Border crossing into Canada

Thecasualcamper wrote:
My experience just returning from 2 months in Canada and Alaska. Crossed into Canada at Roosville Montana. The Canadian border agents were very polite and pleasant, but took our apples. I declared we were carrying a 12 gauge pump shotgun sawed off to 19 inches. They provided me a short form to fill out plus $25 fee and we were off. We were in a truck camper, did a lot of boondocking and the shotgun really paid off. About 100 miles south of Whitehourse camping off the Alcan, had a grizzly come come up our open camper door, I had the loaded 12 gauge next to me so no need to panic. We let him snoop around and when satisfied he moved on.

Observations and learnings:
A Canadian game warden type who was also truck camping told us there was no way he would camp in Canadian without a firearm.

We passed through Canada/US borders several times and the one constant was the Canadian boarder guards were always polite and cheerful while the US counterparts were surley with an attitude, whats that all about?

I'm glad that your going across the border at Roosville went so smooth. We crossed there also in June of this year and I had a 12 gauge Remington tactical which has a 18.5" barrel (not sawed off stock from the factory with a 18.5") and it also had a trigger lock on it. It was unloaded and in a gun case in the closet. I already had all of my paper work filed out just had not signed them yet as they want you to sign it in front of them. I was asked to pull over and go into the building. I went in and handed them my paper work and the officer asked for my keys to the truck and camper and told me to stay in the office. He opened the camper and went through it completely and then proceeded to the cab of the truck. He took everything out of my console and left the majority of it laying in the front seat. I'm sure he could not believe that I wouldn't have more guns than I had with me. I was very polite and answered all of his questions with just the answer and never gave more info than was needed.

Not all of the US agents are gruff. We went into Skagway and the US agent there took our passports asked me for our plate number on the truck. Then asked if we had papers for our dog. He stated that he did not need to see them but just in case someone asked. He then stuck his hand through the window to shake my hand. We shook hands and he wished us a good time on out trip.