Machias Seal Island

The last chunk of the border

Machias Seal Island is a 20-acre island about 10 miles off the coast of Maine, and both Canada and the United States claim it. A former US diplomat, Stephen Kelly, put it this way: all but “this little chunk” of a 5,525-mile border is settled.^[1]

The quarrel goes back to the Treaty of Paris of 1783, which gave the United States all islands within 20 leagues, roughly 70 miles, of its shore, except islands that had been part of Nova Scotia. Canada says Machias Seal Island was in a 1621 grant of Nova Scotia to Sir William Alexander, though the grant’s wording is imprecise.^[1]

Keepers for sovereignty

The then-British colony built a lighthouse on the island in 1832 and kept it staffed. The light is automated now, but the Canadian government still stations keepers there for sovereignty purposes. The United States did not formally assert its claim until 1971.^[1]

When the two countries took their other Gulf of Maine disputes to the International Court of Justice in 1984, they left out the island and the waters around it; Canada had refused earlier arbitration offers that included the island, saying that even raising it would weaken its claim.^[1] For years a Maine boat captain, Barna Norton, landed every Fourth of July with an American flag, and in 1983 the State Department wrote to him that he could ignore any rules Canada “might pretend to set”. Puffin-watching tours still sail there from both Maine and Grand Manan.^[1]

“every right to ignore any regulation that Canada might pretend to set for Machias Seal Island”^[1]

The Grey Zone

The real friction is over lobster. In 2002 Canada let Grand Manan lobstermen fish the disputed waters in summer, when Maine boats had had them to themselves, and the two fleets, under different rules, began competing directly. Maine fishermen have complained of cut lines and hauled traps. In 2018 reports that US Border Patrol agents were stopping Canadian fishing boats in the area drew protests in Canada.^[1]