The dotted line shows the route driven by our tech.
Early one spring, ATM Network got a call to install an ATM at a resort on an island in Lake of the Woods, on the Minnesota/Canada border. As you can see from the map, Lake of the Woods is huge and the border cuts back and forth through it several times, but generally the east and north sides are in Canada, while the United States owns a portion of the west and south sides.
The weird thing is that a large chunk of the western shore is a peninsula, known as the Northwest Angle. The peninsula itself is part of the United States (it happens to be the northernmost point in the United States, aside from Alaska), but the shore it’s attached to is Canadian. This odd situation is a result of a geographic mistake written into the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War and defined the boundary between Canada and the United States.
The resort was on an island just off the end of this peninsula, and much closer to the north shore than the south. That meant the installer had to cross into Canada, drive up the west side of the lake, cross back into the United States, drive to the end of the peninsula, and then get on a boat to reach the resort.
There was flooding all over northern Minnesota, and most of the hotels in the area were still closed for the season. Those that were open were booked up. So the installer spent the night in Grand Forks, N.D.
The next morning he tried to drive to Warroad to cross into Canada. But flooding had closed the roads around Roseau, so he backtracked and ended up crossing the border at a town called Pinecreek. After going through customs (in a van filled with tools and a large ATM), he spent 45 minutes driving toward the peninsula.
As he neared the peninsula’s border, he started seeing signs for a place called Jim’s Corner. They all urged drivers to stop there, saying “You must stop at Jim’s Corner.” “Be sure to stop at Jim’s Corner.” It sounded like the Wall Drug of northern Minnesota. By the fifth or sixth sign, the installer was really curious what Jim’s Corner was.
But when he finally reached it, “Jim’s Corner” was a plain, unremarkable shack on the side of the road. The installer shrugged and drove on past.
The shack at Jim's Corner.
He crossed back into the United States (there was no border crossing, just a sign) and drove to the end of the peninsula, where a water taxi service could take him to the resort. He wasn’t sure what tools he would need, so he unloaded his entire van (including the ATM) into the boat.
The boat made several other stops, so it was a couple of hours before the installer arrived at the resort.
The installation itself was quick and routine. After making sure everything was working and showing the resort staff how to use their new machine, the installer packed his tools back up and went to wait for the boat to return. A couple of hours later he was back on shore. He packed up his van and headed back toward Canada.
As he drove down the peninsula, he again started seeing signs for Jim’s Corner. It had been a long day, and he was still mystified at what Jim’s Corner had to offer that justified all the signs. So when the shack came into sight, he pulled over, stopped, and walked in.
Inside was a video phone with U.S. and Canadian flags, underneath the words “Where are you checking into?” Since he was heading into Canada, he pushed the “Canada” button. A customs agent appeared on the screen and began asking him standard customs questions: “Where are you going? Do you have anything to declare?”
Yep, it was the border station, run on the honor system and managed over remote video by customs agents based elsewhere.
After answering the questions — and hoping the agent wouldn’t notice that, according to their records, he had entered Canada twice that day without ever leaving it — the tech returned to Grand Forks for the night, ending a 14-hour day.
More on Jim’s Corner
In 2006, CNN’s Gary Tuchman visited the shack.
Photos of the inside of the shack.
