CHRIS HAWLEY
Associated Press
MASSENA, N.Y. – Border Patrol agent Glenn Pickering slowed his rumbling snowmobile to a stop and eyed two trails of churned-up snow running down a riverbank.
They were snowmobile tracks leading out onto the ice of the frozen St. Lawrence River that runs between upstate New York and Canada. At night smugglers race across the ice with bags of marijuana. Pickering shielded his eyes with his hand as the wind covered the tracks; he couldn’t see whether they went all the way across the border.
“There are all these islands out here, and the snowmobiles just come shooting across,” Pickering said. “It’s a constant battle.”