26 June 2024
Hard Telling Not Knowing each week tries to answer your burning questions about why things are the way they are in Maine — specifically about Maine culture and history, both long ago and recent, large and small, important and silly. Send your questions to [email protected].
About 12 miles off the coast of the Machias area lies a 20-acre island that spans the maritime border between the Gulf of Maine and the Bay of Fundy. Aside from a lighthouse and a seasonally staffed monitoring station, it’s uninhabited — except for thousands and thousands of seabirds, including razorbill auks, Arctic terns, northern gannets and the legendarily adorable Atlantic puffin.
And yet, Machias Seal Island, a hunk of rock almost constantly enshrouded by fog, is the last piece of land whose sovereignty is disputed by the United States and Canada, or between the U.S. and any other country, for that matter. The only other remaining territorial disputes between the two countries are maritime ones, on the Pacific coast and in the Arctic Ocean.
While the dispute is largely ceremonial — don’t expect a military skirmish to break out between Maine and New Brunswick anytime soon — it’s been the cause of decades of confusion, the occasional war of words, and consternation from both Canadian and American lobstermen.
For the vast majority of its existence, humans ignored Machias Seal Island, aside from Passamaquoddy people who would occasionally visit while fishing. It wasn’t until after the Revolutionary War, when the U.S. and Britain were figuring out their international boundaries, that the tiny island came into play.
The stipulations following both the Treaty of Paris, which ended the revolution, and the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, stated that all islands in the Bay of Fundy east of a line stretching southwest from the mouth of the St. Croix River would belong to Britain, while islands in the Gulf of Maine west of that line belonged to the United States. The imaginary line in the ocean that separated the two countries was hard to pin down exactly, and Machias Seal Island happens to fall right in the middle of that gray area. Both the U.S. and what would become Canada have disputed ownership ever since.
Canadian lighthouse on Machias Seal Island, which is located about 12 miles off the coast of Cutler. The waters near the island are referred to as the “gray zone” because both Canada and the U.S. claim the island. Canadian lobstermen fish in the region under Canadian regulations, and Maine lobstermen fish in the region under Maine laws and regulations. Credit: Maine Marine Patrol
In 1832, Canadians built the lighthouse on the island, which still stands today and is still the only staffed Canadian lighthouse on the East Coast. Americans, meanwhile, didn’t rock the boat too much, while still considering the island to be a part of the U.S. — until 1918, that is, when a detachment of Marines were stationed on the island after the U.S. entered World War I, to deter German U-Boats from entering the area. When the war was over, however, the soldiers left, and the status quo returned.
Any conflict has tended to arise due to fishing rights. To this day, the area is considered a gray zone — a “grey” zone, for Canadians — with unclear standards as to whether Canadians or Americans have the right to fish for lobster and other marine resources there. Maine and New Brunswick lobstermen have butted heads over it many times over the years.
In 1984, tensions flared when a helicopter carrying Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers landed on the island, an “act of aggression” that caused then U.S. Sen. William Cohen to protest with the U.S. secretary of state’s office. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, a group of Washington County residents led by Barna Norton, a bird conservationist and former sea captain, actively sought to get the State Department to more formally claim the island for the U.S., though their pleas largely fell on deaf ears.
More Canadian helicopters would land on the island over the years, and the Canadian Coast Guard regularly flew the maple leaf flag at the lighthouse, making it clear who they believed Machias Seal Island belonged to. Washington County residents would sail by the island flying the stars and stripes in response.
In the end, the powers that be in both the U.S. and Canada seem content to let the gray zone stay gray, and seem more concerned with keeping Machias Seal Island safe and protected for its most vulnerable residents: the birds. The squishy border between the two countries doesn’t matter to nesting seabirds just hoping to continue their species.
Today, you can visit the island via charter boat trip — one coming from New Brunswick and one coming from Maine. The visits are strictly regulated, but are highly coveted by birders eager to snap photos of the beloved puffin, in one of only five places where they are found in the U.S., all of which are in Maine.
According to Canadians, however, it’s just the southeastern-most reach of the puffins’ Canadian population. Which country is right? For now, we’ll just have to be content with saying both.