Borders between nations are often drawn along rivers or lakes, sometimes along the peak of mountain ranges, occasionally along specific latitudes or longitudes.
Then there is the border between The Algonkian-Manitou Council and the UCAS, which is mostly set along a highway. Take a look at a Shadowrun map, then go to google maps and ask for directions from Mattawa, Ontario, to Kenora, Ontario, and you can see that this is the case.
On the one hand, I can see why the AMC would have bargained hard to have the highway – otherwise they would not have a road link across their territory (I’m serious, there is literally no other east-west road crossing northern Ontario – it is that inhospitable. Although there is also a railway running along the same basic route as the highway for much of the way). Apparently they bargained well, managing to get the Thunder Bay area (the highway does dip down to near Lake Superior at that point), which means that to drive from one part of the UCAS to another along the north shore of Lake Superior, you need to pass through AMC territory briefly.
I’m pretty sure that there is nothing official regarding where the border falls compared to the highway. As I stated above, I’m assuming that the AMC has the highway, as there are other roads across the UCAS, but there are not other roads across the AMC. Which raises a bit of an interesting question about the location of the border with respect to the highway. I could imagine:
1. The border lies a small distance south of the highway
2. Officially the border is down the middle of the the highway, and there is some sort of joint maintenance and patrol structure set up.
3. The border is actually just north of the highway, because actually the AMC bargained horribly and the UCAS ownership of the highway, forcing AMC to use an UCAS road to get back and forth across their territories, was an FU to the NAN during border negotiations.
As I mentioned before, much of Northern Ontario is so inhospitable and sparsely populated that there are almost not roads of any kind, so few people would want to leave the road even if technically it would be an easy way to cross the border. However there are areas along the highway where things are comparatively built up and there are side-routes—essentially towards each end of the border and right near Thunder Bay. Not coincidentally, these are the more accessible parts of the highway. So in those areas I would presume there is some sort of border protection, and the details of the border would matter more.
Anyone have thoughts on what this ‘border-defined-by-highway’ might look like?
PS, I’ve looked at this border on other boards before, which is where someone pointed me at highway 11 as being where the border was drawn, but I’d not looked too hard at the implications of using a road, mostly through the middle-of-nowhere, as a border.
PPS, I was reminded of this topic because over the weekend the a bridge near Thunder Bay was damaged, cutting the only road route from eastern Canada to Western Canada. This is in the stretch where highway 11 comes down near Lake Superior and joins with the highway near the lake shore, such that there is only 1 road link along that stretch.
