Cut off from the rest of America, a small town endures lockdown

you might say that for the folks in one isolated small town complaints about coveted lockdowns are very much on point as our lee cowan discovered firsthand kovid had a pretty hard time finding its way to point roberts washington there's been only one confirmed case here since the pandemic began it is remote on a map point roberts looks like it should be part of canada except that this little fingertip dangles just below the 49th parallel officially making it part of washington state we call it pretend america the world's largest gated community yeah he's kidding sort of the only way for americans to get to the rest of the u.s by land is a 24 mile drive through canada that means getting past two international border guards that's been our primary access to our country is through another country and it's just been built that way keep moving with purpose as the fire chief chris carlton is organizing about a thousand vaccines for all the residents here that's the good news the bad news is that in keeping with us and canadian coveted travel restrictions without an essential reason no one vaccinated or not drives in or out of point roberts anymore i know communities across the united states are suffering but because of our geographical oddity we've been disproportionately affected if you found a plane you could fly off point roberts although this is what passes for the airport they've tried a ferry too but because of choppy seas it sometimes can't make the crossing and even if it does then what having to rent a car when you get there on the foot ferry getting taxis ubers and a lot of my community don't have the funds to do that despite the difficulties getting in or out canadian officials say the border restrictions are justified because residents in point roberts have most of everything they need they say that you're sort of self-sufficient that's a lie but they say that though right yeah but it's someone who's never been here that is canada this is the united states that's brian calder the director of the point roberts chamber of commerce we have no doctors here we have no vets here no medical facility like a drug store we've got a list of more things we don't have compared to everyone else than what we do have but what they have in abundance is beauty something nearby canadians can't resist they pour across the border in the summertime quadrupling the population here but now all they can do is come to that invisible boundary in this case marked by small yellow barricades and look across i was hopeful in the beginning that's where we met maggie moore so this little curb it might as well be a 40-foot wall exactly she owns this cottage just a stone's throw from where we were talking and so do a lot of other canadians you can tell which ones because they haven't been allowed to tend to their properties in almost a year it's devastating i miss it like a family member i haven't seen in over a year truly cross-border commerce is the lifeblood of point roberts making up as much as 85 percent of the annual income for the businesses here my credit card thinks i've died and gone to heaven because i haven't used it down here without canadians this little corner of america may have dodged covet but not its ripple effect there's some days we don't have a single customer beth calder runs a package receiving business here canadians can avoid expensive international shipping fees on their amazon and ebay purchases by just picking them up across the border instead but for almost a year those same packages have sat orphaned some 2 000 of them and what does that do to your business oh it's crippling it's very crippling last march i had to lay off eight of my ten staff instantly as soon as the border closed canadians also used to cross the border for cheaper prices on eggs and milk that's in part at least why point roberts's only grocery store is this big owner ally hayton thought about closing when the border did but she knew she couldn't if i close there's no access to food for anyone we've got to take care of the people that live here some have already moved for good this used to be a busy street right along the border not far away the gas stations are empty restaurants are shuttered we found a bank that had left ghost town it's a ghost town at the bald eagle golf club rick hoole and the rest of his grounds crew still tend to the empty fairways and bunkers in the hopes that one day their town will get out of the rough but it has to happen soon how many people do you normally get uh we usually run around 20 000 a year and this year none i know it's sad the longer this goes on the fewer people we're going to have they have to move for unemployment because there is none here so how long can that last though well until we run out of people period point roberts is a lifestyle as much as it is a destination residents pride themselves on their independence so if they ask for a hand they really mean it the fear though at least in the age of covet is that they may be shouting into the wilderness we can weather almost anything in our community we're extremely resilient overall and that comes with a you know double-sided sword right because sometimes you can be resilient to the point that other people forget that you're here

Channel: CBS Sunday Morning

Views: 614,795

Keywords: CBS Sunday Morning, CBS News, news, point roberts, peninsula, canada, parallel, america, economic ripple, pandemic

Id: hVdLsgUDtso

Length: 6min 15sec (375 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 07 2021