Nose to the South

Photo by J Stephen Conn 

I have a friend who says that Point Roberts is for people in the “witness protection” program.  She may be right.  Because in every sense of the word it’s off the grid of normal, urban want and expectation.  A tiny nose on the map, just south of the 49^th parallel, it’s easy to hide out there because no one’s watching. 

Mount Baker to the east 

If you’re American it’s difficult to get to because it’s cut off from the mainland.  Unless you travel by boat, you have to cross through two borders.  If you’re Canadian, you can’t live there for more than 6 months and, for those acclimatized to overstimulation, there’s not all that much to do.  No more than the size of Stanley Park, it’s dominated by trees and light and bounded by the border to the north and the sea to the east, west and south.  It’s kind of like living in a large, gated community.  These are all the reasons why I love it.

Point Roberts dwells in another time.  In another dimension. It’s surrounded by beaches and grass and it’s predominantly woodsy and rural.  The sun shines there when it’s raining in North Vancouver.  You can buy over an acre of waterfront with a view of Mount Baker for way less than a mil. Hell!!!…. you can buy a wooded lot there, that perks, for $25,000.00!!

Lily Point

There’s only one grocery store and the top selling items are cheese, chips, pop, beer and wine.  There are four restaurants and the service is lousy.  The one remaining bar… albeit seedy, (the scene there changed decades ago when Vancouver licensed liquor sales on Sunday), poised by the waters edge, with a view worth buying a beer for, is benign and non-descript.  No more Sunday strippers.  No more pull tabs.  No more dated rock and roll.  

The “downtown” core is dominated by gas stations and mail boxes.  The only thriving businesses are thanks to gas prices in Canada and to Ebay and Amazon.com.  The community newspaper is not threatened by the internet.  The tiny library… for reasons I mentioned in an earlier posting…  is the best in the world.  People still read there.  One quaint little church, though marked Lutheran, is mostly multi-denominational.  The annual garden tour is abit cheesy.  There’s no mall.  No theatre. No traffic lights.  No traffic!  Hallelujah!  Cell service is iffy.  For all of these attributes, it’s the best kept secret in the Pacific Northwest.  And it’s only 50 minutes due south from my front door. 

It’s here that my ex-partner and I shared a modest, little house on the beach.  For 22 years we watched the sunset and BC ferries tenaciously ply the Juan de Fuca strait.  The kids, however… mine and his…. never bonded with it.  Not enough to buy.  Not enough to do.  Too sleepy.  Too quiet.  Too boring!!!!  Two years ago we stripped the lot and began building our dream house.  A project I thought he wanted.  A project I thought would take us into old age.  A project I thought would bring all the urban family ADD’s together.

I’m reclaiming Point Roberts, the place, the community... on my own terms.  I'm putting the past behind me and I’ve decided to feel safe there.  I cross the border and I’m enveloped by nature and familiarity and simplicity and community and friends and a time gone by.  I’m going to build my own house there.  A tiny one.  In the woods, but close enough to the sea so I can smell it.  And, big enough for me and my kick-ass friends to create new memories… with love and spirit and soul.  For me, God lives there.