Talk:Point Roberts, Washington

message: "Being adjacent to Metro Vancouver, while residents receive the same over-the-air TV and radio broadcasts available in the Metro Vancouver region." 72.38.11.18 (talk) 23:46, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: what the hell

message: I've never seen anything in Point Roberts other than a sports bar. There's TJ's, Breakers, and The Reef. None of these are clubs.
Thrillhouse85
 Feb 13, 2007
:Except on Saturday nights, or that's the way it used to be, esp on Sundays when you couldn't get a drink in BC.  Breaker's and the Reef were a lot more like nightclubs than any beer parlour was in BC back in the day, and "sports bars" hadn't been invented yet.  They may not be named nightclubs, but they're treated that way, and always have been, by thirsty Canadians...gist is that Point Roberts, like Blaine and Sumas, used to have an intermittent/weekend nightlife because of BC's strict old-time liquor laws.  Blaine had bordellos too, not sure about Pt Roberts.
--The Breakers is no longer open.--
whiterockgirl 
Jan 29, 2007  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Whiterockgirl (talk • contribs) 16:08, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: "nightclubs?"

message: APOV is an issue here, a bit, but no biggie; the US claim to bisect Vancouver Island was spurious but I guess worth mentioning; what's missing here is the bit of treaty wording that the 49th parallel to the deepest channel, then the boundary would follow that to the sea; so mention of the Border Commission troops is required here, although I don't know the respective British and American commanders off the top of my head about it, i.e. "what we were told in school" (speaking as a BCer) is that the American commander of the border commission insisted on waiting until low tide (presumably a spring tide, i.e. the lowest possible water level) before defining where the 49th Parallel left the land and found its deepest channel; the British commander wanted it at high tide when of course the technical deepest channel after the boundary hit the coast was the sunken creek channel beneath Boundary Bay; if that had been the endpoint of the 49th Parallel boundary then Point Roberts would have been in BC, and incidentally the eventual selection of the Haro Strait boundary wouldn't have been viable, and Rosario Strait would have been the boundary southwards.  I'm travelling and don't have t ime to source the relevant treaty text, but it's there, and my bit about the Border Commission troops is for now just hearsay, but heard from more than one teacher back in the '70s (all staunch anti-Americans of course ;-P), but somewhere in the commission's journals or related correspondence there must be something about the quarrel about the Boundary Bay mudflat; was it land or was it sea?  My teachers may have been anti-Yank, but they also weren't the kind of people to go making things up.Skookum1 17:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Treaty history section

message: There's a very nice picture of the Northwest Angle. It would be great to get something similar for Point Roberts. --Don Sowell 21:10, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Better picture

