Peace Arch Historical State Park – state parks quest #6

Peace Arch State Park sits at the international border between Canada and the United States. Interstate 5 slices through the park, so I figured it wouldn’t be hard to reach. Wrong. I took the signed exit for the park (exit 275 on Interstate 5, if you’re curious) and glimpsed a directional sign for the park up a side ramp out of the corner of my eye. By then it was too late. I ended up in the truck crossing line for the border, and as I waited to have my passport checked I wondered whether the poor signage on the US side reflected this country’s increasing harshness about international boundaries. Perhaps, I thought, the confusing signage resulted in fewer visitors from the US side.

While I dislike being so cynical, I couldn’t help but notice that the Canadian side parking lot was both easy to find and full. Walking back across to the US with my friend West Coast Hiker Girl, the US parking lot was empty except for one Border Patrol vehicle, where an agent sat and kept watch.

So I can’t really say that I felt particularly peaceful when I first arrived in this unusual park. Nevertheless, I did finally get there, and once out of my car, exploring the place proved thought-provoking.

An arch celebrating peace, built by an eccentric millionaire

Peace Arch brochures and signs point out that it is unique in the United States, the first arch built specifically to celebrate peace between two nations. It was the vision of Sam Hill, a quirky character in Pacific Northwest history. Hill was the son-in-law of Great Northern Railway magnate James J. Hill, whose friendship with Frederick Weyerhaeuser — they built adjacent mansions in St. Paul, Minnesota — helped bankroll the logging free-for-all that decimated Pacific Northwest forests in the late 19th and 20th centuries.

Today, Sam Hill is probably best known for his Stonehenge replica, a World War I memorial built on a bluff above the Columbia River. It’s just down the road from Maryhill, an elaborate Beaux Arts mansion he named for his wife and daughter, both named Mary. Neither Sam nor the Marys ever lived there, though Sam stocked it with a variety of Rodin pieces and Indian baskets with the intent of turning the manse into a museum. Today it’s the well-regarded Maryhill Museum, an anomaly anchored in golden fields above the river. There’s much more to the museum than I have space to write about here, so go visit it sometime. Watch out for the peacocks roaming the grounds.

Truth be told, what Sam Hill should be remembered for is his championship of good roads. If you’ve ever driven the old Columbia River Highway on the Oregon side of the river, with its forged lanterns and concrete balustrades, you’ve driven on Hill’s legacy. The 75-mile-long road, built between 1913 and 1922, was the nation’s first scenic highway. It was designed to replicate roads in Europe by following natural features in the landscape. Hill encouraged the road’s designer, landscape architect Samuel Lancaster, and provided monetary backing for construction. While the highway was superseded by Interstate 84, the western portion is still open for driving, and following the road past the Columbia Gorge’s many waterfalls is a singular treat. Other portions have been restored for hiking and biking. It’s a treasure, and we have Sam Hill to thank for it.

The longest unarmed border in the world

Back to the Peace Arch. Graceful and imposing, the 67-foot-high monument was built in 1921, around the same time the Columbia River Highway was nearing completion. Sam Hill had his fingers in a lot of Pacific Northwest pies.

It commemorates the centennial of the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812. Here’s the sum total of what I know about the War of 1812: it was a conflict between the US and Great Britain, the Brits burned the White House, it spurred Francis Scott Key to pen our hard-to-sing-on-a-good-day national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner, and it inspired Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, complete with cannon fire.

According to the Washington State Parks brochure I picked up, the arch also commemorates the Rush-Bagot Agreement of 1817. Together, the treaties stipulated an unguarded US-Canada border and ended hostilities between the US and Great Britain. That whole “unguarded border” thing seems to have gone by the wayside, at least at the I-5 crossing.

The arch has one massive concrete foot in each country. Gentle reminders are carved in the frieze below the pediment (the triangular element at the top of the arch). “Brethren Dwelling Together in Unity” faces Canada, while “Children of a Common Mother” faces the US. On the exterior walls, bronze plaques depict the Mayflower, which brought the first load of Puritans to the New World, and the Beaver, a supply ship for the Hudson’s Bay Company and the first steamship operating in the Pacific Northwest. The bronzes are mounted so high as to be almost unreadable from ground level. Supposedly pieces of each ship are sealed behind their respective plaques.

Let’s just memorialize everywhere while we’re at it

Thoughout the rest of the park, memorials and monuments abound, scattered like grave markers. The Washington State Historical Society erected one commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 1846 treaty that finally established the border between the US and Canada. Kiwanis International placed one to commemorate 150 years of peace between the two countries. The Washington Good Roads Association put up a bronze plaque honoring Sam Hill, “Eminent Road-Builder,” in 1936.

And then there are the border markers themselves, miniature obelisks tracing the invisible line across the park and, ultimately, the continent. The markers lead straight to and past the arch, into Semiahmoo Bay and 12 nautical miles over to Point Roberts, a peninsula attached to Canada that is part of the United States. Its odd position — you drive 25 miles through Canada to reach it, or else boat there — causes continual headaches for companies that provide garbage pickup, telephone service, electricity, and the like.

Borderlines and border lines

Gazing at the insubstantial markers, I couldn’t help but consider how arbitrary and insubstantial borders seem. Yes, I know it took a war and several treaties to figure this one out, and borders are inherently disputed. Nonetheless, they are essentially figments of geopolitical imagination. Like every other visitor to the park, I stood with one foot on each side of the line, aligning myself between obelisks, and thought, this is the demarcation between Canada’s Tim Hortons and, I don’t know, Dunkin Donuts in the US. Standing in both countries simultaneously only seems to underscore the border’s haphazardness.

And yet, all I had to do was look up. Long lines of cars idled in both directions, waiting to enter or leave the US or Canada. We dashed between cars to get to the different sections of the park. I felt oddly free, bouncing back and forth between the countries while drivers had to wait for permission to pass.

Two countries, one border, two-in-one park

The land around the US section of the Peace Arch became part of the Washington State Parks system in 1931, and eight years later, British Columbia created Peace Arch Provincial Park on the Canadian side. The two parks together encompass about 40 acres, most of it lovely gardens and lawns. Each year, the International Peace Arch Association sponsors Hands Across the Border, an event where participants link hands across the international boundary, a physical demonstration of the peaceful bond between Canada and the United States. This year’s event is Sunday, June 9, and more than a thousand people are already signed up.

On the west side of the park, steps lead to the cobble beach on Semiahmoo Bay. The crowds and cars and border stations feel far away. Eagles stare into the distance from their perches in tall evergreens. Waters laps gently on the rocks. Visitors to this part of the park must cross train tracks to reach the shoreline, where they are rewarded with a quiet kind of peace — except when a train roars by.

Small park, big ideas

Peace Arch State Park packs a lot into a small space, stretching barely three-quarters of a mile east-west and one-tenth of a mile north-south. It’s not big. But it represents big thinking about place, time, and the parameters of international relationships. At a time when international boundaries are hardening politically yet physically more porous than ever, this park is a natural place to consider these ideas. And it’s just plain fun to stand with your feet in two countries.

Fast facts about Peace Arch Historical State Park

• 20-acre day-use park, open year-round
• $10 daily parking pass (buy the annual Discover Pass, a bargain at $30)
• group kitchen available, reserve online (click day use tab)
• picnic tables, horseshoe pits, hiking trail
• interpretive display
• playground
• restrooms
• park map
• park brochure