Across the Border without a Passport?

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

The tour of the Peace Garden was so interesting.  The Garden is positioned on the 49th parallel, with half of it in the US, and the other half in Canada.  It’s the only place you can legally cross the border without a passport!  Supposedly it is the longest stretch of unfortified border in the world!  It was beautiful to look across the gardens and see the line indicating the border between the US and Canada lined with flowers along the way.

The chief botanist described her work, which includes planting over 100,000 plants each year!  Although it is late in the season, we were able to enjoy the fall colors, as well as some of the hardy plants still in bloom. 

The 18 ft tall clock at the entrance has a different floral design each year.  And there was a monument for 911—a sculpture made from actual girders from the twin towers that fell on 911.

The North American Game Warden museum is also located within the park.   The museum also had several animals on display which were confiscated from poachers.   One was a “small” polar bear!    We were able to view some interesting documentaries on polar bears.  The documentaries were filmed in Churchill, which is our destination for viewing the polar bears, so it will be interesting to see if we hook up with any of the “stars” from the documentaries (including Brutus the polar bear).

We also toured the Conservatory, filled with thousands of cacti and succulents…we felt like we were back in Arizona! 

Tonight we were treated to a welcome dinner to kick off the tour.  They also opened the gift shop for us (40% off..woo hoo..that’s good for a shopping fix!)  We leave the park tomorrow morning, and begin heading north to Polar Bear Town.