After pedaling a bicycle from Netherlands to Germany to Denmark to Sweden to France to Belgium and back to Holland again without ever having to stop at a customs station, it struck me as absurd on my return through Canada that I’d have to stop at U.S. Customs.
The U.S. and Canada are both former colonies of Britain. We are next-door neighbors who share the same economic systems and markets, speak the same language, have a common history, play in the same athletic leagues, worship the same gods and watch the same movies.
Our nations, if not twins, are at least first cousins. We have worlds more in common than the Germans and the French and they go freely between each other’s nations.
But Donald Trump blew all that to hell.
After Trump started blathering about making Canada “the 51st state,” upsetting our neighbors, I took action. As mayor of the Haines Borough, I penned a letter to the mayors of our two closest Canadian cities, Haines Junction and Whitehorse, assuring them that we did not share the president’s sentiment.
Written on Valentine’s Day, my “love letter” as the Canadian press dubbed it, became a sensation. Newspapers and radio stations as far away as Vancouver, B.C. and a national Canadian TV show out of Toronto phoned to interview me. I cited the close – sometimes even familial – ties between northerners and cited the old Alaskan trope: “We don’t care what happens in the Lower 48, we make our own rules up here.”
Dozens of emails arrived in my inbox from Canadians heartened by my statements. To cement my words, I made a friendship mission to Haines Junction, bringing Haines whiskey, beer, fishing lures, smoked fish and gift cards to our neighbors during their winter festival. I met Junction Mayor Diane Strand and we talked of holding a cross-border celebration, including Native dance groups from Yukon and Alaska.
At Mayor Strand’s urging, the Haines Borough Assembly ratified a resolution recognizing Canadian sovereignty. Wording from that resolution was borrowed by the Alaska Legislature, which wrote its own resolution recognizing and honoring the special relationship between Canada and Alaska.
It appeared that the good people of the North might prevail over the lunatic in the White House.
Then Trump struck again. ICE agents detained Canadian Jasmine Mooney for 12 days when Mooney attempted to renew her work visas at the U.S.-Mexico border. I learned of Mooney’s plight at the starting line of the Buckwheat Ski Classic, a decades-old international loppet that my wife and I ski each year.
The Buckwheat is organized in Skagway but held in Canada. Skiers wear costumes and stop at aid stations that serve margaritas. We’ve made friends with Yukoners at the Buckwheat and we end it with a weekend trip to Whitehorse. To put the shine on friendship this year, I played Canada’s national anthem on my trumpet for skiers gearing up in the parking lot.
A few minutes later, the race official at the starting line asked me, “Well, why did your country detain our actress for 12 days?”
A few days later, Mayor Strand let me know that she wouldn’t be coming to Haines with her Native dance group after all. Some adults may come down individually, but we’re afraid our children might be detained at your border, Strand told me.
Other Canadians with similar apprehensions or antipathy toward us, chose to boycott our town’s annual beer festival and international bike relay. Canadian participation in both dropped by 25 percent or more, blowing a significant hole in our summer tourism income. To dramatize their upset, some riders pedaled down the Haines Highway, stopped at the U.S. border, then turned around and went home.
Most devastating to me personally, a dear friend of mine from Whitehorse, a regular Haines visitor I’ve known for 25 years and whose company I adore, refused to make her annual trip here. Her husband told us she doesn’t want to spend any of her money in our country.
My friend is not a reactionary person. She is very bright, well-read, and funny. She’s educated, tolerant, and cosmopolitan and she keeps up with the news. But after 40-plus years of visits to our town, she’s not coming.
This is the quick-acting poison of nationalism. It begins with some insult, some thoughtless words, and spirals into hatred, antagonism and so often, war. The monarchs of England, Germany and Russia were cousins and went to to battle with each other in World War I for good reasons that no one can quite pin down.
Fourteen million people died. The antagonisms that arose from the outcome of World War I led to World War II. Eighty million people died.
Nationalism, a form of primitive tribalism, is a poison that a deranged leader can concoct out of nothing. If there’s an antidote, it hasn’t been discovered.