Crossing the Border into Canada

Crossing the Border into Canada

My opinion on the best way to avoid difficulties — based on my firsthand experience and the horror story related to me by a friend.


I want to start this hopefully short blog post with a disclaimer: I’m writing this based on my personal experience yesterday and the horror story told to me by a friend who entered the country about two weeks before I did. My goal is to suggest a “best” way to enter Canada from the US in your boat while warning you about the potential pitfalls of using another method that you may have read about or been advised about elsewhere.

I am not a lawyer. I’m just telling you what worked for me with (so far) zero problems and what definitely did not work for a friend of mine who has had at least two (so far) problems.

That said, let me get right to it.

The Horror Story

I’m starting with this because I suspect that a lot of the folks reading this think that this is how they should go about entering the country. They may have read about it on a certain online forum that is supposed to be the primary source of information about cruising the Great Loop. Or they may have heard about it from a friend who likely got the information from the same place.

My friends on a boat that I will not name entered Canada after cruising up Lake Champlain. They were advised to dock the boat at the border, go into the Canadian customs office there, and present themselves as entering the country. I believe they did this at Rouses Point, which is still inside the US, but they may have gone up to Richelieu in Canada.

They went in with their passports and answered a bunch of questions. The officials there made notes. They then told them they were free to continue their trip. So my friends got back on their boat and continued north. This was on June 9.

My friends continued traveling the established Great Loop route north of Lake Champlain, eventually heading west. They may or may not have stopped on US soil to visit a tourist attraction along the way. When they got near Kingston, ON (nearly two weeks after entering the country), where they planned to dock for two nights, they were pulled over by a boat manned by the Canadian Royal Mounted Police. The police boat tied up to their boat and spent nearly an hour interrogating them out on Lake Ontario. They wanted a number, which my friends did not have. Indeed, they had absolutely no proof that they’d talked to the folks in the providence of Quebec about their arrival.

Phone calls were made — including to 888-CAN-PASS, which I’ll discuss in a moment — and my friends were unable to get the all-important number they needed to get into the country legally. But the police were able to confirm that they’d stopped. The police let them go.

They got to the marina and tried again to get the number by using 888-CAN-PASS. They were told to remain on the boat for customs people to talk to them. They waited until long after their normal bedtime. Finally, the officials showed up, boarded, looked around the boat, and talked to them. There was a lot of frustration on both ends and a lot of working the phones, but after at least an hour more of dealing with it, the officials were able to give them the number they should have gotten nearly two weeks before when they crossed the border.

If you are a member of the AGLCA and read the forums, you may have read the firsthand account of the story I just told. I’m telling you what I remember of them telling me yesterday. So if the information here doesn’t 100% match what they said, cut me some slack; I didn’t take notes.

The point is, they followed instructions they’d read somewhere — maybe AGLCA? — and things did not work out right for them.

Of course, I didn’t hear this story until yesterday, after I’d already entered the country and checked in.

The Easy Way that Seems to Work

I’m no longer a member of AGLCA so I don’t rely on it as a source of information for cruising. Instead, I talk to other Great Loop cruisers. And I’ve gotten a shit-ton of conflicting instructions for entering the country.

Passport
The only thing I needed from my passport was its number.

The one I decided to go with was the 888-CAN-PASS method. I was advised to call that number before I arrived and set up for pre-entry. That would get me a number I could then provide when I entered the country.

Keep in mind that I was taking a different route than my friends. I’d gone up the Oswego Canal and spent a night at Oswego. I planned one night at Cape Vincent.

So the day before I entered Canada, when I was in Cape Vincent, I called the number. I pushed the buttons for pre-entry/entry. I got a woman very quickly. I told her what I wanted and she asked me for my NEXUS number. I don’t have one. She said that pre-entry was for NEXUS holders. She told me that I should call back when I was in the country, at the port where I was making my first stop. She asked which marina I was going to. I told her Confederation Basin in Kingston, ON. She said to call from there.

Okay. First mistake but no harm done.

The next day I crossed the border near Wolfe Island, just northeast of Cape Vincent, NY. I continued to Confederation Basin and tied up in my slip. I asked the two dockhands if I needed to use a special phone to call in — another piece of information I’d gotten somewhere — and they said no, just use my cell phone.

