The current border moving initiative in Oregon is only the latest in the historic record of border clashes, changes, and controversies. It has no real chance of success, but the issue has people talking—about land use planning, abortion, health care in general, sales tax, minimum wages, and more. When Mark Simmons, our former Oregon State Rep and onetime Speaker of the Oregon House, came to Wallowa County in the early days of the border moving movement, people talked about the traffic and sprawl on I-84 from the border to Boise, and asked about the flight of physicians, especially gynecologists, from the state. I don’t remember what he said about health care, but do remember him saying that we could maybe grandfather in some of Oregon’s land use laws.
It’s not as big an item as the president’s yearnings to annex Canada, Panama, and Greenland, and those yearnings, the completion of which seem very remote, still have British Columbia—and all of Canada, and Greenland trembling. “Trump gets what he wants,” one Greenlander said in a radio interview. And then there is the issue of Gaza, and whether the Israelis, with Trump’s encouragement, can remove all the current inhabitants and make way for Jewish settlements—or an international luxury resort!
Any grade school student can tell you that our flag has not always had 50 stars. They can name the first one with its 13 stars and stripes. The flag had 48 stars—and still 13 stripes—when I first pledged to it in grade school. Alaska and Hawaii were added in the 1950s. We celebrated, not having a clue about the real history of either place, or the people who lived there before they were bought or taken over by previous US regimes. I was young, but I don’t remember hearing then, or anytime since then, of Native Hawaiians or Alaskans being consulted in the process.
History buffs will remember reading about President Polk’s 1844 campaign “Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!”—named after the line of latitude that Polk wanted to make the US’s northern boundary. Polk was ready to go to war with the British over a boundary that had been disputed since 1818, when the “Oregon Territory” was declared “jointly occupied” by the British and the Americans. Of course, there were few Brits or Americans in the Territory in 1818; the real occupiers were the tens of thousands of Tribal peoples. The “joint occupation” was a result of the fur trade and the Treaty of Ghent, which concluded the War of 1812 between Great Britain and the young US.
The Oregon Treaty of 1846 set the boundary at the 49th parallel. Tribes were not consulted, and the Sinixt (also known as the Arrow Lakes Band) of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation have only recently—2021—secured their rights and acknowledgement of their people on both sides of the border!
Canadians with history and recent memory can point to Canadian “Confederation,” which united several British colonies with a constitution, in 1867, and final independence from Great Britain in 1982. Negotiations over the Columbia River, which begins in Canada, are still regular occurrences, and I imagine there are other tribes and waterways across the border along the longest unprotected border in the world that still require attention.
Back to a more familiar border, the one that divides us from Idaho. And the movement to have us and several other Eastern Oregon counties jump the Snake River border. As I recall, Mike McCarter, President of Greater Idaho, started out in Corvallis, and moved to Central Oregon before launching the movement. There is no doubt he found a following. Simmons and several other prominent East Oregonians have joined the cause. In his Enterprise talk, Simmons did allow at the main point of it all was to get West siders to listen to our side of the state.
It has come up in several ballot issues in Eastern Oregon counties, the last one requiring our county commissioners to hold meetings promoting serious discussions of the issues. It passed handily in many counties, but only by seven votes in Wallowa County.
I was talking with a man older than me who was born, raised, and has worked in Wallowa County for more than my 82 years about the border movement. I mentioned McCarter’s having moved from Corvallis to Prineville or some other Central-Eastern Oregon town and not finding it far enough. My friend told me he had a new neighbor who had put up a “move the border” sign. I said that many of the yard signs seemed to be in yards of recent arrivals.
He agreed: “I told him he might just move to Idaho and leave us alone.”
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Map from Oregon Public Broadcasting