After seven decades, a rare airport straddling the U.S.-Canada border is closing for good in Minnesota

A tiny airport straddling the far northern Minnesota-Canada border will shut down for good Friday after more than 70 years of operations, likely with little fanfare.

But for brief moments in its quiet history, the Piney-Pinecreek Border Airport was kind of famous precisely because it was located in both countries, a rarity in U.S. aviation.

“The world’s first binational airport,” declared the New York Times in a 1979 article, written in breathless fashion. Even now, it is one of just six general aviation airports nationwide that share a border with the neighbor to the north.

But officials from the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) and the rural municipality of Piney in Canada, which jointly own the facility, have determined that maintenance and future upkeep are too costly to keep the lightly-used airport operating.

The unique international agreement required to run the public-use airport will expire Thursday, with the airport closing for good Friday.

“It’s unfortunate,” said David Beaudry, chair of the board overseeing the airport, and a member of the Piney Municipal Council in Manitoba. “But fiscal budgets are so tight; everything is so expensive.”

MnDOT estimates the airport will need about $3.8 million in short-term updates and repairs through 2028, and all told, almost $9.5 million over the next 20 years. A consultant’s report completed in August for MnDOT said the airport’s runway needs to be reconstructed, and its maintenance building and septic system replaced, among other repairs.

MnDOT officials say the cost to do the work would have been shared with Piney, but with an average of 200 aircraft using the facility a year, the price proved too high to justify the expense.

“In June, Canada said it couldn’t operate and fund the airport jointly,” said Ryan Gaug, director of MnDOT’s Office of Aeronautics at a Metropolitan Airports Commission meeting last week. That left MnDOT to determine whether it was feasible to operate an airport partly in another country, especially one with looming capital costs.

“There’s just not a lot of activity there,” Gaug said, noting that MnDOT had already been studying Piney-Pinecreek’s future options. “But when Canada made their decision, it really forced our hand. The answer was ‘no.’”

MnDOT noted that airports in Warroad, Roseau, Stephen and Warren are close by for Piney-Pinecreek pilots, plus they accommodate more annual aircraft operations and support aircraft there.

The Piney-Pinecreek airport “is a very minor, but very unique, airport,” Gaug added.

The airport, located about 20 miles northwest of Roseau, requires an international agreement spelling out operations and financial contributions — mostly split between MnDOT and Piney — as well as maintenance and capital improvement plans between the two entities. The most-recent pact was struck in 2022. A board governing the facility consists of four Canadians and four Americans.

Beaudry said there was no financial help forthcoming from the Canadian government to help overhaul the airport. “We really tried,” he said. “I think both parties are sad to see it go. The locals years ago put their hearts into making it viable — on both sides of the border.”

The idea for an airport in Pinecreek, was hatched in 1949 by the late Eugene Simmons, a local resident and aviation enthusiast, according to local newspaper clippings.

Simmons and other boosters were successful raising funds and generating enthusiasm for a small airport to accommodate fishermen, hunters and others crossing the border, partly to help them clear customs more efficiently.

In 1953, the Pinecreek airport opened with a grass runway that stopped short at the Canadian border — the 49th Parallel. About 20 years later, airport boosters rallied again with a desire to pave the runway and extend it another 1,100 feet enabling it to accommodate bigger airplanes.

The only viable route for a longer runway was north — into Canada.

That began at least seven years of bureaucratic wrangling on both sides of the border, ultimately Sen. Hubert Humphrey had to tack a rider authorizing the airport onto a foreign aid bill, according to the New York Times.

Minnesota Gov. Al Quie and Premier Sterling Lyon of Manitoba attended the opening-day celebration in 1979, which featured “helicopters, jet flybys, parachutists and stunt fliers hanging upside down. And, of course, pancakes — courtesy of a Lutheran women’s group,” the Times’ scribe wrote.

Since then, the airport has operated with little fanfare. Its main users continue to be fisherman and hunters, and it’s busiest during summer months. Over the years, the airport has accommodated aircraft used for medical emergencies, flight training for pilots, and transfers of human organ for transplants, according to the MnDOT report.

Airport Manager Mark Elton said every summer Canadian pilots come through en route to a popular air show in Oshkosh, Wis.

“Sometimes you see six or seven airplanes in a row,” he said.

And for awhile, a Canadian pilot commandeering a vintage World War II P-51 Mustang fighter plane would occasionally touch down at Piney-Pinecreek.

For Elton, the airport has long been a family affair. His father, Marlin, served as its manager for many years, and still sits on the board. And Simmons, the airport’s de facto founder, was his great uncle.

“It’s sad, but it’s kind of how things go,” Elton said Friday. “Nothing lasts forever.”