Stanstead | The library located on the border can finally reopen

“We were closed for 20 months because of that: the black line! Crazy, eh? ”

Text: Suzanne Colpron
Press

Photos: Hugo-Sébastien Aubert
Press

This line, recalls Mélanie Aubé, technician and acting director of the Haskell library and opera house, is a simple black adhesive tape stuck diagonally on the floor of the small establishment in Stanstead, in the Eastern Townships, which has the misfortune of ‘straddle Canada and the United States. It is she who marks the border between the two countries.

This geographical detail, which gives a picturesque charm to the library, was the source of a bureaucratic nightmare, when the not always coherent sanitary rules and the obstacles to cross-border movements imposed by the Canadian and American customs administrations forced the century-old establishment. to close its doors to the public until December 2.

“Health Canada was preventing us from opening because Americans and Canadians could have mingled,” explains Caroline Fortier, coordinator at the library, who has lost two of her four employees since the start of the health crisis, including its director.

“So that was a problem. And it took a long time … ”

To understand the source of the problems, you need to have an idea of ​​the layout of the premises. The bulk of the building, a sort of luxurious 19th century mansion^e century, which houses a library and an auditorium, is on Canadian soil. But the facade and the front door are in the United States, more precisely in Derby Line, a village in Vermont of 625 inhabitants.

To access the library, Quebecers must therefore enter the United States. However, the American authorities have made a concession to make their lives easier: they can get there without formalities if they stay on the sidewalk leading from Stanstead, at the end of Church Street, to the front door of the library on the American side. But be careful: they must not set foot in the street!

Surveillance is provided by security cameras perched atop light poles at Derby Line.

Closed for 20 months

So what has the pandemic changed?

The library remained closed during the first months of the crisis, like all other libraries. Even the employees were not allowed to go there. But when health rules relaxed, customs rules took over.

Employees could get there through the emergency exit door on the Canadian side, but users could not because they had to go through the main entrance door, located in the United States, and the border Canada-US land was closed.

When the library was finally reopened to fully vaccinated non-essential travelers on November 8, citizens could, in principle, have regained their access. But no, because Canadians returning from a trip to the United States had to provide a PCR test to return home.

And Health Canada ruled that the rule applied even if the “stay” in the United States had only lasted a few minutes.

Result: the library remained closed!

However, a free delivery service for books, magazines, DVDs and audiobooks was offered to members during the closure.

Could it not have been accessible to Americans, while being closed to Canadians? Again, no, but this time because of the American bureaucracy. The authorities did not want to allow their citizens to come into contact with Canadians. There was none, you will say, since the latter were not allowed to set foot there. But there were the employees, both of whom are Canadian.

“The employees would have had to be American,” confirms Mélanie Aubé.

And so the library, founded in 1904 to encourage rapprochement between the two peoples, could not accommodate its members for 20 months.

But that’s in the past!

Slow return to normal

Since Thursday, the establishment, which serves in particular the cities of Stanstead, Canton de Stanstead, Ogden, Way’s Mills, Hatley and Bolton, on the Quebec side, has finally been reopened to users, members in good standing doubly vaccinated. . On his first day, he received 21 people.

The non-profit organization is managed by a board of directors made up of four American members and three Canadian members. Two-thirds of its members are Canadian, and the other third are Americans. He survives thanks to donations and grants from both countries.

It was Martha Stewart Haskell, born in Quebec, who had this sumptuous building constructed in the early 1900s, following the death of her husband, Carlos Haskell, a prosperous American from Vermont. She wanted to make culture and literature accessible to her region, which included American and Canadian cities. In 1906, a year after the establishment opened, Mr.^me Stewart passed away, and the library, according to his wishes, was transferred to residents of Canada and the United States.

The opera hall, which has become a performance hall, occupies the second floor and can accommodate 500 people. It has been beautifully preserved in its original condition. There too, a black adhesive tape stuck to the floor marks the separation between the two countries.

Jody Stone, the new mayor of Stanstead, elected on November 7, hopes that the establishment will remain open.

Mr. Stone recalls that the sidewalk of Church Street, in Stanstead, towards Derby Line, Vermont, was the scene of many meetings between Canadians and Americans during the pandemic. “There were even street weddings there,” he says, promising to visit the library.