There will be a place in Canada’s history books for the divisive and dramatic blockade at Coutts, a busy border crossing between Alberta and Montana that saw a clamorous protest against COVID-19 health measures in 2022.

Although it stretched just 18 days, its repercussions continue in Canada’s courts, politics, national security and policing.

Just how future historians might view the Coutts protest — the people, the weapons, the doomsday last-stand culture, the camaraderie, the networking, the anti-government rhetoric, the frailty of the economy and infrastructure, the robust police response, and the outsized role it had for the invocation of the Emergencies Act — is anyone’s guess.