I called. I pushed the same buttons. I got another woman. I told her where I was and what I wanted. She was very friendly. She proceeded to interview me, asking the usual questions about my boat, myself, and the things I had on board. I answered truthfully, providing all document numbers she asked for and reporting on all items she asked about. The big ones were alcohol, fruits, and vegetables, which I had on board as ships stores. I was allowed to keep all of it. I did not have a weapon on board — if you do, send it home! — and had disposed of any cannabis products. I also told her about my dogs, which she had neglected to ask about. I wanted to make sure they were included. She just asked about their breed and whether they had their rabies shots.

Then she told me to get a pen and paper and write down a number.

The number.

I asked her what it was called and she said it was called a “report number.” (I don’t think that’s exactly right, but that’s what she told me.) She told me to post it in a window of the boat where officials could see it. So I wrote it in big bold Sharpie numbers and stuck it to my window.

And then I was done.

No phone calls, no boarding, no stress. I called a phone number from the comfort of my boat and took care of everything in about 15 minutes. I’m legally in the country and have the magic number to prove it.

Don’t Stress Over This

This turned out to be a lot easier than I expected. After hearing so many conflicting instructions I was totally stressed out. I wanted to do it right, even though I had no idea (yet) how bad it could get — multiple boardings! — if I got it wrong. It turns out that I sort of stumbled upon the easiest way, which also seems to be the best.

My advice: do what I did. Call 888-CAN-PASS as soon as you arrive at your first destination in Canada. Do it before you get off the boat to check in at the marina or walk your dogs. Have all your document numbers readily available: boat registration, hull number, passport numbers, dog rabies certificates. Answer the questions truthfully. Don’t bring in prohibited items, such as weapons, cannabis products, or cash over $10K.

Don’t fret if your passport isn’t stamped. My friends were told that the border officials hardly ever do that anymore. (I live in Washington state and have been to Canada multiple times and have never had my passport stamped. Ditto for Mexico and countries in the Caribbean.) The only thing that matters is that report number. Write it down in multiple places so you don’t lose it.

One more thing: don’t zigzag back and forth across the border. Every time you enter Canada or the US you must go through customs and immigration. This is the law. Once you’re in Canada, stay there until you’re ready to end your travels there and return to the US.

Want to Share Your Story?

If you’d like to share your experiences here with other readers, please do. Use the Comment link or form for this post.

But please understand this: if your story about the “right way” to enter Canada is based on hearsay or personal experience prior to 2024, I will call it out as suspect. I’m not interested in spreading bad information on this blog and old news is bad information, especially if it conflicts with recent good information.

I’m telling you two recent stories. One didn’t work well and the other worked very well. I’d love to read your recent first-hand account of crossing into Canada, but I don’t really care much about what happened two years ago when things might have been different.

And I absolutely do not want to read what an armchair looper advised on the AGLCA website or Facebook group, neither of which is apparently ever fact-checked.

10 Comments

  1. Derek Thomas

    The following comment has close to zero to do with boating in/out of Canada – but you stories reminded me of my many, many travels to/from Canada in the 80’s & 90’s. Mostly via airline, but the one time I drove, hooboy! Anyway, 99.99% of the time entry to Canada was never an issue. Friendly, businesslike customs folks. But that was never EVER the case getting back to the U.S., my home country. The 3rd degree by US Customs was pretty amazing. BUT, the one time I drove? They (U.S.)all but disassembled my car. I had helped a friend in Boston move, and had some housewares and such he gave me. Everything had to come out the car and be gone through. Took a couple of hours. Have no idea what I may have done or said to trigger it. Not in my nature to be anything but yes sir no sir polite and honest. Anyway, your blog post brought that event screaming into my feeble brain. Hope your re-entry is a piece of cake!

    • I’m also a bit concerned about my return and, hopefully, can write a positive blog post about that at the end of July.

      Right now my biggest concern is getting my pups back home. Apparently the CDC has decided that dogs need to be chipped and need paperwork prepared by government-approved vets in the US to come home starting August 1. The forms were not available when I left the country and there are no US government approved vets here in Canada. So I’ll come home before the new policy goes into affect. I’ve also gotten a special “decal” and downloaded an app to make the return easier. Let’s hope some or all of that does the trick. It shouldn’t be difficult to return home from a trip to a friendly neighboring country.

      But who knows?

