U.S. border closure continues to cause challenges in border towns

While COVID-related restrictions on the U.S. border eased slightly Monday, it’s still closed to non-essential travel on land.

For many in Saskatchewan, that means a road trip to Montana or North Dakota is still out of the question.

But for people living in the border communities of North Portal and Portal, the closure has been causing all sorts of headaches throughout the pandemic.

Charlie Altringer and his wife, Jean, live in Portal on the American side of the border.

The town is only about 40 kilometres south of Estevan, which used to be convenient for heading up and shopping there.

“(Estevan) is a fairly good-sized town. (Now) we have to drive to Minot. It’s about 100 miles (160 km) away. Before, if you needed something, a lot of times we could just go to Estevan to take care of our needs there,” Altringer said.

However, it’s not just the convenience factor; the two sides of town are connected through friends, family and business.

Most of Altringer’s friends live on the north side, which he hasn’t been able to visit throughout the pandemic.

“That’s a good part of our friends right now, because most of the people on our side … a lot of them, we don’t even know. People our age have moved elsewhere and there’s still some on the north side of the border. We miss them, and I’m sure they miss (us) as well,” he continued.

On top of that, Jean is originally from Canada. Her brother lives in Estevan.

“We can visit him on the phone, but other than that, we haven’t been able to visit him personally for over a year and a half now … and there’s a lot of people in that situation,” Altringer said.

What’s even more frustrating for him is not knowing when the situation will change.

“They’ve been kind of putting us out on a month-by-month basis,” he said. “We’re kind of wondering when that month is actually going to show up.”

Businesses in town also benefit from traffic from both sides of the border.

Emily Morgel works at the Americana Motel, also on the U.S. side. She said they’ve been a lot less busy.

“We have a lot of travellers when the border’s open, even people from down south going to see the Canadian side. Now that’s kind of ceased because they can’t get across, so there’s no point in coming up,” she said.

Currently, the border restrictions are set to expire on July 21. However, that deadline has been extended many times throughout the pandemic.

Some more freedom was granted to people returning home Friday. Fully vaccinated Canadians no longer have to quarantine for two weeks after returning to the country.