Point Roberts Family Finds a Hard Life, but a Rewarding One

POINT ROBERTS, Wash. — Born in a log cabin on his immigrant father’s homestead, 81-year-old Agnar Magnusson has made his living from the land and the sea all his life.

The hard way.

Magnusson grew up on the 80 acres his father, Magnus, claimed in 1902 after a long westward migration from his native Iceland.

Agnar Magnusson fished off the point near the Canadian border in reef boats, started a shingle mill and cut pulpwood “by the scowload” in the ‘20s and ‘30s.

He also fished for crab, dug clams for a cannery, cleared road rights of way, dug wells and logged.

Life on a Tight Budget

Before a heart attack slowed him down, Magnusson says: “I always worked, but I made barely enough to buy groceries.”

Magnusson and his Canadian-born wife, Shirley, raised three children--son Trygve and two daughters Kristin and Kim. All still live on the point--Trygve in a wood-frame house, built of boards from discarded fish traps, that replaced the Magnusson log cabin.

Following his parents’ example, Trygve married a Canadian, Mary Ann, whom he met at a Point Roberts party. Their son, Travis, was born in the old house last Thanksgiving, making him the fourth-generation Magnusson on the land.

Shirley says she and Agnar met when her bicycle tire went flat in front of his house as she delivered newspapers, the Vancouver Sun.

Land Sales Help

Magnusson fixed the flat so Shirley wouldn’t be late to milk the cows at home in neighboring Tsawwassen, British Columbia, she says. They were married seven years later.

In later years, the Magnussons made a living off the land by selling it--liquidating about 20 acres of their homestead.

“When we built this house 14 years ago, we were doing well in real estate,” says the elder Mrs. Magnusson, gesturing to their large, Spanish-style house.

But land sales have dwindled now, in contrast to the ‘60s when construction of a four-lane tunnel beneath the Fraser River brought Vancouver residents within easy driving reach of Point Roberts, and 1981, when land speculation was fueled by reports of resort development.

Typical Young Residents

With only a limited number of municipal wells available and no permanent, large-scale water supply yet secured, sales of undeveloped land without water have been restricted.

Trygve and Mary Ann Magnusson are in some ways typical of the young people who try to live the rural life here.

There are few jobs, so Trygve, who has both U.S. and Canadian citizenship, works several odd jobs to make a living. His wife, who secured permanent resident status after her marriage to him, has a part-time cleaning job at a local restaurant.

Reared in metropolitan Vancouver, she says she was looking for the quiet and beauty of the point. And although Point Roberts has a reputation as a retirement spot, she says she knows a number of young people making homes here now for themselves and their children.

Trygve, 25, who fished commercially out of Bellingham and also lived in Vancouver, says, “I know how to get by here . . . there’s less pressure.”