How much more difficult is it to get into Canada than it used to be? You need a Passport to enter from the States now, right? Can you still travel a few miles in for a day trip without one? Is security really uptight? What about wilderness borders? Are there patrols in the forest, on highways near the border, etc? What is the reason for the increased security in the first place?
im canadian. my wife sint. we made a wrong turn in Osoyoos BC one time and ended up at the border. We explained to teh customs due we wanted to jsut turn around, we were nto wanting too enter, we got lost (we were on vacation). The US customs dudes in tehir macho way said no way thats happening. and neither of us had any ID except i had my diverslicense. 3 hours later after being finger printed and photographed at homeland security. and finding out teh cutsom guys wife is from teh same small moutnain village my wife is from, we were out. they were really nice, but man tehre was a lot of red tape they had to get through. EVERYTIME (on foot/car boat, not plane) i find the US cutsoms agents FAR more polite than the candian ones. when we were released form teh us customs, we drove 10 meters, did a U-turn and went back into canada....that customs guy wouldnt let us abck into canada, despite us telling them to look 2 meters behind him and ask teh us customs dude we jsut spent hours with to tell him everything...no way. so same shit one more time, this time 5 hours and no finger prints. the whole time we got lectured from an office guy sitting in his chair going on and on how even I, as a candian, should always carry my passport with me even if not coming south...ona nd on. I eventually told (first hour) that i am a citizen and i dont have to carry any ID, i have aright to wander around my own coutnry at will without being harrassed and we jsut mad e awrong turn adn want to go home now (this pissed him off deeply, and is surely the reason for the remaining 4 hours of annoyance). my poor wife crying eventually thinking she cant get home (she is Taiwanese and left her passport at my moms house in Victoria). long story short, actually that was long sorry, i find canadian customs to be real pricks in general, and US customs to be very nice....this goes against everythign i am told by damn near everyone, but its my true expereince, and i have crossed many times. I remember a time i used to drive down to teh states with nothign more than a credit card and drivers license....those days are gone. You HAVE to have a passport. dont quote me but i THINK you need an electronic one now as well, may be wrong on that. as for moutnains, cant help. I have driven along ) avenue in BC, which goes along eth US border, and walked accross for photos with no toruble, but you can be sure they are monitored....no question. if your doing it, dont have anyhting illegal on you thats for sure. To be honest, i think any possible "increase" in canada is to eitehr submit to US requests, or to show off to teh us customs dudes because we really have nothign to do but we want to look important...we all know drugs and terrorists go south, not north lol. With all that said, i have had one nice experience with canada customs in Vancouver airport. my family has a lot of guns. i have an old box filled with coins and keys etc from when i was a kid. i was flying back to taiwan one time and there were abotu 15 .22 bullets, not shellls, in there. he questions me whats in my bag, i really had no idea they were there, hadnt looked in that box for liek 15 years. anyway, he threw them out, gave my my knives (ald ivory pocket knives form my mom that were rusted shut) to mail back through the post office cause i coulndt carry it on and i was on my way. whole time he was laughing and realized (probably from the smell of feces in my pants!) it was an honest mistake. good thing as i am not registered to ahve guns ammo in canada. in short, its all unknown. worldwide there are no knowns. Customs are wild cards. about the only thing you can be absolutely sure about with customs is Singapore agents are always uptight assholes...
Yeah, you need full papers, gestapo style.... And like kada said, you will be detained for just LOOKING at the border, if they see you. I used to live in new england. Some people with cabins and camps on one side of the border, who live on the other, walk accross the river when it's frozen, or snowmobile through the woods in the winter, or ride 4wheelers accross, or just hike.... But that's probably a crime nowadays, and probably heavily watched by fucking predator drones.... You'll get your ass collateral murdered... It's supposedly to keep terrorists out of the US. Or something equally silly.
I'm all for invading Canada and taking their bacon. Oh, and teaching their lumberjacks to dance in speedos.
I am surprised with your story. I was driving with my mother trying to get to the ferry at Tsuwassun (no idea how to spell it, it is near vancouver and also has ferries to van island) and we took one wrong turn and ended up at the border, and they wouldn't let us turn around, but they let us turn around on the other side and simply cross with just a few questions (Like if I really wanted to be with my mom in case she was kidnapping me or something). Thi was before passports were needed though.
I tried to cross into Canada from New York without a passport and they didn't allow it. how fucking silly. If someone wanted to cross the border with a bomb strapped to their back in order to blow up the US but wasn't wanted for prior terrorist activities, they could obtain a passport just as easily as anyone else.
Two summers ago I crossed into New York state without a passport. Though they gave my brother and I a hard time and kept us in customs or whatever it's called for almost an hour and harrassed us. We had no money, no visas, and nothing to do, we just felt like going out for the day. Apparently that's almost a crime in this day and age.
I hate it. We aren't mexico, no offense to mexicans. Like I am not trying to go there and work illegally or blow things up or anything. Btw, you are so lucky you can go to New York relatively easy, here in western Canada it is very far away and there is not a substitute!
I am SO going to Canada as a migrant worker. I mean the unemployment rate in the States is scary... j/k(about being a migrant worker...I hope) for real-you need a passport. Sucks huh? I used to live in Detroit and went to Canada all the time. Now I need a passport. Can't I just wear a star on my arm or something like that? Fuck the goverment:devil:
You didn't need a passport to go to mexico until the same time as canada, maybe even after.... We're all in nafta, which really undermines the whole thing. I mean, not that I don't like nafta, but it just shows how fucking silly the whole smoke and mirrors thing really is.
I used to spend lots of money in michigan shopping everytime I could and now with this stupid passport thing they arent getting any of my money just saying the passport requirement goes bothways
Depends on what border you cross. Some are better than others. I believe so. Not a problem within your own country. Border guards are all assholes. Always have been and always will be. Tie your hair back, put on the jesus station in the car, stick a republican bumber stick on your car and a couple of christian symbols that say Jesus is #1 and you shouldn't have too many problems. They can be pretty rough. Depends on where you cross. Depends on what border you cross. It's a big country yes and no. They aren't well maintained on the Canadian side. So if you are far enough from a "real border crossing" the odds are you won't encounter anyone. But you should be warned, they will shoot to kill if they find you an you resist. (not joking) Whatever the fuck you do, use a map and not GPS!!! They are trained to monitor the usage of GPS and will home in on you in seconds. The United States war on terror.
The most stupid part of the whole thing is that the "threat" to security is largely created and carried out by the US itself to create and justify reasons of attacking certain countries, implementing new security measures such as the body scan and pat down, taking away those small aspects and freedoms one small step at a time.
Yup! And this bred of human garbage is the first face a visiting foriegner gets to see before entering. Perhaps the entire 9/11 tragedy was a response to asshole airport border guards?
I'm not sure about this, but beyond the power tripping aspect, I think you may find the canadian border guards have reason to be such assholes... There is no way to stop everyone that tries from crossing a border... That's fact. It's proven over and over everyday in the US. However, if some terrorist slips over the border from canada (such as happened with some of the 911 terrorists), the canadian border patrol are the ones that are focused on. Reality says that regardless of the canadian border security issue, their job is not supposed to be about keeping terrorists OUT of the US... that is the job of the US border guard... Yet, they get all the shit that rolls down hill because of it. Now having said all that... I don't have a lot of sympathy for them, after all, they did choose those jobs... lol
Oh, and to answer the question... To sum that up... An American does NOT need a passport to get into Canada... However, you do need one to RETURN to the US... lol
