Point Roberts Post Office: A Postal Oddity

The United States Postal Service has a post office located in Point Roberts, WA 98281, which may only be reached by car or truck by driving through British Columbia, Canada. You can also take a boat or fly in — only a boat or a float plane can travel directly there without crossing an international border.

After 30 years of working with USPS at our mailing facility in New Paltz, NY, we've developed a deep familiarity with how mail moves through the system — the sorting facilities, the carrier routes, the logistics that get a piece of mail from our press to a doorstep in Poughkeepsie or a mailbox in Pine Plains. It's a system built on efficiency and standardized routes. And then there's Point Roberts — where the mail has to leave the country to get delivered.

The Geographic Problem

Point Roberts is a small American community of about 1,300 residents sitting at the southern tip of the Tsawwassen Peninsula in British Columbia, Canada. It's technically part of Whatcom County, Washington, but it's only connected to the rest of the United States by water. The only land route runs through Canada. This happened because of the Oregon Treaty of 1846, which set the U.S.-Canada border at the 49th parallel. The treaty drew a straight line across the map regardless of geography, and the tip of the Tsawwassen Peninsula happened to dip below that line. So a small piece of land surrounded on three sides by water and on one side by Canada became — and remains — American territory.

How Mail Gets There

For USPS, this creates a daily logistical challenge that exists nowhere else in the domestic system. Mail bound for Point Roberts is sorted at the Blaine, Washington processing facility. From there, a USPS truck drives north into Canada through the Peace Arch border crossing, travels approximately 25 miles through Canadian territory along Highway 17, then crosses back into the United States at the Point Roberts border crossing.

The entire transit requires passing through two international border checkpoints — once entering Canada, once re-entering the U.S. — to deliver what is technically domestic mail to what is technically a contiguous American community. Postal carriers make this cross-border trip regularly, and the system works. Point Roberts has its own post office (ZIP code 98281) and receives standard USPS service despite the geographic complication. Residents pay the same domestic postage rates as everyone else.

Living With the Border

Point Roberts residents deal with the border reality in every aspect of daily life, not just mail. Children attend school in Blaine, Washington, which means a daily round trip through two border crossings. Medical emergencies can involve complex jurisdictional questions. During COVID-19 border closures, Point Roberts was effectively cut off from the rest of the United States for months, creating a humanitarian situation that required special exemptions for essential travel. Mail delivery during that period required coordination with Canadian border authorities to maintain service continuity.

Other Unusual USPS Delivery Routes

Point Roberts isn't the only place where USPS delivery requires creative logistics:

Supai, Arizona is a Havasupai village at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. It's the only place in the United States where mail is still delivered by mule. An 8-mile mule train carries mail and packages from the canyon rim to the village floor.

Hyder, Alaska is another border oddity. The town is more easily accessible from Stewart, British Columbia than from any other American community. Residents use Canadian cell phone service and Canadian dollars.

Why This Matters

These geographic quirks demonstrate something fundamental about the USPS mandate: universal service. The Postal Service is obligated to deliver mail to every address in the United States, regardless of how inconvenient the geography makes it. Mule trains into the Grand Canyon. Trucks through Canada. Boat runs to islands.

It's the same principle — at a much less dramatic scale — that ensures every carrier route in the Hudson Valley gets served. When we prepare an EDDM campaign for a client targeting rural Dutchess County towns like Stanford or Milan, those pieces get delivered to every address on the selected routes, even the ones at the end of long dirt roads. The system works because it's designed to reach everyone.

Sources:

1. Wikipedia: Point Roberts Post Office
2. 1997 100th anniversary of the Point Roberts Post Office postcard, courtesy of Gary Cullen

For more USPS history, read about famous postmasters who worked for USPS — including a president who carried letters in his hat. Or discover more unusual things you can do with USPS mail, including mailing a potato without a box.

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