Borderline Histories: A Borderless Island?
On the present and uncertain status of Machais Seal Island
In the first post of this series, I wrote about coming to the realization that I had almost no knowledge of how the U.S.-Canada border came to be established. I also talked a little about the cultural erasure of that border’s history and the reduction, in many standard accounts, of the border’s creation into a negotiation by two pre-existing nation-states. (Notice the inherent contradictions there: nation-states are almost quintessentially defined by their borders, yet are required somehow to negotiate those borders in order to constitute themselves.) I also learned that portions of the border were not finalized until quite recently.
As it turns out, I was still slightly wrong even about that, as not all of the border is finalized. To this very day, there continues to be disputed territory between the U.S. and Canada, though it seems to be a somewhat odd, passive-aggressive kind of dispute. This info came my way thanks to reader Tommy B., who let me know about the Center for Land Use Interpretation’s online preservation of their exhibit United Divide: A Linear Portrait of the USA/Canada Border. As it happens, the disputed land is on the far eastern end of both countries, making the border rather blurry from the start:
Ten miles off the coast from each country is Machais Seal Island, a 20-acre treeless outcrop still claimed by both nations. The British built a lighthouse on the island in 1832, claiming it for Nova Scotia, and the Canadian government, which has since automated all the other lighthouses along their coast, keeps this one staffed for the purpose of making a claim for continuous occupation and sovereignty. The USA also claims the island, and a commercial tour operator brings birdwatchers to the island from the coast of Maine. For the moment, without any resources other than the lobsters in the fishery “grey zone” around the island, there has not been any reason to fight over it more directly. Both nations think of it as theirs. Though there are a few other remaining boundary disputes between the USA and Canada, concerning coastal waters and their respective Exclusive Economic Zones on the west coast, this is the only remaining unsettled boundary dispute over dry land.
That final phrase—“the only remaining unsettled boundary dispute”—is clearly written from the limited perspective of particular nation-states; obviously, much of the so-called border is understood as stolen land, and hence disputed, from the perspective of First Nations or Native American tribes.
Given that, I thought I would attempt to track down down information about indigenous use of Machais Seal Island. Both Wikipedia and Atlas Obscura state that the island was used by the Passamaquoddy people, though the latter refers to the island as ‘settled’ by the Passammaquoddy and the former states it was used only occasionally; neither cite a source to back up either usage pattern.
Native-land.ca shows the island as belonging to the Mi’kmaq, who are part of the Wabanaki Confederacy with the Passamoquoddy. Yet the island is not explicitly mentioned on the Wabanaki Confederacy’s current site, or on other map sets about them. I also looked through these maps detailing Passamoquoddy territory which didn’t seem to show the island; others can take a look to see if they find anything more definitive than I did. The Mi’kmaq is a First Nation comprised of many bands, and I have yet to find reference to the island after digging through the websites of the various bands.
This overall ambiguity with regards to ownership of the island is worth sitting with for a moment. While the current practice of land acknowledgment frequently aims to definitively state an owner—or at least inhabitant—of the land, the simplified manner in which such acknowledgement is nowadays routinely done doesn’t recognize the complexity and uncertainty that is sometimes the truer reality. As the disclaimer on the native-land.ca site indicates [1], even their well-researched map may not be the actual territory. The ambiguous status of Machias Seal Island is a reminder to us that land does not necessarily need to belong to anyone; some times, it can simply stand on its own. Or, as the United Divide exhibit sums it up: “The island, at the gateway to the longest international boundary in the world, is a borderless space.”
“Borderless” might be a tad optimistic, given the ongoing attempts by both Canada and the U.S. to claim ownership of the island to maintain jurisdiction over lobster fishing in the surrounding waters. As with the western end of the Canada-U.S. border, where salmon runs drive much of the interest in a claim to specific territory, so the eastern end is less about use of the land itself and more about control of another species we humans have managed to commodify. But then, if we change perspectives once more—setting aside the view of nation-states yet again and this time taking up the salmon or lobster’s point of view—perhaps we’d think that the relevant border isn’t the one transcribed on government documents but the more obvious physical boundary marking the difference between water and land.
All in all, Machias Seal Island is a useful reminder that borders are neither obvious nor certain, never pre-existing and often contested, and that the same is true of ownership itself. We make up borders or claims to ownership with particular ends in mind, ends which others have a right to question, and which we might question ourselves. For despite all the efforts to install concrete and to militarize modern borders, most remain propped up via collective acts of imagination. Simply turning a spotlight on them can help tear them down. This makes modern border disputes like that over Machias a helpful sort of mental dynamite, able to break down our sense of the permanence of borders and blast holes in our views on the inherent precision or certainty of claims to ownership. Useful stuff to keep in one’s back pocket, it seems.
I’ll be continuing to chip away at our mental borders in upcoming installments of Borderline Histories. Stay tuned for a view of the U.S.-Mexico border from a canoe deep within Santa Elena canyon.
Until then,
Meg
NOTES
[1] The disclaimer for Native Land Digital’s map reads: “This map does not represent or intend to represent official or legal boundaries of any Indigenous nations. To learn about definitive boundaries, contact the nations in question.
Also, this map is not perfect -- it is a work in progress with tons of contributions from the community. Please send us fixes if you find errors.”