Lakes, Peaks, and Prairies

Book excerpt: ... To find out how life is lived along an international border, author Thomas O'Neill and photographer Michael Yamashita traveled the length of the line, from the fishing villages on Passamaquoddy Bay to the rain forest of Vancouver Island. They explored buoyant Toronto and Vancouver, and face-to-face border towns such as Calais, Maine, and St. Stephen, New Brunswick. They met a diverse human gallery: proud Madawaskans, clinging to their French heritage along the St. John River; German-speaking Hutterites creating showplace communal farms on the open plains; Osoyoos Indians leading a wine-making revolution in British Columbia ... Much more than just a line on a map, the U.S.-Canadian border and its neighborhoods provide a living stage where the geography and peoples of two great nations come into lasting focus.