message: Granted, textbooks on our side of the border (BC) are often just as murky and nationalistic as those south of the border, but there's some big holes and one or two loops in this section; I've quoted it whole below for parag-by-parag discussion as I I start weighing in on the main article, I'm kind of prolix (to say the least) and will overlengthen the material.  There are major fixes needed, however:
:After years of joint occupation of the disputed area between the Columbia River and Alaska known as the Oregon Country to the Americans, and as the Columbia District to the British, James K. Polk was elected president of the United States on the campaign slogan "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight".
Yes, yes, yes - all smoke and no thunder; I changed the incorrect Oregon Territory to Oregon Country and also added in the name of the region as it was known to the British who were actually in the place at the time.
:While his government asserted that the title of America to the entire territory unquestionable, Polk and his secretary, James Buchanan made an offer of a boundary at 49 degrees with the line straight across Vancouver Island, with no commercial privilege to be granted to the British south of the line, with the exception of free ports on Vancouver Island. This offer was rejected by the British and withdrawn by the US shortly thereafter.
Gee, this might be because there were no Americans in the territory at all at the time, whereas there were several British posts and a few hundred employees and settlers....Buchanan's "offer" (threat) to draw the boundary directly across Vancouver Island was spurious, and more tactical as it was made as a counter-threat to Britain's stated intention to hold the boundary at the line of the Columbia River, or at least at the line of the Cascades.  Buchanan's bully-boy tactics were dismissed in Whitehall (the Briitsh foreign office).  There is no need to mention this particular treaty round, however; there were a good six offers/positions and counter-offers/positions from either side, of which this was only one.  Better here to refer to the Oregon boundary dispute page which will eventually have the full roster; this particular offer did not have anything directly to do with why the Pt Roberts boundary is where it is, either (see below).
:On April 18, 1846, notice was forwarded to London that the US Congress had adopted a joint resolution abrogating the treaty of 1827 which provided for joint occupancy.
Another threat, meant to force the British to sign what would become the Oregon Treaty; as with other such congressional motions, the Mother of All Parliaments had no reason to be amused but tolerated it  in the midst of heated domestic politics; the upshot of which was a change of governments with the "hawk" outgoing foreign minister, Palmerston, replaced by a "dove" in the form of Lord Aberdeen.  It's presumed in the US popular account, as suggested by the tone/mention of the April 18 motion, that the British Lion trembled in its boots (er, paws), but in actuality Palmerson was ready to declare war for the sake of the Oregon Country/Columbia District and the fact of the matter is that the British were armed to the teeth in North America and the Caribbean at the time; if it hadn't been for a change of government in Westminster the US would have found its threats thrown back in its face with all the might of the British Empire.  And the British probably would have won, partly because US troops were busy brutalizing Mexico and also because the Royal Navy was far beyond the US Navy in capability at this time.  There would have been no Oregon Territory at all (i.e. a US territory where the Oregon Country/Columbia District had been) and it's possible the US would have had to return to Mexico all of Nuevo Mexico and also California, and there wouldn't have been the merest slip of the US west of the Continental Divide.  But again, all of which, including the sentence being commented on, that doesn't really have to do with why the Point Roberts boundary is where it is...
:The British emissary, Richard Packenham, had previously been advised that the last concession which could be expected of America was in bending the boundary at the 49th parallel around the lower end of Vancouver Island.
This is incredibly POV in language, as if the British - "the last concession which could be expected of America" is only yet more bully-boy grandstanding from a country that was still only a junior power.  The US was already "expecting" the British to yield Forts Vancouver, Nisqually and Colville (and others) as well as company farms and settlements around them.  And it was well-known that the HBC had established Forts Victoria and Langley in anticipating of losing the Lower Columbia; from the British side of things, the American pressure for even more, be it half of Vancovuer Island or all the (unknown vastness of) the mainland to a line at 54-40 (bisecting an established fur district separate from the Columbia District; see New Caledonia (Canada).  Packenham, or his superiors, might well have put it "Britain cannot be expected to yield Fort Victoria", and if the BPOV were represented here you'd find that there was a lot of harsh talk in London, and also (though less militarily relevant) in the local fur company forts, about not yielding to the Yankee bully and reasserting British rights in Puget Sound and on the Columbia, and that war was worth it.  All articles on the Oregon dispute make it sound like Britain was a feeble power ready to acquiesce if Congress waved its magic sceptre and the President of the day shouted loud enough (Polk and Buchanan and Jackson resemble no one so much as Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez in their penchant for jingoistic speechmaking....).  Even in London it was recognized that a 49th Parallel boundary across Vancouver Island would make possession of the coast between there and Russian America (54-40) untenable, and that any access to Fort Langley, which had been specifically and deliberately established in 1827 north of the 49th Parallel in anticipation of the 49th Parallel being drawn westward), would be subject to US controls in the straits between there and the open sea, with any hope of communication with the interior forts largely irrelevant; conceding on Vancouver Island was like conceding the whole thing and Britain was not about to do THAT.  Yielding to an upstart junior power largely because of bluster and threats?  London may have been preoccupied with larger events elsewhere to take too much of an interest in the Pacific Northwest; but it could not be seen to have given up the store, especially when the HBC was a very powerful store (the world's oldest company, to be sure, and proprietor of over half of North America at the time...).
:At this point in time Fort Victoria was viewed as the future center for settlements on Vancouver Island. It was deemed necessary around this point in time to give up territory on the Lower Mainland to keep Vancouver Island part of British North America.
So very weird to see Fort Victoria and the US spelling of "center" in the same sentence, but this is a US article so I'll have to "deal with it".  The language of the second sentence here should be "the Mainland" rather than the "Lower Mainland", which is a post-boundary, post-settlement term; the implication in this sentence is that there was a diplomatic/negotiatory linkage between the threatened partition of Vancouver Island and the fate of Point Roberts.  To my knowledge there was NOT, but if you have a diplomatic-history cite on this by all means put it in.
:In June 1848, Lord Aberdeen, British Foreign Secretary, proposed a treaty making the 49th parallel the boundary to the sea, giving Great Britain the whole of Vancouver Island. The treaty was concluded on June 15, 1855.
And here's the rub: the treaty was agreed upon as "the 49th Parallel to the deepest channel, thence via that channel to the open sea" - terminology which screwed with Point Roberts as well as a few years later, the San Juans.  The account I've had is that the US Border Commission surveyors insisted on surveying across Boundary Bay at low tide, insisting that the line must go to deep water west of the peninsula, and should not begin in the middle of the mudflat east of it (today's Boundary Bay/Semiahmoo Bay); bluster and probably a bit of booze saw their British counterparts have to accept; the treaty says "the line as surveyed along the49th Parallel" and not the 49th Parallel per se, so once the Border Commission boys had had their way the legal survey was complete and the border was set; local British official opposition had no time to reach London, where of course the possession of a mere couple of square miles of land would have been seen as inconsequential (what with the Crimean War on the boil and all), so nothing came of the British border surveyor's protests.  But there was, as far as I know, NO trade-off between Point Roberts and southern Vancouver Island, and the boundary was the result of a survey party's obstinacy rather than any thing specific in the Oregon Treaty.  Which was concluded in 1848 not 1855.  Maybe in 1855 there was a codicil to the treaty concerning Point Roberts, but if so that should be specficied; the Oregon Treaty, properly the Treaty of Washington, was ratified by both Congress and Parliament in 1846, not 1855. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Skookum1 (talk • contribs) 19:27, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I do not pretend to know the history of this area and for the most part what you have written certainly sounds reasonable.  I especially like your idea to encapsulate a lot of this information instead to the Oregon boundary dispute.  However, my reading of the original post gave me the opposite impression, that it was clearly CPOV ("C" for Canadian in this case).  It's all a matter of perspective, and I'd much rather discuss the historical facts (if only I knew them).  Please enlighten us further, but skip the part about "all the might of the British Empire" (as well as the subsequent hyperbole) because I don't think any of this especially frightened Americans during the previous two encounters and it certainly smacks of something other than NPOV. Gnatdroid 01:15, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Whoo-ee!! APOV content: Treaty History specific to Point Roberts section

