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Joseph Gough of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, was born in Lubec and grew up on Campobello Island, New Brunswick. He spent four years in the U.S. Coast Guard before becoming a public service executive for Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans. He has written two novels under the pen name Joseph Green.
American President Donald Trump has embarked on a mission to make Canada the 51st state, apparently through economic coercion. Such erratic musings have set the Canadian lynx prowling among the American loons. Many here want to spring a continental trap against Trump.
But instead, I’m offering a deal you can’t refuse.
Canada, a larger country than yours, controls the St. Lawrence River. That means we control the ships supplying upstate New York, Chicago, and the Great Lakes states. Which belonged to our side way back in time, and should be reclaimed.
But, here’s our deal for you today. Cooperate with Canada, we’ll let your ships keep using the St. Lawrence River. No starving you out. And you can keep your Midwest, as well as Elon Musk, the Canadian-passport holder heading up the Donnygarchs.
All we want is northern Maine.
Which naturally fits with Canada. Why? First, for symmetry. Maine sticks up between Quebec and the Maritimes like Paul Bunyan’s sore thumb, he being French Canadian by origin.
You only need to help us draw a straight border from the southeast corner of Quebec to the Maine coast above Bar Harbor. Trumpland will then look less crooked.
North of the new Border of Symmetry, Indigenous peoples of Maine and New Brunswick have shared their lives from the beginning. The Wabanaki – “People of the Dawnland” – have always been responsible for holding up the sky.
The Acadians of New France joined them and gave Maine its name, under one version of history. So under our deal, today’s Acadians of northern Maine will reunite with their cousins in the land that created poutine and international peacekeeping.
Northern Mainers already interact daily with the Irving interests of New Brunswick, who provide most of their gas stations and are Maine’s biggest private landowners. Business operators, foresters, fishermen, and intermarried families above the new Border of Symmetry have always gotten along “finest kind,” in local lingo.
The northern Mainers officially joining us can look forward to a safer country, better health care, and longer life expectancy. Sorry to mention our worrisome advantages, but of course, nothing will ever turn Trump’s hair gray.
Up here, we’ll gain a straighter and better connection between the Atlantic Provinces and Central Canada. That’ll also boost our prosperity and our defense power to protect the U.S. against attacks from over Canada’s own North Pole.
And straight-line border enforcement will help us guard against American infestations of guns and drugs.
Let me explain how the northern-Maine anomaly made our border crooked in the first place. The Aroostook War, also known as the Madawaska or Pork and Beans War, was bloodless except for the death of a bear. But it factored into the crazy British giveaway we need to remedy.
Today, Canadians as lords of the river want to be generous in the St. Lawrence Solution.
Such a great deal! Yield northern Maine, you’ll feel no pain, Chicago ships will sail again.
And for us, it’ll be Mainifest Destiny.
