June 27, 2007
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I broke the drive up into two stretches, the first day was the long 16 hour leg and then after a welcome few days visit and rest at a friends house, I traveled the final six hours to meet Howard in Thunderbay…
Now in a situation like this, I do like to be on time…
but you just can’t plan on every eventuality
and for some reason the Canadian Border Patrol
seemed to take a special interest in me
I watched the cars ahead pull through the border crossing
as if it were a simple toll booth…and just drive through..
I was encouraged then that I would keep the time schedule..
but that was not to be the case..
When it was my turn, the officer in the booth ask me if i had specific items…
i told him the truth.. the only one i had on his list was a case of beer..
which I knew is allowed but still he told me to pull in and sent me to immigration ….??
This was all new to me ….
I was almost alone in the building save for the border guards…
They didn’t seem to stop many people…just me?
…so i wandered up to the serious looking woman in immigration
A woman perhaps 35 years old, began to ask me questions
in a rather stern tone of voice
Q: Why are you traveling to Canada ?
A: To mine amethyst (I answered with honest enthusiasm)
Q: And where are you going to mine this Amethyst?
A: I am going to a mine North of Thunderbay
Q: And how do you know of this mine?
A: My friend Howard invited me to his mine. He is the owner
Q: And who is Howard?
A: A Canadian citizen…
Q: And how did you come to know this Howard?
A: The internet…synchronicity .. fate…
….how deep would you like me to go on this one miss?
Q: Just stick to the facts please..
and for the next 30 minutes we continued like this…
I believe she may have forgotten to ask me my shoe size..!
but i stayed friendly and cheerful as i could
Then the armed inspector came out …
He instructed me to drive the Subie into an inspection bay
CRAP……
I was in the one behind the sign!
I had actually prepared a bit…. in anticipation of this remote possibility
it was more of a hunch…
For i surely did not give this occurrence
the quality of attention to manifesting it as an intention …
any way
The inspector began to look thru my car
The first thing he saw were seven or eight tape cases of the jesuit priest Mitch Pacwa, his sermons were strew about the passenger seat..The titles were like ”Where Does the bible come from.” …My aunt Rosemary loaned them to me to listen to them on the long trip…and i did!…
I saw the stern inspectors eyes travel to the cluster of geology books, the gps, the hand lens, my chemistry books… all the camping gear…
I felt then that moment…. when everything changes…
His mood lightened and he turned to me and smiled and asked me with friendly interest about my trip, and we talked for a while as two people often do… sharing the moment…
We shook hands and he wished me a safe and pleasant trip….
I was safely across the border!!!
but really what was there to fear….?
It’s not as if I would ever think of smuggling “bud” across the border
Mean while I was still almost an hour was behind schedule…..!
but I made good time into Thunderbay and soon …
I pulled into the Terry Fox memorial where Howard had suggested we meet
About Terry Fox
Terry Fox was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and raised in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, a community near Vancouver on Canada’s west coast. An active teenager involved in many sports, Terry was only 18 years old when he was diagnosed with osteogenic sarcoma (bone cancer) and forced to have his right leg amputated 15 centimetres (six inches) above the knee in 1977.
While in hospital, Terry was so overcome by the suffering of other cancer patients, many of them young children, that he decided to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research.
He would call his journey the Marathon of Hope.
After 18 months and running over 5,000 kilometres (3,107 miles) to prepare, Terry started his run in St. John’s, Newfoundland on April 12, 1980 with little fanfare. Although it was difficult to garner attention in the beginning, enthusiasm soon grew, and the money collected along his route began to mount. He ran 42 kilometres (26 miles) a day through Canada’s Atlantic provinces, Quebec and Ontario.
It was a journey that Canadians never forgot.
However, on September 1st, after 143 days and 5,373 kilometres (3,339 miles), Terry was forced to stop running outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario because cancer had appeared in his lungs. An entire nation was stunned and saddened. Terry passed away on June 28, 1981 at age 22.
The heroic Canadian was gone, but his legacy was just beginning.
To date, more than $400 million has been raised worldwide for cancer research in Terry’s name through the annual Terry Fox Run, held across Canada and around the world.
http://www.terryfoxrun.org/english/about%20terry%20fox/default.asp?s=1
Comments (15)
Some experience!!
Gald you’re back to tell us about it…
:sunny:
ah, i know the Canadian border guards all to well! almost everytime i went back and forth from Boston to Montreal i smuggled wine in :spinning: (i think you know i lived in Montreal for a year?)
:coolman: no fear here d man glad you made it up & back i am most sure you experienced loads if interesting stuff funny how some attract attention must be high vibes i don’t fly i almost did not get back from the Bahamas & i thought they were going to keep my “rock crystal” i have been a similar checkpoint up there trying to get back in the US
love beck
They usually just pick out people randomly; or choose every 5th car or something like that. Canadian border patrols are a helluva lot nicer to deal with than the American ones!
I’m glad that you enjoyed your trip!:coolman:
I swear the female inspectors give more of a hard time than the men do. They go on and on and on with the questions and I don’t think they listen to the answers.
Where are you going? ans: Fort Erie, to the race track.
Do you have any guns in your possession? ans: No Ma’am. (I don’t usually lose so badly that I would want to shoot anyone.)
heh heh
maybe they were a little suspicious about you taking pictureS? lol, you know in this day and age they are paranoid abnout everything
What an adventure!
Never doubt the power of Jesuit tapes and chemistry books.
I like the red train
:sunny:
Earlier this year, I got detained at the Mexican border coming back into the U.S. because of my traveling companions had been to Africa in the last 2 years. Yeah, made sense to me too.
:fun:
Doug!
I can literally see your experiences in these last three posts! WOW!!! What a trip … reading your run in with the border patrol made me smile … BIG TIME!
Thanks for sharing so much with us! :love: :wave:
Thank You my Friend :heartbeat:
We’re going back to the days of Jean Valjean and czarist Russia:wha:
i would have started crying! i would have gotten nervous and balled!
sad story about terry… sounds like he was going to help a lot of people and ultimately helped more with his death. a sad story will move more people than a happy one in certain cases.
nice story..
glad they finally let you through