The Northgate Border Crossing connects the cities of
Bowbells, North Dakota
Bowbells is a city in and the county seat of Burke County, North Dakota, United States. The population was 301 at the 2020 census.
History
The city of Bowbells was founded in 1898 along the main line of the Soo Line Railroad and incorporated i ...
and
Alameda, Saskatchewan
Alameda is a town in south-eastern Saskatchewan, Canada, approximately east of Estevan. A translation of Alameda from Spanish is "Poplar Grove" or "Tree Lined Avenue". One popular story is that the town was named for Alameda, California althou ...
on the
Canada–US border.
North Dakota Highway 8
North Dakota Highway 8 (ND 8) is a north–south State highway#United States, state highway in North Dakota, United States. The highway is split into two segments. The southern segment is long and travels from Lake Sakakawea near Tw ...
on the American side joins
Saskatchewan Highway 9
Highway 9 is a paved, undivided Numbered highways in Canada, provincial highway in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It runs from North Dakota Highway 8 at the Canada–United States border, US border n ...
on the Canadian side.
Canadian side
The customs office opened in 1907 at
Boscurvis about north of the border. The office operated under the administrative oversight of the Port of North Portal. A replacement facility, called Boundary Line, was constructed at the border in 1913. That year, the
Grand Trunk Pacific Railway
The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway was a historic Canadian transcontinental railway running from Fort William, Ontario (now Thunder Bay) to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, a Pacific coast port. East of Winnipeg the line continued as the National ...
had built southward to connect with the
Great Northern Railway building northward. In 1916–17, the office name changed to Northgate. During Prohibition in Saskatchewan, the smuggling of liquor northward through Northgate could turn violent.
The customs building was replaced in 1964. The former building
was razed in 2014/15.
In 2020, the hours changed from being 8 am to 9 pm (summer) and 9 am to 10 pm (winter) to 8 am to 4 pm (summer) and mirroring the US winter hours. The port changed back to its regular hours late in 2021.
In January 2025, following an announcement by CBSA regarding hour changes at ports of entry across Canada, Northgate changed its hours of operation to 9 am to 5 pm (winter) and 8 am to 4 pm (summer) to mirror the hours of operation on the US side.
US side
The early border patrol history is unclear, but assumedly the US mirrored the establishment of a permanent post at least by the 1910s.
The US upgraded its border station on Highway 8 in 2004.
Highway realignment and rail upgrade

In 1962, the building of Highway 8 realigned the road to west of the previous crossing.
After being idle for years, the
Canadian National Railway
The Canadian National Railway Company () is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States.
CN is Canada's largest railway, in terms of both revenue a ...
upgraded its tracks at this crossing to support rail traffic from the
Bakken oil field.
See also
*
List of Canada–United States border crossings
This article includes lists of border crossings, ordered from west to east (north to south for Alaska crossings), along the Canada–United States border. Each port of entry (POE) in the tables below links to an article about that crossing.
On th ...
References
Canada–United States border crossings
Geography of Saskatchewan
Transportation in Burke County, North Dakota
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