First Visit to Point Roberts

B"H

We finally got down to Point Roberts today with Jay's camera, and I photographed Alder Street. It was a pretty clear day (for this time of year), so we also strolled around snapping shots of Maple Beach and the waterfront. By way of introduction to the place -- which is one of my favorite geographic obsessions and also the current apple of my Mishkaneer's eye -- here are some of those pictures.

Point Roberts, Washington, USA, is five square miles of a peninsula in the Fraser River Delta (also known as metropolitan Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) that happens to dip below the 49th parallel, creating, in effect, a tiny island of metro Vancouver in Washington State. The Point has been called the "world's greatest gated community" owing to this, the tiniest, cutest, and easiest international border crossing I have ever seen. It is also the only crossing where I can recall seeing cyclists!

Vancouver being the stellar international city that it is -- a major hub for arts and culture, and one of the most physically beautiful big cities in the world -- the real estate situation here is growing dire. Largely thanks to superior land use planning, it has not reached NYC, Boston, or San Francisco proportions yet; but for a population less than a third that of any of those cities, Vancouver's land values resemble theirs a bit too much for comfort (especially for folks trying to buck the system a little), and condominium development now marches unbroken from the wall of mountains north of downtown right to the U.S. border . . . . . . where it abruptly stops! Land and home prices in Point Roberts are almost completely sheltered from Vancouver's hot market, and the intense condo-and-stripmall sprawl ends here as well. In fact, there is no fast food on the Point! (Though, if you want it, Tsawassen provides an extensive stripmall right across the border. Of course, for kosher fare, you need to continue on to our neighborhood in Vancouver proper.)

Despite the surreally rural atmosphere and land cost on Point Roberts, most neighborhoods are physically close-knit -- which, happily, leaves most of the Point still forested -- as though urban density were required here as in the central city, but with house structures at a much more human scale.

In my opinion the most exemplary neighborhood, Whalen Village on Maple Beach (which is rumored to be the warmest West Coast beach north of California) sits right at the border. It is an old neighborhood, and is continguous with an old neighborhood on the edge of Tsawassen. Presumably, the two were once one -- and, apparently, some locals still regard them as one:

Whalen Village contains an attractive and colorful variety of some 300 properties, mostly small- to mid-size houses, in an area that can be circumnavigated on foot in about 15 minutes. It is bordered by a cliff to the south, Canada to the north, a private campground to the west, and a picturesque waterfront to the east:

House sale prices seem to fall generally in a $75,000-$200,000 range, and the market is steady and slow, like the pace of life. Why? Because Canadians can't legally live here year-round, short of immigrating, and there are no jobs for Americans, except for the post office, phone company, customs, and a handful of small businesses (notably including Kiniski's tavern, opened by a Canadian boxer who once promoted a big fight with the promise that he would "leave Canada" if he lost). This is an ideal place for the self-employed to live and work. And, promising the possibility of owning a house the size of our apartment for half the monthly cost, at just 30 minutes from Vancouver, I can't imagine a better site for an intentional community of artists, artisans, writers, musicians, small-scale agricultural entrepeneurs, and the like. It is also safe, clean, lovely, and easily accessible to a strong variety of Jewish education (though I still dream of cobbling together our own village-based schooling cooperative, old-school kibbutz-style, if we can find the right chevra, B"H), so I can hardly imagine a better place to raise a family.

It remains to be seen whether we can build a healthy religious community on Point Roberts -- or, indeed, whether this is the right way to go. Others have expressed interest, and I certainly don't mind spending some time over the next months enjoying the fresh ocean air and dreaming the possibilities...

Could this be our children's view of the city?