On This Day in 2022, I met up with a buddy at the International Peace Garden.
The Peace Garden straddles the international boundary between North Dakota, US and Manitoba, Canada, with the entrance located in between the customs/border patrol stations of each country. That means that you can visit without officially “entering” into a new country.
I needed to visit as part of my Affiliated Areas of the NPS quest, and my buddy from back in my days on twitter, Todd Scott, could make the drive down to meet up in person for the first time. I’m a big proponent of turning online relationships into offline friendships (hey, you can even add yourself to my database of people to meet up with during my travels).
Todd is an eclectic guy. For a number of years, he was a duct tape artist for Duck brand duct tape. No, I’m serious. Here’s an article in The Washington Post about one of his creations. These days, he’s a CPR/First Aid/AED1 instructor, who at the time was filming short CPR videos2.
We thought it’d be fun to have a handshake across the international boundary. You know, for the sake of international relations and all.
Knowing that I was a big craft beer fan—and as a super nice Canadian—he also came prepared with some gifts. A nondrinker, he polled his friends on what the absolute worst Canadian beers were…and then picked up several of them for us. Uhhh, thanks Todd 🤣 (well played my friend). He also brought a couple decent ones, and some Canadian snacks he thought we should try.
Funny enough, there prior day we had been at our favorite brewery in the country, Drekker Brewing in Fargo. And we had STOCKED UP. Awkwardly, Todd’s gift now put us over the limit of what you can bring back into the United States without paying an (expensive) import tax. Gah! We’d have to kill a few of these before heading back, and hope that we weren’t asked about anything in the car.
We enjoyed a few hours wandering around the garden, having lunch, and visiting with Todd. It’s not the most interesting destination, but I really like the premise. Besides the gardens, there are some more natural areas; camping, cabins, and a lodge; an interpretative center (sorry, “centre”); auditorium, and a bunch of other stuff, too. We primarily stuck to the gardens area.
A few shots:
Here’s a final shot of Jen and I with the worst beer Todd had gifted us, a few days later at the end of the trip. Perhaps amongst the very, very worst I’ve ever had (I didn’t drink beer until my thirties, so I jumped right to craft beer). Again, well played, Todd.
- Here’s a TED Talk he did entitled: An intergalactic guide to using a defibrillator ↩︎
- We filmed one of them at the Peace Garden, near where we shook hands. The “plot” was that we were both doing CPR in our respective countries, but I wasn’t using proper technique and bending my arms, so I got tired too soon and keeled over. He dragged me across the border to ensure that I had access to free health care. 🤣 ↩︎