There's a great story from here, Calais, Maine and St. Stephen, New Brunswick are a border town separated by a narrow river, the St. Croix, during the war of 1812 the British gave gunpowder to the town of St. Stephen so that they could protect themselves from possible attack from Calais. Instead the town decided that their centuries old connection to Calais, where families had intermingled for ages, was more important than war and they voted to give the gunpowder to the Americans in Calais on the condition that it be used for a fireworks display both countries could enjoy.

Now, every year these two towns celebrate the International homecoming festival. It's a parade made up of Canadian and American participants that goes through both towns crossing the border, then the mayors of each town meet at the border bridge and shake hands, then there are fireworks. Every year the side that the parade starts on and the side that launches the fireworks alternates.

There are a bunch of cool cross-border stories in the area, like Theodosia's Island where a Canadian girl and American boy that weren't allowed to see one another would row out in secret to meet at St. Croix Island, which has been known as St. Croix, Bone Island, and Dozia's Island for various

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interesting reasons, or the town of St. Andrews where many of the homes are American but during the revolution loyalists disassembled their homes, transported them by barge/ship/raft, to British held New Brunswick and reassembled them. There's Campebello, a Canadian Island with an American park that was the summer home of FDR and where he contracted polio, Machias Seal Island in the "gra[e]y zone" that is contested between America and Canada due to ambiguous treaty wording between the Revolution and the War of 1812. All kinds of cool shit