HAVRE, Mont. (AP) - Joe Hazelton parks his truck on the cusp of Kennedy Coulee and faces the brisk wind blowing in from Canada. Raising his binoculars to his eyes, he scans the landscape that marks the 49th parallel, reading the morning shadows and the slowly shifting river in the ravine below.

Clad in green and black, U.S. Border Patrol agents like Hazelton spend a good chunk of their day alone, crossing the open terrain in search of the unusual. Few know the roads that jump the open border like the men and women who patrol this remote sector on Montana's northern tier.

"The southern border is a lot easier for people to cross and find a ride farther into the United States," said Hazelton, his voice carried by the prairie winds. "Here, it's not as easy, just because of the vastness of the area and the lack of population near the border."

The 49th parallel is little more than a broken fence separating two nations. A concrete obelisk clings to the coulee's south wall, noting the convention of 1818 when the boundary between British North America and the United States was established.

As far as the eye can see, it's open prairie, badlands and rolling hills with plenty of hiding places. The Sweetgrass Hills, with their pine forests and shaded gullies, provide good cover. The Milk River snakes lazily from Canada into Montana, cutting a deep chasm in the prairie. Many of the farms on the border are abandoned, the houses shuttered and the barns sealed, the perfect setting for a horror film, or better yet, a hideout.

It's empty to be sure. Only a handful of farmers remain on the northern tier, where they eke out a rugged living, not unlike the weeds growing from the rarely traveled roads. Yet, many who have attempted to cross into Montana on foot, illegally or not, have been spotted by area residents.

"We do a lot of liaison with the ranchers," Hazelton said. "Because of the vastness of the area, the farmers help us out a lot, serving as our eyes and ears."

Plenty of stories recount incidents where a farmer has reported suspicious activity. Over breakfast at the Lunch Box Cafe in downtown Havre, Stuart Mackintosh, an area farmer, recalled two Jamaicans dressed in shorts and T-shirts trying to cross into Montana near White Horse in September.

While the men successfully made it into the United States on foot, the fall weather came as a surprise and stopped them dead in their tracks. Too cold to go on, the men surrendered to a Hi-Line resident, who gave them refuge in a shed until the authorities took them into custody.

While most illegal activity is caught at the larger checkpoints like Sweetgrass, a few people have been known to try an illegal crossing on foot, traversing up to 70 miles of open, unpopulated country. Other than their own limitations, there's little to stop them from reaching U.S. Highway 2, an east-west thoroughfare that spans the nation.

"If you plan on walking into the U.S., you've got a long ways to go," said agent John Shew, standing outside the Whitlash Port of Entry, about 40 miles north of Chester. "Nine months of the year, it's brutally cold up here. And when someone does go cross-country, it's not long before they're noticed."

The landscape here is just as wide and unforgiving as the southern desert. Shew, like Hazelton, came north after a tour on the southern border, where illegal crossings were a daily occurrence.

But up here the days can pass quietly, the wind serving as an agent's only companion. Even so, Shew has stories to tell, including that of a man seen walking down the road looking hot and tired. A rancher reported him to authorities, and the Border Patrol came looking for him.

"We didn't know who he was or what he was doing," Shew said. "We came looking for him and sure enough, there he was, just walking down the road."

Where Shew says the Montana border's terrain and weather are a natural deterrent, Hill County Sheriff Greg Szudera said it may also serve as a national weakness. The entire Montana border stretches 545 miles from North Dakota to Idaho. In some ways, Szudera said, it's too big and open to completely patrol.

Seated in his Havre office, Szudera admitted that if he didn't have the Border Patrol guarding his back door, he'd need five more deputies to fill the void. It's one of the benefits of having the Border Patrol based across town, where agents help patrol the 2,897 square miles that comprise Hill County.

The county itself shares roughly 90 miles of border with Canada, including the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Riddled with snakes and cactus, desert heat and arctic cold, the terrain and conditions are unique to the northern plains.

But as the locals say, there isn't a Canadian immigration problem up north. That lack of activity may create an artificial sense of security, which has Szudera concerned.

"Terrorists - their goal is to murder people," he said. "If they can murder one or 30 or 3,000, they're going to do it. If we get too relaxed and don't act professional, we could be in serious trouble."

Szudera rocks behind his desk when talking about the northern border. While illegal crossings are more common down south, he admits, the flow of drugs and the threat of terrorism remain an equal concern up north.

In fact, many of the agents recite the Border Patrol's mission when pressed for details about their job. Their answers are somewhat rehearsed in that their primary goal is to stop terrorists and weapons of mass destruction from entering the country.

The isolation and hard work that goes with living on the northern tier allows few locals time to consider the threat of terrorism. What's more, the national media and Washington politicians focus largely on issues pertaining to the southern border, leaving the northern border something of an unmentioned mystery.

"The mind-set of the local citizenry and some law enforcement is that terrorism won't happen here," Szudera said. "I do have concerns, and those are the terrorism issues we have in our country. We know terrorism incidents do happen. It could happen in rural Montana."

Area farmer Vern Pinley can nearly throw a stone across the Canadian border without leaving the seat of his tractor. Still, he shrugs at the very mention of border security and the terrorist threat.

A weathered man who's lived a life of labor, Pinley has been here for almost 60 years, working this wind-swept plot of land 30 miles north of Joplin. After some prodding, he recalled his early years, back when he saw Border Patrol agents from time to time - men riding horseback through open country, spending their nights in Pinley's one-room schoolhouse.

Most locals admit that before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, seeing a Border Patrol agent was a rarity. Now, farmers like Pinley see the agents pass in their big white trucks almost daily as they race up and down the empty roads. Ninety-two agents are assigned to the Havre sector of the border.

"I like the idea of the Border Patrol being here and the security they provide," said Havre resident Larry Martinson. "I saw them drive by at 10:30 last night."

"We need security," added farmer Mackintosh. "We don't need the Taliban here. And we don't need all the dope."

Brenna Neinast, the chief agent with the Havre sector, said the Border Patrol began focusing solely on its mission after President George W. Bush established the Department of Homeland Security. The move also doubled the number of agents working the Havre sector.

All in all, Neinast said, the changes have added another line of defense to the nation's security. It has also added another deterrent to anyone looking to cross illegally into the United States by way of Montana, or so the thinking goes. In this way, the nation's security, in part, relies upon deterrence.

"September 11 changed the way we do business," said Neinast. "It changed the focus of our agency. We were given a clearer mission for the first time in a long time."