The area around the southern Tsawwassen Peninsula was a favored fishing spot for several
Coast Salish groups. The first Europeans to see Point Roberts were members of the 1791 expedition of
Francisco de Eliza. The maps produced from Eliza's explorations depicted Point Roberts as "Isla de Cepeda" or "Isla de Zepeda." In 1792, the British expedition of
George Vancouver and the Spanish expedition of
Dionisio Alcalá Galiano encountered one another near Point Roberts. In the morning of June 13, 1792, the two ships under Galiano sailed into Boundary Bay and verified Point Roberts was not an island, which was thus renamed
Punta Cepeda. They then sailed around Point Roberts and immediately encountered
HMS Chatham, the second ship of Vancouver's expedition. The two parties made contact and agreed to share information and work together in mapping the
Strait of Georgia. Point Roberts acquired its present name from George Vancouver, who named it after his friend
Henry Roberts, who had originally been given command of the expedition. Point Roberts assumed its present political status in 1846, when the
Oregon Treaty extended the
49th parallel as the boundary between U.S. and British territory from the
Rocky Mountains to
Georgia Strait.
Treaty history specific to Point Roberts After years of joint occupation of the disputed area between
Mexican California and Russian America (now
Alaska) known as the
Oregon Country to the Americans, and as the
Columbia District to the British, American expansionists like U.S. Senator
Edward A. Hannegan of Indiana urged
U.S. President James K. Polk to annex the entire Oregon Country up to latitude
54°40′N, as the Democrats had been elected on the slogan "
Fifty-Four Forty or Fight". While his government asserted that the title of the United States of America to the entire territory was unquestionable even though there was only one U.S. resident (a former Briton) north of the Columbia basin, Polk and Secretary of State
James Buchanan made an offer of a boundary at 49 degrees with the line straight across
Vancouver Island, with no commercial privilege to be granted to the British south of the line, with the exception of free ports on Vancouver Island. The British rejected the offer and the U.S. soon withdrew it. On April 18, 1846, notice was forwarded to London that the
U.S. Congress had adopted a joint resolution abrogating the
Treaty of 1818 which provided for joint occupancy. The British emissary,
Richard Pakenham, had been advised that the last concession he could expect of the United States was to bend the boundary at the 49th parallel around the southern end of Vancouver Island.
Fort Victoria was viewed as the future center for settlements on the island. It was deemed necessary around this point in time to give up territory on the
Lower Mainland to keep Vancouver Island part of
British North America.
Lord Aberdeen, British
Foreign Secretary, proposed a treaty making the 49th parallel the boundary to the sea, giving the UK the whole of Vancouver Island. The
Treaty of Oregon was concluded on June 15, 1846. The acceptance of the 49th parallel as the international boundary was concluded without precise knowledge of its effects. Later, as the Boundary Commission surveyed the line, the British government realized the peninsula of Point Roberts would be an isolated part of the United States. The
British Foreign Office instructed
Captain James Prevost, the British Boundary Commissioner, to inform his U.S. counterpart of the situation and request Point Roberts be left to Britain, because of the great inconvenience it would be to the United States. If the American Boundary Commission was reluctant, Prevost was instructed to offer "some equivalent compensation by a slight alteration of the Line of Boundary on the Mainland". It is not known how the U.S. commissioner responded, but Point Roberts remained part of the United States. File:US-border-notice.jpg|Notice at the international boundary between Canada and the United States in Point Roberts File:Warning sign at Point Roberts.jpg|Boundary post in Point Roberts, Washington at the boundary between U.S. and Canada; photo taken at English Bluff Road, Delta facing Marine Drive, Point Roberts File:Boundary Marker No.1 Point Roberts.JPG|Boundary Marker No.1 on the
49th parallel north on the western shore of Point Roberts, erected in 1861
Relationship with Canada During the
1858 Fraser gold rush, prospectors from Victoria, BC who were attempting to avoid tax collection briefly settled Point Roberts. Their settlement was called Robert's Town and consisted of six wooden buildings, including a store and saloon, but lasted less than a year. In 1949, there was talk about Point Roberts seceding from the U.S. and joining Canada. A regional development plan for the Lower Mainland presented in 1952 suggested turning Point Roberts into an
international park or leasing it for
99 or 999 years. In 1973, a drought that caused the wells to run dry created tensions between Point Roberts's U.S. and Canadian residents. The Americans threatened to cut off the Canadian residents' water supply — and hung up signs saying "Canadians Go Home" — unless the Canadian municipality of Delta agreed to provide water. An agreement signed on August 28, 1987, requires the Point Roberts Water District to purchase raw water on an annual basis from the Greater Vancouver Water District. Delta Fire Department also
provides assistance to the Point Roberts volunteer fire department when requested. Until 1988, BC Tel (now
Telus Communications) provided telephone service; the sole exchange prefix of 945, officially part of area code 206, could also be dialed through area code 604 during the period of BC Tel ownership. After the
September 11 attacks of 2001, security at border crossings—including Point Roberts—was increased, leading to long delays for residents. The Canadian border was closed to non-essential travel in March 2020 due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, which had been worsening in both countries but especially in the United States. In 2020, a study found that Point Roberts had lost 80 percent of its business and hundreds of seasonal residents as a result of the pandemic and border shutdown. The area, described as a "
ghost town" by the local chamber of commerce director, had no confirmed cases of COVID-19 . A temporary ferry was set up by the
Port of Bellingham in August 2020 to connect Point Roberts to the mainland, initially to Blaine and later to Bellingham. The border was fully reopened for non-essential travel in August 2021 and the ferry service ceased the same month. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Point Roberts was acclaimed as the "safest place" for avoiding
coronavirus due to its isolation from the mainland United States and Canada and very low case numbers. Because of limited access to the rest of Whatcom County and border closures into Canada, the case numbers remained very low. The City of Delta installed a
chain-link fence at the end of English Bluff Road in 2025 to deter accidental crossings after an elderly man walked into Point Roberts. The fence was poorly received by local residents and at least one Delta council member demanded its removal. == Geography ==