http://winnipegsun.com/News/Manitoba/20 ... 1-sun.html

May 14, 2006
Disorder at border

Honour system crossing under fire
By ADAM CLAYTON

ANGLE INLET, Minn. -- Down a lonely gravel road straddling Manitoba and Minnesota lies a border crossing so isolated it operates on the honour system.

Security has been tightened at Canada-U.S. border crossings in the years since 9/11, but you won't find barricades or drug-sniffing dogs in Angle Inlet, Minn.

The tiny community is part of a geographical oddity along Manitoba's eastern border called the Northwest Angle -- an enclave north of the 49th parallel that is inaccessible by land without crossing into Canada.

People heading in or out of Angle Inlet are expected to report themselves through a videophone housed in a wooden shack 13 km east of Manitoba past Highway 525. If the device isn't working -- which is often the case, according to local residents -- travellers are instructed to use a payphone to report their arrival.

The reporting station, known as Jim's Corner, is unmanned but customs officers based 80 km away in Warroad, Minn., periodically patrol the site. Outlying Area Reporting Stations (OARS) like the one in Angle Inlet were set up across the U.S. back in the '90s. Prior to that, there was no reporting station in place at Jim's Corner.

Law enforcement officials on the U.S. side of the border are concerned about security at the crossing.

"You're on your honour and I'm certain bin Laden isn't going to check in there," said Lake of the Woods County sheriff Dallas Block.

SIMPLY DRIVE ACROSS

With the longest shared border in the world, there is no shortage of places where people can illegally slip into the U.S. or Canada, but Angle Inlet is rather unique because people can simply drive across.

However, the Northwest Angle is hardly a smuggler's paradise. Surrounded by water on three sides, the only way to get across Lake of the Woods to mainland Minnesota is by boat or snowmobile. But Block said he has intelligence that drug smugglers and suspected terrorists have looked at getting into the U.S. through Angle Inlet.

"I'm not saying that there's a large amount of criminal activity going on up there, but we suspect there is some and it certainly has the potential for being a hot place," he said.

Mike Milne, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said the department plans to increase patrols around Jim's Corner and install security cameras around the shack to deter people from entering the U.S. illegally.

"The remoteness of that area makes it less of a threat but it's still a threat," he said.

Ron Wackwitz, an Angle Inlet resident who works as a fishing guide, said it would make no sense for drug smugglers to cross through Jim's Corner because they can't proceed by land and choppy waters make it difficult to reach the mainland U.S. by boat.

"It's like painting yourself into a corner," he said. "This lake will kill you if you don't know what you're doing."

Moreover, Wackwitz said Angle Inlet is small enough that locals would know if drug smugglers or terrorists were passing through.

"They would stand out around here," he said with a laugh. "We keep pretty close track of what's going on."

RCMP Cpl. Dean Aitken is head of the Canadian side of the Integrated Border Enforcement Team charged with stopping the flow of illegal immigrants and smuggled goods across 800 km of open land from Lake of the Woods to the Montana border. Aitken said trying to reach the mainland U.S. through Jim's Corner is no easy task. "If somebody was going to try to exploit that area, it would have to be organized," he said. "You're not going to take a small boat across that water. You're going to need a sizable boat to get across."