‘It will be nice to have people around here again:’ Border towns excited for reopening

After nearly 19 months, fully vaccinated Canadians will get to drive or ferry to the United States for non-essential reasons.

This announcement came on Tuesday night after American president Joe Biden’s administration announced the U.S. would reopen its land borders in November to Canada and Mexico.

There was no specific date given for when the restrictions would be removed, but that doesn’t matter to Robert Coleman who owns Smokey Bonz restaurant in Portal North Dakota.

“I’m really excited and I miss my Canadian friends,” Coleman said. “Hopefully, we’re getting over the hump … we are at the top of the hill so it’s looking good.”

Portal N.D. and North Portal Saskatchewan are separated by the Canada-U.S. border. Prior to COVID, Coleman said at least half of his customers at his restaurant would drive down from the neighbouring community to eat.

“I have already talked to a few of my Canadian friends on the phone this morning about this,” Coleman said. “They are excited to come for a meal.”

Fully vaccinated Americans were allowed to come into Canada starting in August as long as it had been 14 days since they got their second shot and were able to provide a negative COVID test.

Tanner Stevens works at the Gastrak in Portal. He can’t wait to see old faces back in the community.

“It will be nice to have people around here again,” he said. “Overall, this is a great thing.”

Kaylah Turner also can’t to see a return to normalcy.

The mayor of North Portal, Turner says prior to COVID a lot of people in her community would travel to the neighbouring American town to eat and to visit with friends.

“Me and my kids would ride our bikes through the border, do our check-in, then head over to the to the Smokey Bonz to go and have some lunch,” Turner said. “We would then go to the park and then run their bikes back to the border, it was something very easy to do.

“We don’t have anything convenience-wise in North Portal so we definitely are really missing that. As far as being friends with people in Portal, it will be great to be able to go hunker down at the bar for a night and just reminisce about the last 19 months of our lives.”

Despite the excitement surrounding the announcement, Turner believes it will take a lot more to see things fully go back to how they used to be.

“I’m not sure if you will also have to provide a negative test as well as being vaccinated,” she said. “I think that will probably be a big part to play with how many people cross over to visit.

“I guess it will come down to how tricky it will be.”