Friends with Benefits?

Ten kilometres from where I grew up in Placentia, Newfoundland, sit the remains of the most expensive overseas American military establishment built during the Second World War: Argentia. The Base, as it’s still affectionately known, was born out of great-power political deal making. Winston Churchill needed surplus American warships to sustain the Royal Navy’s fight against Adolf Hitler’s U‑boat scourge, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt sought basing rights in strategically located British colonies like Newfoundland, not yet a part of Canada.

For us locals, the Base was more than a matter of high-stakes Allied war planning. During its operation, from 1941 until it closed in 1994, the American presence in a patch of rural Newfoundland grew to symbolize the tight bonds between Canada and the United States. Citizens of both countries worked alongside one another, jointly monitored Soviet submarine activity, married one another, started families, and basked in dual Canada...