For many, the Lloydminster border is just something politicians and journalists talk about. For others, it’s a daily headache they have to endure.
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For some context, Lloydminster once existed entirely in the Northwest Territories. Prior to 1905, there was no Alberta or Saskatchewan.
Once the two provinces formed, it split Lloydminster down the middle, creating two separate entities, the town and village of Lloydminster.
They existed on either side of an imaginary line until just after the great fire in 1929, when local leaders pushed for the union into one complete Lloydminster.
That’s the brief history of the inception of the border that split Lloyd.
Year-over-year it seems to pose new and more complicated problems than in the past.
Having half your city in one province and half your city in the other has led to plenty of difficulties for those trying to manoeuvre the daily Lloydminster life. One such event is the focus of my ramblings today.
I want to preface this by saying, the information available for this event is sparce, but I’d love to discover more details about it. If this sounds at all familiar to you, send me an email at ch*******@************ce.ca as I’d love to chat and get the details.
While the year this happened is unknown, trains have gone through Lloydminster for decades.
Today, they typically stall you on your way to an appointment or while heading out for lunch.
Trains that stopped at the CNR station were half in Alberta and half in Saskatchewan at this mysterious time.
The story goes like this. A man was found dead in his coach while heading into Saskatchewan.
His body, still being in Alberta, caused a large stoppage as the body could not be moved across provinces. Regulations prohibited the moving of a corpse from one province to another without a permit.
The train was stuck in place until the conductor could find a constable to OK the moving of the corpse.
And that wraps up the brief story of the train that was stuck in Lloydminster because of the border.
The story itself is fascinating; I hope to be able to find more details about it and report back.
The border will always be a problem in Lloydminster, but I could imagine the frustration for the travellers who were stuck with likely no idea what was going on.
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