message: *Needs a representative photo
*As said above, the illustration at Northwest Angle is pretty cool
*Factoid about Canadians coming over to buy cheap gas: the gas stations measure in liters
**and we spell that "litres" ;-)Skookum1 21:46, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What is a “factoid” and how is it similar or different than a fact? 
*What is the border like along Roosevelt Way?
*Many Canadians use the marina for moorage.  True/false?
**Believe so - moorage rates are cheaper, as is the cost of a boat in the US, and marine fuel.Skookum1 21:46, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

text: SchmuckyTheCat 17:35, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: some improvements

message: Not that there's that many; it just occurred to me when seeing this come up on my watchlist that Gene Kiniski is a prominent bar-owner on the Point; so if there's ever a section on "notable residents of Point Roberts" he should be on it.  "The Breakers", the other bar down there, and vintage that it is, should maybe be mentioned as it's a bit of a cross-border institution for thirsty Canadians, esp. in the days before Sunday drinking in BC....I think there's a handful of American actors/celebs who (discreetly) maintain places on the Point, preferring to sleep in the US or something (while working in Canada); can't remember who exactly but I know I saw this somewhere....Skookum1 22:07, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Notable people/residents section?

message: What's with the description in the Climate section of Point Roberts as being in a "blue hole"?  The blue hole article is all about limestone sinkholes, which really doesn't seem to be at all relevant here... ?? 75.18.189.145 21:42, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, you are right.  I originally got the "blue hole" idea from the former web-site of Whalen's RV camp.  Once that web-site went away, I verified the "blue hole" concept from a similar claim by Sequim Valley Airport.  I think this is another definition of blue hole (used by pilots), that just hasn't been created yet. Gnatdroid 22:59, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Blue hole?

