I’ve been fascinated by borders since I was a child. I would run my finger along lines on maps in the worn pages of a world atlas, wondering what strange stories the people in those places would tell. As a writer, I look for compelling stories and odd characters at borders. The latest is Bob Boulé, the larger-than-life figure that Greg Boos and I describe in Smuggler. The books on this list were important for me to learn about the reality of the US-Canada border, and I hope you—and Donald Trump—enjoy them as much as I did.
Donald Trump called the western US-Canada border along the 49th parallel “an artificially drawn line” that is “imaginary.”
I loved Hoy’s book because it shows that Trump is right, but for the wrong reasons. The colonists who drew the line on a map had zero knowledge of the land on the ground, which was inhabited by Indigenous and First Nations peoples.
The straight line of the border created odd geographical features like the Northwest Angle and Point Roberts, and split traditional lands in nonsensical ways. The border is artificial, but the implication of that is not that Canada should be part of the United States. Instead, both the US and Canadian claims are borne through violence and displacement of Indigenous peoples.
The untold history of the multiracial making of the border between Canada and the United States.
Often described as the longest undefended border in the world, the Canada-United States border was born in blood, conflict, and uncertainty. At the end of the American Revolution, Britain and the United States imagined a future for each of their nations that stretched across a continent. They signed treaties with one another dividing lands neither country could map, much less control. A century and a half later, they had largely fulfilled those earlier ambitions. Both countries had built nations that stretched from the Atlantic…
I loved the novel Border Songs because it captured what it’s like to live along the western US-Canada border between Washington and British Columbia.
The dairy farms. The berry fields. The rolling hills. The smell of the sea at the tidal mud flats of Semiahmoo Bay. The Canadian road, Zero Avenue, that runs directly on the line for dozens of miles, with only a ditch to mark the border with the United States.
The book has memorable characters and gets into smuggling and migration across the border, but it leaves the reader with the sense that the local population would be doing just fine without too much interference from the national governments.
Set in the previously sleepy hinterlands straddling Washington state and British Columbia, Border Songs is the story of Brandon Vanderkool, six foot eight, frequently tongue-tied, severely dyslexic, and romantically inept. Passionate about bird-watching, Brandon has a hard time mustering enthusiasm for his new job as a Border Patrol agent guarding thirty miles of largely invisible boundary. But to everyone’s surprise, he excels at catching illegal immigrants, and as drug runners, politicians, surveillance cameras, and a potential sweetheart flock to this scrap of land, Brandon is suddenly at the center of something much bigger than himself.
Pioneer Paddles of the Colonial South
by
William D. Auman,
Award-winning novelist William Auman, author of If Trees Could Testify..., takes the reader on a time-traveling odyssey featuring 345 bodies of water in six states within the historical context through which they unfold.
Journey into remaining Colonial-era wilderness with stories of pirate treasure, epic frontiersmen, Indigenous Peoples, and Revolutionary…
This is a gorgeously written biography and a sweeping description of the landscape of the upper latitudes of North America at the time of European occupation.
For me, the French navigator, Samuel de Champlain, stands out for his respectful relations with Indigenous and First Nations peoples, even as his mapping and exploring paved the way for their dispossession and displacement.
I was drawn to the vivid rendering of the region at the turn of the seventeenth century, and I learned a lot about the French history of Quebec that makes Canada what it is today.
Winner of the Pritzker Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing
In this sweeping, enthralling biography, acclaimed historian David Hackett Fischer brings to life the remarkable Samuel de Champlain—soldier, spy, master mariner, explorer, cartographer, artist, and Father of New France.
Born on France's Atlantic coast, Champlain grew to manhood in a country riven by religious warfare. The historical record is unclear on whether Champlain was baptized Protestant or Catholic, but he fought in France's religious wars for the man who would become Henri IV, one of France's greatest kings, and like Henri, he was religiously tolerant in an…
Donald Trump should read Blue Bird, the historical novel about Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario, so he can understand how interconnected the two cities, and by extension, the US and Canada, are.
In 2026, Trump tried to block the opening of the Gordie Howe Bridge across the Detroit River, but Canada opened it anyway. I was fascinated by how Blue Bird shows us the ways people evaded past efforts to limit trade between the border cities during the Prohibition era.
The book evokes the period and demonstrates that smuggling and policing are self-reinforcing. Smuggling only exists when there are restrictions at the border that need to be evaded.
A dazzling novel set during the Great War and postwar Prohibition about a young nurse, a soldier, and a family secret that binds them together for generations to come-from USA TODAY and repeat #1 bestselling author Genevieve Graham.
Present day
Cassie Simmons, a museum curator, is enthusiastic about solving mysteries from the past, and she has a personal interest in the history of the rumrunners who ferried illegal booze across the Detroit River during Prohibition. So when a cache of whisky labeled Bailey Brothers' Best is unearthed during a local home renovation, Cassie hopes to find the answers she's…
Two sisters. One opulent hotel. A chance to change everything.
For 17-year-old Clara Wilson, the glamour of the Roaring Twenties feels worlds away. With her family on the brink of eviction, Clara pins her hopes on a position at the grand Hotel Hamilton. But when her adventurous sister impulsively follows…
I think a lot of people just assume that the majority of irregular migration at the US-Canada border consists of people entering the United States. That’s wrong historically and today.
British Loyalists during the US Revolution, people fleeing slavery on the Underground Railroad, and conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War have all sought protection north of the border. The same holds true today with thousands of people leaving the United States every year in search of asylum in Canada.
However, as Clark-Kazar’s book shows, they do not always receive a generous welcome, and Canada has tightened rules and put in place new restrictions for decades. I loved this book because it paints a complete picture of Canada’s partial and uneven embrace of refugees from around the world.
Forced migration shaped the creation of Canada as a settler state and is a defining feature of our contemporary national and global contexts. Many people in Canada have direct or indirect experiences of refugee resettlement and protection, trafficking, and environmental displacement.
Offering a comprehensive resource in the growing field of migration studies, Forced Migration in/to Canada is a critical primer from multiple disciplinary perspectives. Researchers, practitioners, and knowledge keepers draw on documentary evidence and analysis to foreground lived experiences of displacement and migration policies at the municipal, provincial, territorial, and federal levels. From the earliest instances of Indigenous displacement and…
Smuggler is the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story of how a quaint bed and breakfast on the Canadian border became the epicenter of debates about refugee protections and violent immigration policing inside the United States. Bob Boulé was a conservative businessman when he opened the Smuggler’s Inn, but over time, his perspective changed, and he found his life's purpose in helping over 1,000 refugees sneak across the border into Canada.
His help for refugees cost him everything. He was assaulted by a Border Patrol agent while protecting a refugee that led to a case before the US Supreme Court (Egbert v. Boule), he was arrested twice, and he lost his business and his reputation. Despite that, he has no regrets and would do it all over again.
Two sisters. One opulent hotel. A chance to change everything.
For 17-year-old Clara Wilson, the glamour of the Roaring Twenties feels worlds away. With her family on the brink of eviction, Clara pins her hopes on a position at the grand Hotel Hamilton. But when her adventurous sister impulsively follows…
The Remarkable Cause: A Novel of James Lovell and the Crucible of the Revolution is the story of James Lovell, teacher at the Boston Latin School at the beginning of the Revolution.
James Lovell demonstrates the saying “heroes are not born, but made,” with his persistent fight to help his…
