Preface

The fox gazed at the little prince for a long time.

“Please—tame me!” he said.

“I want to, very much,” the little prince replied. “But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand.”

“One only understands the things that one tames,” said the fox.

—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Ever since the Treaty of Ghent was signed December 24, 1814, Canada and the United States have remained peaceful neighbors. International relationships of such rarity are exemplary models for other nations to study and master for themselves.

Were such friendships universal, military institutions would eventually become obsolete. The joy of peace would accompany the flourishing health of world economies. Universal peace would be a brand-new experience for Planet Earth. History would then march to an about-face, there to explore a social landscape new and surprisingly exciting.

But wars and rumors of war persist. Planet Earth remains untamed.

“I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another,” observed Erich Maria Remarque. “I see that the keenest brains of the world invent weapons and words to make it yet more refined and enduring.”

He said it for the dead all quiet on the Western Front

He said it after the Lusitania was torpedoed

He said it before the Arizona went down

It was several years before Enola Gay

While Dresden awaited her fate

And long before Hiroshima

Decades before Korea

The Bay of Pigs

Or Vietnam

The Gulf

Rwanda

Bosnia

9-11

Iraq          

Earth’s taming is what the International Peace Arch is about. Taming the world for peace with goodwill toward humankind remains open like the famed portal itself—a monument capable of playing a monumental role in the recognition, the study, the enjoyment and the promotion of peace.

For my part, writing this book was no easy task. I’ve been at it on and off since the summer of 1988 when I submitted a brief history of the Peace Arch for university credit. And now this book’s bibliography is longer than the original essay.

I am no historian. Residents of my hometown have wrongly labeled me such. Historians are professionals with appropriate training for such entitlements. More appropriately, I am a hobbyist who collects information having to do with the past, present and future of the International Peace Arch.

Objectivity is a serious concern for professional historians. In my youth I thought I understood it; today I’m not at all certain. My tendency is to believe objectivity is packaged in multiple versions. These many objectivities compete for the “truth.” That’s why politicians, scientists, economists, theologians, lawyers, husbands, wives—and most everyone else—argue. I disagree with Comte’s notion that observation and imagination are mutually independent. I agree with Kierkegaard’s ironic conclusion: “Truth is subjectivity.” My beliefs render me a poor empiricist. And every objective historian is an able empiricist.

As a resident living in or near Blaine for fifty of my seventy-three years, I have developed a growing interest in the Peace Arch. As a matter of fact, since inheriting my parents’ home in 1973, I have been living a mere city block from Peace Arch State Park.

Regrets? I have a few. Because I am a citizen of the United States who lives in the state of Washington, my perspective has bent southward. It’s a bias traceable—at least in part—to means limited. Most of the material gathered for this book was unearthed within a twenty-five-mile radius of my home, and usually south of the border. By far, I have relied upon articles from the Blaine Journal, the Blaine Journal-Press, the Westside Record-Journal, and the Record-Journal—a newspaper that changed names several times during the past century. The historically productive Record-Journal archive is in Ferndale, Washington, only seventeen miles south of my home.

Liberties? I’ve taken a few. Most edited is a collection of poems, but I have also edited newspaper articles among other materials. Purists may take issue with this practice, but I place literary attractiveness above butchered English, assuming the esthetics of the former doesn’t destroy the truth of the latter.

This book is not so much a hardnosed history of the Peace Arch as it is a collection of historical perceptions of the monument and its adjoining parks. Of course my perception of those perceptions is another matter. The writer, always responsible for picking and choosing those data he considers significant, is himself a variable in the research process. I have eschewed personal interviews on the ground that, given the fallibilities of the human mind, memories are likely to convey more misinformation than timely press releases.

I have uprooted several monumental myths, and, like it or not, I attacked every one of them. Although I consider truth, like love, to be “in the eyes of the beholder,” I have nevertheless chosen truth—as my eyes behold it—over popular beliefs that I conclude are mythical. Attacking myths does not mean they should be destroyed. They need only to be identified. Myths are fictions, but they are conveyors of truth. Citing an example, I must say that children, by means of their pennies, nickels and dimes, funded neither the Peace Arch nor its acreages as commonly believed. Yet the myth bears a truth: Children of any mother—be she common or uncommon, rich or poor, married or unmarried—are genuine human beings worthy of recognition, appreciation, care and love. Too often, Mother Earth’s children are neglected, intimidated, injured and destroyed by an untamed world of irresponsible grownups, repressive governments, institutionalized ignorance and wars.

This book fails to tell the whole story of the Peace Arch, and what I have told may be subject to error, for which I hereby apologize in advance. Readers, aware of needed corrections or additions, should feel free to share their impressions; perhaps I shall be present to produce a second edition, corrected, updated and improved.

Among the many who deserve thanks for this exercise, I wish especially to thank Arlene Delzer for sending me the Peace Arch file that was the possession of her late father, Vernon C. McDonald, former secretary and president of the International Peace Arch Association. Thanks also belongs to James D. Moore, retired regional archivist affiliated with Washington State Archives, Northwest Region; Ranger Wayne Eden, and June Auld, gardener, at Peace Arch State Park; Director Roger DeSpain and Operations Manager Lynne Givler of Whatcom County Parks and Recreation, and assistant Jade Sommer; John Hiebert, landscape manager with British Columbia Provincial Park; Elizabeth Joffrion, archivist for the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies; Chak Yung, archivist with the City of White Rock Museum and Archives; Kimberly Winjum and Michael Lewis of the Record-Journal; Anne Baker and Marjorie Reeves of the United Daughters of the Confederacy; Jerry Wolfe of Gyros International; Patti Wotherspoon and Claudia Messier of the Information and Research Center, Vancouver Public Library; the members of the International Peace Arch Association; Dr. Gordon Dolman, the former Blaine School District superintendent who tells me never to give up; and Blaine Clark, my nephew, who kindly wrote the foreword.

Finally, I heartily thank Michael Lewis and Kimberlly Winjum, publishers of the Record-Journal; Evan Miller, managing editor of the Bellingham Herald, and songwriter Christina Alexander, for permission to enter quotations in this manuscript.

Until global peace becomes humankind’s giant leap, let us promote it locally, one small step at a time.