Worst US/Canadian border crossing

coming back from canada at nelway crossing just above metaline falls wa
the gentleman ask us and the dog to move to the front of the motorhome (outside).
he searched every nook and cranny in the mh and had me move the generator slide out,and open all bays. he went clear thru the car even had me lower the spare tire. he took one pepper with a california sticker on it and wished us a good day.
we were staying about 10 miles down the road and the rv park owners first question was "what did Bob get for lunch" i guess he is well known to the locals

once when living in Manitoba, working 4 days a week in Coronach, Sk, I crossed the border twice a week as it was a faster drive through ND to get home thursdays or back to work for monday. So one sunday, driving west on us 2 a ND county mounty pulled me over for speeding. He handcuffed me to the dash in his cruiser without explanation, drove me to Canada customs at North Portal, all while telling me screw extradition. " I'm going to throw you over the border, let them prove you are who you are.

Seems an escaped murder felon in Ca. with my description, using my name as an alias was suspected of crossing the border.
The speeding ticket was dismissed with apology.
Lesson . even with drivers license, Visa, history of crossings, you are never unsuspect.

SDcampowneroperator wrote:
Seems an escaped murder felon in Ca. ...

From context, I'm guessing you mean Canada. "Ca." is an abbreviation for California, which is how I first read it. I've never seen Canada abbreviated to "Ca." The ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code for Canada is CA (all caps, no period), although it also ambiguously refers to California.

"Can." (or CAN or CDN), to be less ambiguous, but simply spelling it out isn't much effort to avoid confusion.

From US to Can going to Niagara Falls waved right through.
Return back to US 1 1/2 hrs.


Faster crossing from Mexico to US than Can to US.

Long time ago my buddy and I used to make beer runs to Sarnia for our couple cases of good Canadian beer. Never usually an issue but one time we were invited to go inside while they looked over my truck. Was asked the usual questions and to hand over our drivers licenses while the nice agent went into an office with a one way mirror so he could observe if we got a bit nervous or something. Asked how much money we had with us and to show him our wallets. They ran the dog over the truck and looked in the usual smuggling places. Heck, all we wanted was some beer, THEIR beer. While there we saw a young fella and his girl led into separate rooms. One agent in the office said they were invited in for a body search. After about 20 minutes we were politely told to get the hell out of their office.

I did have one interesting crossing going to Thunder bay. Evidently we came during shift change. They had us pull over to the inspection area and no one ever came out. After about 20 min we went inside to ask what was going on. The people inside thought we had already been inspected from the prior shift. They apologized and inspected the vehicle and sent us on our way.

Wasn't all that bad, just ate up half the day. Must be 12-15 years ago, crossing over in Detroit, Canadian agent asked if I had any firearms. Obviously, answer was no. Then asked me if I had any at home. Kinda took us by surprise. Answered what difference does that make, so long as I'm not bringing anything into Canada, but for what it's worth, yes, have two non-useable antiques, an 1800s European grouse shotgun with Damascus barrels and an earlier 1800s musket. Had me pull into the inspection area where after a 2 hour or so wait a couple of other agents took the car apart looking for whatever they could find. Dumped everything, luggage contents included, on the pavement, gave me a permission-to-cross paper and walked away. Don't recall that either of them said a single word. Was asked same question our last trip to New England (2015)(wonder if it was the same agent?) crossing over in NY (Cromwell). I lied. Other than that only difficulty/issue/whatever was waiting in line to get processed through.

mike-s wrote:

SDcampowneroperator wrote:
Seems an escaped murder felon in Ca. ...

From context, I'm guessing you mean Canada. "Ca." is an abbreviation for California, which is how I first read it. I've never seen Canada abbreviated to "Ca." The ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code for Canada is CA (all caps, no period), although it also ambiguously refers to California.

"Can." (or CAN or CDN), to be less ambiguous, but simply spelling it out isn't much effort to avoid confusion.

The TLD for Canada is .ca eg cbc.ca so I'm sure many folks know it by that proper abbreviation.

This is a very interesting topic! We as a family used to cross at the Peace Bridge from Buffalo every year to take the kids to the Falls and sometimes the Big City (Toronto). That stopped as soon as we needed passports.

But way back (the 60s) - when I was a kid I did the usual kid that always tells the truth thing... When asked at the border coming back to the US my parents were asked if we bought anything in Canada and they said NO. I piped up and said - "What about the beach ball?" You know - we went to Crystal Beach. Gotta have a beach ball. :)

colliehauler wrote:
I did have one interesting crossing going to Thunder bay. Evidently we came during shift change. They had us pull over to the inspection area and no one ever came out. After about 20 min we went inside to ask what was going on. The people inside thought we had already been inspected from the prior shift. They apologized and inspected the vehicle and sent us on our way.

Funny, I had a similar but funnier (IMHO) version of that same story.

Crossing into Sarnia ON from Port Huron MI coming back from Oshkosh WI and by the time I hit the border at about midnight I was exhausted so I wasn’t upset when they sent me into secondary, the instructors were “park over there and stay in the vehicle and someone will come out to you’.

Around 6am there was a knock at the door which woke me up. I answered the door and a border agent told me I shouldn’t be parked there. I explained I was still waiting for inspection and must have dozed off.

I presented my paperwork and the “inspection” took all of about 5 seconds.