Where America begins, and a gate built to stay open

Blaine calls itself the Peace Arch City, and its motto is 'Where America Begins.' It sits at the northernmost point of Interstate 5, on Drayton Harbor and Boundary Bay, about 35 miles south of Vancouver, British Columbia and 110 miles north of Seattle. The city incorporated in 1890 and grew as a fishing and logging border town; its population was 5,884 at the 2020 census. Two ports of entry sit at its edge: the Peace Arch crossing at the top of I-5, and the Pacific Highway crossing about a mile east, where the commercial trucks go.

The monument was dedicated on September 6, 1921, financed and built under the direction of Sam Hill, and stands 67 feet tall, concrete on a steel frame, where the international boundary reaches salt water. The American side is inscribed 'Children of a Common Mother' and the Canadian side 'Brethren Dwelling Together in Unity'; on the east portal are the words 'May These Gates Never Be Closed.' It commemorates the 1814 Treaty of Ghent, the 1842 Webster-Ashburton Treaty and the 1846 Oregon Treaty. The park around it is genuinely divided: Washington State Parks holds the southern half, BC Parks the northern, and the two agencies maintain it in partnership. The iron gates inside the arch are left open on purpose.

It is a fitting place to stop for a night before crossing. Matching a patient to an unrelated donor comes down to HLA markers, and you inherit half of yours from your mother and half from your father. NMDP notes that a patient's ethnic background is important in predicting the likelihood of a match, and that patients have a better chance of finding a match from an unrelated donor of the same ethnicity. Inheritance follows families and ancestry. It does not follow citizenship. Jada's family was in Washington State. Her donor was in Germany. Tomorrow the walk goes through the gate.