CALAIS (AP) – After spending an hour in pouring rain in a line of traffic leading to a border checkpoint, Ellen Johnson was asked to produce photo identification before entering the United States to join her sister at a church supper.

The customs officer who made the request was no stranger to Johnson, having grown up on the same street in Calais – pronounced KAH’-luss – where she lived before moving to St. Stephen, New Brunswick, just across the St. Croix River.

Johnson had forgotten her passport, so her husband had to turn around and return home. She was not angered, though. “I know better, and I should have had it,” she said.

Johnson was delayed at the Ferry Point Bridge crossing two weeks before the June 2-3 arrests of 17 Canadians in an alleged terror plot. Many fear that such tough security will stifle international commerce and tourism at the key gateway into the U.S. from the Canadian Maritimes.

The Ferry Point Bridge crossing, eighth busiest along the 4,000-mile U.S.-Canadian border, links the downtown districts of Calais and St. Stephen; there is a lesser-used checkpoint a mile upriver at the Milltown Bridge. Either or both are often used several times a day by area residents to work, shop and visit family on opposite sides of the border; fire trucks and other emergency vehicles routinely cross the border to provide assistance.

“We don’t see this as a border. To us, this is just two towns,” said Bill Francis, who lives in St. Stephen and owns a gift shop in Baring, just outside Calais.

The U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection says the more frequent ID checks at Calais and other Maine border points that began during Canada’s busy Victoria Day weekend were not a response to a specific threat.

“A lot of people thought it was a special operation or a change in policy. It’s not,” said spokesman Ted Woo. The bureau followed similar procedures in the past, he said, “but not necessarily 100 percent. We ramped up to 100 percent.”

The bureau said lines like the ones Johnson encountered at Calais last month forced motorists to wait up to 45 minutes, but local residents say the wait lasted up to two hours.

Complaints poured into the offices of the Maine congressional delegation. A week later, the bureau backed away from a no-exceptions policy. Woo suggested that someone living along the border who crosses three or four times a day might get checked the first time and then be recognized and waved through for the rest of the day.

The layout at Ferry Point contributes to the lines. When more than one truck is waiting to be X-rayed, cars are blocked from reaching the two kiosks manned by customs officers, even if the lanes are empty.

That problem will ease with the opening of a new bridge designed to relieve congestion in both downtowns near the crossing. The project, whose $128 million cost will be split between the U.S. and Canada, is slated for completion in September 2008.

But worries persist about the Bush administration’s 2008 deadline for requiring anyone entering the U.S. to produce a passport or a tamper-proof ID that meets new federal standards. Some in Congress want to delay the restrictions to avoid impeding tourism and cross-border shopping.

The concerns come as U.S. businesses are anticipating a boost in sales to Canadians, whose dollar has soared in value by 40 percent against the U.S. dollar in the past four years and is at a 28-year high.

“It had been years since we’d seen Canadians,” said Francis, whose shop, Knock on Wood, is on a busy route to Bangor and points south. But even though the “loonie,” as the Canadian dollar is known, is now worth 90 cents (U.S.) instead of about 65 cents, Francis figures it will take a while before habits change.

“People get into shopping patterns, and they don’t change those patterns just because the dollar changes,” he said.

Canadians still cross the border for gasoline, which is nearly $1 a gallon cheaper in the U.S., and have traditionally bought their milk and poultry there. They also are attracted by unique items, “things they can’t buy at home,” Francis said.

Not surprisingly, the delays and the requirement that customs officers be shown ID even by people they recognize are a prime topic of conversation. A recent editorial cartoon in the Bangor Daily News showed an officer handing an ID back to a motorist who said, “Thanks! I’ll see you at home for supper.”

Three weeks after she had to miss her church supper, Johnson said screening seems to have reverted to the level before the Victoria Day weekend.

“They haven’t even asked for any ID since,” she said.

But Johnson allowed that the Toronto arrests show the need for vigilance along the border.

“I should think they’d tighten up on the Canadian side,” she said. “You never know who’s coming across.”