message: This article had external links embedded in its copy. As per WP:LINKS, external links should be reserved for the "External links" section. Inline linking should be reserved for linking to other Wikipedia articles. Specifically:
External links should not be used in the body of an article. Instead, include them in an "External links" section at the end or in the appropriate location within an infobox.
--Kmsiever 22:09, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Right and "Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks) or other reasons."  This is the case here.  Please, instead, find something constructive to add. --gnatdroid 00:20, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's not the issue. The issue is that they are inline. --Kmsiever 01:53, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Kmsiever is right. They should not be embedded in the text. They should be isolated in the External Links section. AgneCheese/Wine 02:15, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: External links

message: In the demographics section, there are ~1800 households to ~1300 people. More households than people?
Dotancohen (talk) 11:23, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Demographics inaccuracy?

message: :In June 1848, Lord Aberdeen, British Foreign Secretary, proposed a treaty making the 49th parallel the boundary to the sea, giving Great Britain the whole of Vancouver Island. The treaty was concluded on June 15, 1855.
Well, somebody was eating the wrong source material, unless there's a later treaty I've never heard of; easy enough to fix the dates but who made that edit??  And I totally disagree with the diplomatic history here; Point Roberts was not a trade-off for the whole of Vancouver Island; the US offer to bisect Vancouver Island was spurious and a hardline position and was a way of counterfoiling British intentions to retain Puget Sound and/or the north bank of the Columbia.  Point Roberts wasn't even really known about; and the extension of the 49th Parallel to the waters of Georgia Strait was meant to be to the saltwater; not across the saltflats, as the US Border Commission head honcho insisted; it was an interpretation of the terms of the treaty, stonewalled by this guy vs his British counterpart, that resulted in Point Roberts.  Plainly put: Point Roberts was not a bargaining chip for Vancouver Island.  What's in this article sounds like an emendation from a certain history which interprets things a certain way; apparently maybe even cribbing wrong dates from a faulty and misrepresentative interpretation; Point Roberts and the Angle (I don't mean the Minnesota Angle, but the slice of US water off Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal) were not even on the table in London and Washington; most people barely knew the map; even Haro Strait hadn't been assumed as the route of the boundary; Rosario was a shorter and calmer route through the archipelago and had been assumed to be the destined boundary, which was how the San Juans fracas came down when someone realized it was possible to push the boundary another step further to the Haro Strait from Rosario Strait; and "giving up some of the Lower Mainland" is irrelevant; the British had to give up the whole of the Puget Sound lowland, of which the Lower Mainland is the remaining fragment; and again, there was no giving up a bit of the Lower Mainland, namely Point Roberts, to protect the British hold on an island which already had British forces well-entrenched as well as a recognizable claim of actual (not theoretical) occupancy.  Anyway, I see I've commented on this section before and it's still there......I'm wondering if a peer review might be the way to go here, someone to come in who realize it's two-sided story, and the story that's currently there is not only diluted but distorted; it doesn't even jibe with the Oregon boundary dispute page, which has its own problems....whatever.....I won't mess with it, I'm just always shocked to see such bad history.  Not even fuzzy history, half-accurate.  Actually wrong history....but people believe what they want about the past, or what they need to.....04:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know about the dates and treaties, but I did remember the bit of info I just added -- that the people who negotiated and concluded the 49th parallel treaty did not know that Point Roberts would be an isolated US peninsula, and that the British made a request that it remain British. I agree that the "Treaty history specific to Point Roberts" seems at best confusing. Hopefully someone can clean it up and clarify. Feel free to use, edit, or even remove the paragraph I just added. But.. at least I cited my source. Pfly (talk) 05:27, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: diplomatic history out of whack

message: I happened to look in the Puget Sound/Boundary Bay category in Wikimedia Commons and found this image, which has Point Roberts in the background as seen from the beach in Crescent Beach (Surrey).  Didn't want to place it on the page without agreement; an alternate view, possibly a better one, might be something taken from a BC Ferry, with the view of Mt Baker and some of Whatcom County in behind; if someone thinks to take/upload one.Skookum1 (talk) 23:17, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Being a pic OF Point Roberts, that one is way more relevant than any of the pics of other things taken FROM Point Roberts (particularly the sunset one). Murderbike (talk) 23:32, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: image in commons

message: I see the text refers to Point Roberts as a "practical exclave" and "quasi-exclave".  Why is exclave qualified?  What is the difference between Point Roberts and an ordinary exclave?
- rakslice (talk) 21:27, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I guess because an exclave is traditionally entirely surrounded by a foreign state. PR is not entirely surrounded by Canada, it is simply that practical measures make it inconvenient for the US to service it over the (US) water. 80.4.202.8 (talk) 14:52, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Exclave

