A couple of weeks ago, I was riding with my friend Dave to Winnipeg to catch a Blue Bombers football game. It was a great day, sunny to partly cloudy, and we were enjoying some mix discs I’d made for the road (mostly 21st century rock I though Dave should hear). Like always, we had to do the border crossing and I started thinking about the evolution of border stations over the 25 years or so I’ve lived in this part of the country while the line was a little longer than usual this time going into Canada.

This used to be an experience not unlike a toll booth, and an agent might actually be in the station separate from the main building, where I might have to produce a driver’s license crossing either way across the international border. In the days before 9/11, at most, I might get asked if I was bringing Cuban cigars into the country (which, in fact, sometimes I was). The only time I’d ever really had an issue was going to see the Rolling Stones at Winnipeg Stadium in the summer of ’94- as it turns out, rock concert attendance must be some kind of profiling, and in addition to having a pony tail and loose insulin syringes on the floor of my Toyota pickup (complete with Grateful Dead window stickers) I spent a little time watching the agents search my truck. After they put the door panels back in, I was on my way. Maybe that was a foreshadowing of what was to come.

Now, it’s like a fortress on both sides, with high technology including digital cameras, and I would assume directional microphones (really, I’m not that paranoid, but maybe, you know?, as suggested by my friend, who is an attorney). We’d gone to a game last fall and actually had to go inside, where they decided to run us through Interpol, the international criminal database. Apparently, it’s standard operating procedure to inquire if they will “find anything”. Now, I know what it’s like to sit in the back of a police car (let’s just say, my youth was “colorful”), so I tell them “I don’t know”; my friend gave a similar response, which in retrospect seemed upsetting to the agents. Fortunately, we weren’t revealed as some kind of criminal masterminds, and we made it for kickoff easily.

This time, we’re pulling up to the station, and I dropped my passport right into the slot between the seat and the center console- If I’m appearing panicked trying to get it (which requires unbuckling my seat belt, turning around in the seat and desperately trying to snag it), that can’t be good, and I’m also focused on getting my sunglasses off in time, as the agents don’t like those either. Everything was cool, and we breezed through continuing to make good time to get to the city.

As we drove away from the border crossing, the prairie stretched back out before us, unthreatening, with southern Manitoba’s appearance more or less the same as the last 50 miles of North Dakota prior to the station. We clicked by the small towns, railroads, fields, and grain elevators, reflecting on the changing times in security. Fifty years ago, it was all about nuclear capability, not border stations. We weren’t far from an abandoned radar base at Nekoma, North Dakota, and I often pass by empty nuclear missile silos all over rural North Dakota (check out Ghosts of North Dakota to see some great pictures).

It wasn’t long, and we passed through the gates at the stadium, where we enjoyed the beautiful summer night and some football, Canadian style; then we were on the way home after our usual ritual of grabbing donuts and coffee at Tim Horton’s, accompanied now by a full moon which I noticed at the game, but was even more welcome beyond the city lights. After a while, I saw the crossing station in the distance, a beacon on the prairie, where soon the transition was once again businesslike; after the passage we sailed down the road, clicking off the small towns, railroads, fields, and grain elevators as we cranked the music back up, which minded no border, and celebrated the night.