Three Thousand Miles of Border Line
By Guy W. Bilsland

Composed for the Armistice Day celebration of November 11, 1937, Bilsland’s poem appeared annually in every Peace Arch program prior to World War II. After the war, Nellie O. Larson of Portland, Oregon, sent a letter to the editor of the Blaine Journal, informing him that she had found a poem, written on the back of an old calendar during World War I. Missing was the poet’s name. It was Bilsland. Unaware that the poem was “Three Thousand Miles of Border Line,” Larson entitled it “A Century of Peace,” because she believed a painting bearing the same title by artist Fletcher C. Ransom had inspired Bilsland. Of special interest is the fact the poem Larson discovered contained three more stanzas than the version appearing in the 1937-1940 programs distributed at the annual Peace Arch Armistice Day celebrations. Those verses will appear in italics.

Three Thousand miles of border line!
One hundred years of peace!
In all the page of history, what parallel to this?
In times when warring nations’ thoughts are crazed with Hate’s hot wine,
How God must look with pleasure down upon that border line!

From Maine it runs through lake and stream to Manitoba’s plain,
From Winnipeg to Kootenay, on, on and on again,
Through farm and ranch and forest range,
O’er mountain Craig and steep,
To far Vancouver’s garden home by broad Pacific’s sweep.

Three thousand miles of border line—two nations side by side;
Each strong in common motherhood and Anglo-Saxon pride;
Yet each the haven and the home for all of foreign birth,
And each their final fusion point—the melting pot of earth!

Three thousand miles of border line—nor fort nor armed host,
On all this frontier neighbor-ground, from east to western coast;
A spectacle to conjure with—a thought to stir the blood!
A living proof to all the world of faith in brotherhood!

Three thousand miles of border line—nor has a century
Seen aught along this common course but peace and harmony.
O, nations bound in brotherhood! O, faith in fellowman!
What better way on earth to dwell, than this God-given plan?

Three Thousand miles of border line!
One hundred years of peace!
In all the page of history what parallel to this?
Godspeed that surely dawning day, that coming hour divine,
When all the nations of the earth shall boast such border line.