![]() “And we nap a lot, actually,” said Katrina, finishing her wife’s sentence.įor the Zuidmeer family, Peace Arch Park was a place to reunite. “During football season, we watch the football game,” Alexis said. ![]() Alexis brings a tent and a small propane tank. In the meantime, Katrina walks across the ditch one day most weekends. Katrina has applied for a green card that would allow her to live and work in the U.S., a process she expects will take about a year. The Gurrs have visited each other for weeks-long stretches, but have spent most of their first year as newlyweds apart. ![]() and for air travel into Canada but still daunting. The rules for travel are complex and changing, laxer for entering the U.S. Bill and his grandson (above) had a final visit together before Bill passed away 12 days later. Bill Zuidmeer was diagnosed in December with terminal kidney cancer. The Zuidmeer family used to meet regularly at Peace Arch Park. They married in July and today sometimes talk in unison. “We just started talking, and then couldn’t stop,” said Alexis. They each live within an easy drive to the border and met online last March. He has two clients in that situation: Canadian Katrina Gurr, 29, and American Alexis Gurr, 32. “Without the park, people would be effectively separated from their spouses, fiancés and partners.” “For many people, it’s a lifeline,” he said. Immigration lawyer Len Saunders, who lives in Blaine, Washington, comes to the park most days to see his clients. And, even then, they have that 14-day quarantine. Those who claim “family relationships” must be able to prove it to a border official. That’s far different from the conventional passage through an immigration site like the one near the park, where anyone driving into Canada must sign up for a strictly enforced 14-day quarantine.Īnd most Americans need to be in an exempted group and have a negative covid test. Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers stationed outside every few houses along 0 Avenue demand proof of citizenship as parkgoers exit, then suggest that returning Canadians quarantine. Subscribe to KFF Health News' free Weekly Edition. Even so, Canadians can freely hop across a small grass ditch that runs along 0 Avenue in Surrey, British Columbia, and Washington state’s side remains open after a brief closure earlier in the pandemic. Though dozens of surveillance cameras on tall poles kept watch throughout the parking lot, no police were in sight.Ĭanada closed its land borders a year ago to all but some select groups, and its side of the park has stayed shut since late June. And all was quiet on the eastern edge of the park, where visitors had pitched dozens of tents, rumored to facilitate conjugal visits.Īn American park ranger periodically made rounds and asked groups to stay physically distant from one another. Sounds of laughter came from kids on the large playground. Some kept their distance of several feet, others huddled closely. On a recent sunny weekend, couples and groups of up to 15 people spaced themselves across a large central lawn and filled a dozen or so picnic tables. Should people from Canada, which has a lower incidence of covid-19, risk mingling with people from the U.S.? Should families who’ve masked and distanced be able to reunite for a day without quarantining? Who decides? ![]() But the pandemic has transformed this patch of historically neutral ground into a playing field for some fundamental public health questions. It’s an often muddy, sometimes idyllic place. What is known as Peace Arch Park has lush green lawns, gardens and a 67-foot-tall white concrete arch erected in 1921 that spans the border. ![]()
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