It’s time for brunch, and Kellie Knight is making scrambled eggs. She’s also making a statement.
“Eggs have been a symbol of a lot of changes happening in this country. Grocery prices have not gone down since [U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration day] Jan. 20, as promised,” says the mother of four and owner of Prothero’s Post Resort, in Northwest Angle, Minn.
“I think about how everything is political now. You can’t eat breakfast without thinking about politics.”
Knight is closely watching the trade war between Canada and the United States, as well as Trump’s repeated threats about making Canada the 51st state.
She and the 100 or so year-round residents of their isolated fishing community have a lot at stake.
Outside of Alaska, it’s the only part of the United States that is north of the 49th parallel, and only exists because of a surveyor’s mistake on a flawed 1755 map.
Surrounded on three sides by Canada, cut off from the U.S. mainland by Lake of the Woods, it has no land connection with the rest of Minnesota. The only way to get there by road is through Manitoba and residents have to check in with border agents by iPad or telephone every time they come and go.
Everything on the Angle needs to be brought in, including power from Manitoba Hydro. Because of its location, most goods have to cross at least one border.
“We are very reliant on our Canadian neighbours,” Knight says. She predicts the high price of eggs will be “small potatoes, compared to what we might see coming up. We might have a really rude awakening, you know, ahead of us.”
Still, she supports Canada’s attempt to fight back.
“I think that the Americans need to feel the pain. We honestly do. We need to be woken up and I’m willing to make it hurt a little bit so that we understand that this is not how you play nice, this is not how you cultivate good relationships.”
Annexation angst
Down the road a ways, Paul Colson is grinding tree stumps, preparing for what he hopes will be a busy summer fishing season at his family business, Jake’s Northwest Angle Resort. Like most here, he makes his living on tourism.
Colson is American. His wife Karen is Canadian. Their children are dual citizens. So they know things are a bit tense right now.
“We think of borders as being pretty stagnant or static, and that is not the case of history at all,” Colson says. “Go to a yard sale and get yourself a globe, right, and look — ‘Oh, that country doesn’t exist anymore.'”
A March 24 Leger poll found one in five Americans would like their state to join Canada, more than double the proportion of Canadians who want to become the 51st state.
Back in the 1990s, the Angle made big news when it staged a mock secession from the U.S. over a fish dispute. In 2019, a petition called on the U.S. government to adjust the border, so that it would become part of Canada.
No one CBC News spoke to here wants to become part of Canada.
Karen also doesn’t think Canada should become the 51st state. But while Paul Colson, who voted for Trump, doesn’t think the U.S. president will ever put “boots on the ground” and invade Canada, he says there are economic reasons for the U.S. to annex its northern neighbours.
“They’re not holding the cards. They’re not, OK? Canada is 10 per cent GDP [gross domestic product] of the U.S. There is no winning this for Canada,” he says.
“Canada’s in an extremely weak position here, extremely weak. The oil goes through the States, even though it’s Canadian oil. The train goes through states, and most of the trucking goes through [the] States.”
Paul points to the fact that Canada has been under pressure from NATO allies to hit the military alliance’s target of spending at least two per cent of its GDP on defence.
In their election campaigns, the Liberals promise to increase NATO defence spending to two per cent by 2030. The New Democrats would meet that goal by 2032. The Conservatives have committed to the NATO spending target, but haven’t yet provided a deadline.
Colson argues the reason Canada doesn’t think it needs a military “is because they’re next door to the United States.”
In political debates with his Canadian friends, he tells them to “say a little thank-you to the U.S. military” every time they go to the hospital “because you wouldn’t be able to afford to have national health care and a military. There wouldn’t be enough money” to pay for both, he argues.
Tariff divisions
On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced what he’s calling “retaliatory” tariffs on imports coming from dozens of countries — but for now, there will be no additional across-the-board levies on Canada than what was previously announced.
Sitting with a Pepsi in Jerry’s Bar and Restaurant, Joe Laurin says people in his circles have traditionally been against tariffs. He recently retired from the local Polaris dealership and now grooms snowmobile trails, takes tourists on boat trips around the lake, and runs the Angle’s local online radio station.
“You don’t want to kind of be penalized or taxed on stuff that you want to buy,” he says. “You don’t want to just say, ‘Well, I can’t have Crown [Royal whisky] because that’s Canadian and I got to have Jack Daniel’s,'” which is made in Tennessee.
But then, he and his buddies heard Canada has had tariffs on agricultural products like meat and dairy even before this trade war.
“Why is that?” he asks. “I don’t think it’s real transparent to the average person who’s never really used the word ‘tariff’ until this last month.”
The Trump administration has spread disinformation about the true terms of trade between the two nations as a pressure tactic, falsely presenting the “over-quota” tariff rates that are almost never charged as the normal rate.
“Everyone’s sharing little cartoons that are going back and forth about trying to joke off the situation, but you know, it’ll be a joke for a while, but then it’s going to get serious, as it’s affecting people’s livelihoods,” Laurin says.
He thinks the politicians on both sides of the border should be locked in a room until they’ve negotiated an agreement.
Tense relations between Canada and the U.S. may mean life will get even more complicated for the 100 or so year-round residents of Northwest Angle, Minn. It’s the only part of the United States, outside of Alaska, that’s north of the 49th parallel.
Knight believes tariffs and the deteriorating relationship between Canada and the U.S. will affect the livelihoods of ordinary, hard-working people, not the billionaires surrounding Trump.
As the winter ice fishing season ends and preparations begin for spring and summer, Knight says she’s seeing fewer reservations at her resort. She’s worried Canadians are cancelling travel to the U.S. as a protest, and Americans are choosing to stay home and save their money.
“Fingers crossed that the folks are still going to come,” Knight says with a sigh.
“It feels like the schoolyard bully is winning and that’s not the way life’s supposed to work.”
