Machias Seal Island is a tiny dot on maps of North America. But the fogbound rock is significant for its location in an area known as the "Grey Zone" – the site of a rare international dispute between Canada and the United States.
The two neighbours and long-time allies have each long laid claim to the island and surrounding water, where the US state of Maine meets Canada's New Brunswick province – and with that claim, the right to catch and sell the prized local lobsters.
John Drouin, a US lobsterman who has fished in the Grey Zone for 30 years, tells of the mad dash by Canadian and American fishermen to place lobster traps at the start of the summer catching season each year.
"People have literally lost parts of their bodies, have had concussions, [their] head smashed and everything," he says.
The injuries have been caused when lobstermen have been caught up in each other's lines. He says one friend lost his thumb after it became caught up in a Canadian line, what Mr Drouin calls his battle scar from the Grey Zone.
Canada and the US have disputed the sovereignty of the 'Grey Zone' since the 1700s
The 277 square miles of sea around Machias Seal Island has been under dispute since the late 1700s – and in 1984, an international court ruling gave both the US and Canada the right to fish in the waterway.
It has stood as a quirk – an isolated area of tension in what had been, until now, an otherwise close relationship between the two countries.
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