Stay safe online with Dashlane for free at dashlane.com/hai.

Ahhh islands.

They're the bread and butter of what we talk about on Half as Interesting when we're

not really sure what else to talk about.

Well, that and strange borders so what if we took islands and border disputes and put

them together.

Genius!

Right, so this is Canada and this is the US and this is the longest international border

in the world.

This line was drawn in a time when we didn't have crazy things like GPS and foresight so,

rather amazingly, the entire US-Canada border up to here was originally defined by the 516

words in Article 2 of the 1783 treaty of Paris that just described it.

As a point of comparison, it takes more words for this toaster's owners manual to describe

how to make toast than it does for this treaty to define the US-Canada Border.

This whole bit of the border, for example, was originally defined by the words, “that

angle which is formed by a line drawn due north from the source of St. Croix River to

the highlands.”

Ok, so, first of all, what's the source of the St. Croix River, second of all, what

are the highlands?

These 21 words are the entire definition, there are no maps or coordinates or anything,

so the Americans saw that this lake drains into a river that drains into what is very

debatably the St. Croix River, it's really just the same bay as the St. Croix drains

in to, and they decided that was the source of the St. Croix.

Meanwhile, the British, who still controlled Canada at the time, saw that there were these

other lakes that also drained into the St. Croix and decided that this was the source

of the St. Croix even though they were way further downstream than other lakes that drained

into the St. Croix.

Meanwhile, these “highlands” were supposed to be the split between where rivers drained

into the St. Lawrence River and the Atlantic Ocean but where that was was even more debatable.

This mess all lead to Britain saying the border was this and the US saying the border was

this.

Eventually the two countries fought a bit of a war and signed a treaty just settling

on this as the source of the St. Croix and this as the highland and that was settled.

Believe it or not this was one of only a few border disputes resulting from those 516 words

and each and every land dispute was eventually settled except for one—right at the very

start of the border.

You see, when defining who got which islands the treaty basically said any island within

20 leagues of the US, or 69 miles, that was not already part of Nova Scotia was American.

That would include this island—Machias Seal Island.

The problem was, the original text defining which islands were part of Nova Scotia said

they were, “islands, or seas lying near to, or within six leagues of any part… of

the said coasts.”

To that I retort, what?

What does “near” mean?

Is this near or is this near?

On a cosmic scale Australia is near Nova Scotia so is Australia part of Nova Scotia?

Maybe but probably not but whether this island is part of Nova Scotia is more debatable.

You see, according to Canada's definition, this is “near” enough to Nova Scotia but

according to the US' definition it's not.

That's why Machias Seal Island is claimed by both countries.

There's some more ocean border intricacies going into each country's arguments that

I'll skip over for sanity's sake but at this point you might think that the US is

in the right because it's Canada's maybe claim vs the US' definite claim but Canada

has another argument for why it's theirs—this lighthouse.

Canada, which was then still part of the UK, built a lighthouse on Machias Seal Island

in 1832 and so the island has been inhabited fairly continuously by Canadian lighthouse

keepers ever since.

Meanwhile, the US has never really had a population on the island and never said they had a problem

with Canada building a lighthouse so Canada's basically saying, “you never said I couldn't

have it, so it's mine.”

Believe it or not, that's a valid and accepted argument under international law in border

disputes but then according to the US, according to even more complicated international law

garbage, lighthouses are not manifestations of sovereignty since they are navigational

aids rather than actual settlements.

That leads to today where the island might be part of Canada and might be part of the

US.

Rather tellingly, the lighthouse has actually been automated meaning no lighthouse keepers

are needed but two still remain on the island.

Unlike most lighthouse keepers, who are paid by the Coast Guard, the Machias Seal Island

keepers are paid by Canada's Department of Global Affairs as their whole purpose is

to sit around on Machias Seal Island to claim sovereignty.

Since water sovereignty is based on land sovereignty, the big consequence of this dispute is that

nobody's really sure who owns the waters around Machias Seal Island.

The area has tons of valuable lobster and the lack of regulations stemming from nobody

being sure whose area this is has led to widespread overfishing and so Canadian lobstermen get

mad about the Americans taking their catch and vice versa.

Despite the dispute, boats from both the US and Canada regularly visit the island with

no problems or border controls so it's almost effectively in two countries at once.

For now, Ottawa and DC are little interested in souring their otherwise solid relationship

for a little, rocky island so both countries maintain that Machias Seal Island is theirs

without doing anything to stop the other country from doing what they want with it and it remains

as the only bit of land that might be part of Canada and might be part of the US.

Just to review, if you're defining a border please make your definition a bit more complicated

than this or you'll lose your island to Canada.

Similarly, when you're making a account please make sure your password is more complicated

than this or you'll lose your account to hackers.

Of course, in addition, you should have different passwords for each of your different internet

accounts so if one gets compromised others don't too but remembering complex passwords

for all your different accounts is tough… unless you have Dashlane.

Dashlane generates super secure passwords for you, stores them in one super secure place,

and autofills them on your devices when you go to log in so you stay safe on the internet.

The best thing is, that's free at https://dashlane.com/hai but, if you want to get all their premium

features like a VPN, syncing across devices, and dark web monitoring you can use the code

“HAI” to get 10% off upgrading to premium.