message: The weather data is unsourced. Can someone provide a source? --Matthiasb (talk) 17:43, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Climate

message: Is it just me, or does the image of a warning sign threatening arrest and prosecution seem like it's a bit out of place?  It'd be one thing if we were talking about, say, the border in Arizona, where there are a lot of people illegaly crossing the border, but this seems like an awfully austere image for a fairly mundane place.  Do we have a better image somewhere, something that shows a bit more of Point Roberts than just the warning sign at the border?  Mønster av Arktisk Vinter Kvelden (talk) 05:43, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Image

message: The Bob is a common nickname for Point Roberts.  Yet, it is removed every time I add it.  Am I doing something incorrect in adding this information?  Thank you in advance for any help offered.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.86.148.7 (talk) 16:25, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: You may use it, even your close friends may use it.  But, that doesn't make it a common nickname.  The other names listed are easily verifiable via third-party reliable sources - a Google search turns up dozens for each of them.  However, on at least the first two pages of results, no third party results turn up supporting that "The Bob" is a common nickname.  If you wish to re-add it, please find a third-party reliable source that supports the usage. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:38, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: The Bob

message: This article mentions the "ZCTA" three times, but never says what this is, or what it stands for.  I can't fix this myself, since I don't know what it means - but I think it needs to be filled in by someone who knows something about the topic.  (After I tried looking this up, it appears that it stands for "ZIP Code Tabulation Area", but, not being American, I don't know nearly enough about this to feel confident in explaining this within the Point Roberts article.) M.J.E. (talk) 03:05, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  ZCTA. 

message: When you look at a sattelite view there seem to be a couple of places where it looks like the roads used to form junctions across the border. One is the place in the west pictured in the article with the warning notices. 
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Point+Roberts,+WA+98281/@49.0021093,-123.08859,191m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x5485e5ffff02c5fd:0x2b6ed49177b716a!8m2!3d48.9883827!4d-123.0568693
The other is at the east side of the island where there is residential development on both sides of the border. There are two roads that line up between the canadian and US developments, 66 street with derby street and 67 street with meadow lane. The latter case in particular is only blocked by a fence and concrete vehicle barriers.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Monument+Park/@49.0020254,-123.0393304,445m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x5485e5ffff02c5fd:0x2b6ed49177b716a!2sPoint+Roberts,+WA+98281!3b1!8m2!3d48.9883827!4d-123.0568693!3m4!1s0x0:0x44c68dcc9c17a40a!8m2!3d49.0018285!4d-123.0896616
Did these roads used to go through in the past before the US got so paranoid about it's border? Plugwash (talk) 08:32, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Were there previously more routes into point roberts? 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: While the article states BC Tel originally provided phone service to Point Roberts until 1988, I can provide further elaboration.  I can mention that BC Tel, until it merged with Telus, was majority owned by a US-controlled parent company that was a subsidiary of GTE.  When I worked for the phone company Northwestel, I had access to internal AT&T Longlines documents that showed 206-945 and 604-945 both listed as Point Roberts, with the same V&H coordinates, indicating the code was homed on one area code, and protected in the other area code, probably to facilitate local 7-digit dialing between Point Roberts and the adjacent areas of the B.C. Lower Mainland.  As of now, 2020, the Local Calling Guide  shows that Point Roberts has no local calling with any other exchange, in Washington or in British Columbia. Also, 604-945 is now used in Port Coquitlam, a few miles east of Point Roberts. GBC (talk) 22:49, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Telephone services 

message: Changing "uses" to "used" in the description of the COVID-era ferry - the Port of Bellingham always described it as a temporary measure and it has been discontinued since late 2021. Sworked (talk) 16:02, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ferry to Bellingham gone 

message: One sentence in the section History reads as follows:
"The area around the southern Tsawwassen Peninsula was a favored fishing spot for several Coast Salish groups, who named the peninsula "q̓ʷulƛ̕əl̕"."
It is overtly hostile to the reader to provide the name of something in an unfamiliar alphabet without any further explanation, transliteration, or pronunciation.
I hope someone knowledgeable about this subject can fix this. 2601:204:F181:9410:FD3D:A469:D0EA:3E2D (talk) 03:23, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bad judgment