  2. Gary

    We entered Canada the same way your friends did. They would have had to stop at the Canadian Customs office which is a couple of miles inside the Canadian border. If they had not stopped there they would have been chased down by Customs and potentially given a hefty fine. The Customs office there does not give out cruising numbers. When I asked them for a number they said that numbers were for when you phone in your arrival, which is NOT ALLOWED when coming out of Lake Champlain. They did stamp our passports for us. They also didn’t give one hoot about the rabies vaccination certificate I gave them for our dog. In fact they didn’t even unfold it, they just handed it back to me and said “we don’t need to see that.” This all occurred just a couple of weeks ago.

    • Thanks for this. You’re shedding more light on the situation coming through Lake Champlain. I wonder why calling in isn’t allowed? My friends said the police or customs people who boarded their boat — I can’t remember which — hinted that it was a French Canadian issue. It seems to be a good reason to avoid coming through Lake Champlain.

      They didn’t want to my dogs’ rabies vaccination numbers either. But I still think it’s something we should have on board just in case. I actually scan all their vaccination paperwork and keep it in a Dropbox folder accessible from all my computer devices, including my phone. This way, I always have it with me.

  3. Mark

    My experience is from a couple of years ago so it may be discounted as worthless, but frankly, it still fits in with the experiences you mentioned in your blog post. Gary, in a previous comment is correct. Border crossings in Quebec and Ontario are handled differently. Quebec doesn’t seem to care about a number and Ontario insists on it (I realize they are both in providences in Canada and border protection should be the same). So if you enter in Quebec and then you stop in a well known Canadian entry city (Kingston), you may run into an issue.

    It was a bit of a hassle dealing with the authorities in Kingston when they approached us and we didn’t have a number. We didn’t get too excited about it and it certainly wasn’t a horror story for us. Just a part of the adventure. But really, not taking the Champlain route because border agents in different provinces can’t be consistent is cutting off some of the best cruising on the loop! I wasn’t totally surprised at the time as the issue was mentioned on the AGLCA forum even before we went north – I just assumed this issue was resolved when we were told a number is not needed at the time we crossed. Sounds like it still isn’t resolved…

    • Thanks for sharing this. Since the situation doesn’t seem to have changed, it is still valid. But there needs to be an accurate set of instructions for Loopers traveling north into Canada from Lake Champlain. I don’t understand why AGLCA, which is supposed to be the ultimate source of information for Loopers, doesn’t have these instructions and doesn’t moderate its forums to remove or flag inaccurate information. What are your dues paying for? The privilege of buying a burgee or getting your name on a t-shirt you can buy?

  4. We’ve entered Canada twice, once through Trenton and once at Blind River (coming through the other way, from Lake Huron). In both cases, we used your method. In Blind River, they had a specific phone available to be arrivals to use, but my husband used his cell phone. The harbor master at Blind River said that when using the broad toll free number, it’s a good idea to know the postal code of where you are because the agents are often inexperienced and don’t know all the locations people can check in. Sure enough, this agent wasn’t familiar with Blind River.

    Like you, there were just a few questions about where we were going, who we were going to meet, and what items we had on board. Kind of creepy, but when my husband gave our Coast Guard documentation number, the agent asked if I was on board (by name!). Then we were given the all-important number, which I wrote in large print on a half sheet of paper and stuck on the inside of windows in both sides.

    Two years ago in Trenton, a border agent walked the docks, appearing to look for that number on boats.

    Our return to the US two years ago from both the Bahamas and Canada we easy, as well. We had purchased the decal before we left the US. From the Bahamas, we had filled out everything on the ROAM app, and within minutes of crossing the border we were approved. From Canada, there was a video call we did on the boat while we were on the move. Both of us had to appear in the video, and the agent asked similar questions. We’re crossing into the US again tomorrow, and I hope we have a similar experience!

    • Thanks for that quick summary. I think it’s great when people share information about their actual experiences instead of what they read on a forum or heard from someone who might not have any real knowledge. I return to the US in a few days and hope it goes smoothly. I don’t have the decal, but I have its number. I also have the app and a trusted traveler ID number. It should go smoothly.

      • We crossed into the US this morning. We had all our information entered in the ROAM app. When we approached the border, we clicked that we were ready to enter, and we were prompted to click on the name of the “boat master” and passenger to indicate who was on board. The app continued to give us our status as we were moving. It went from “pending” to “processing” in about five minutes before indicating we were ready for our video interview. Both of us were on screen (that was required last time, too). We were asked where we came from, where we were going, and if we had anything to declare. The agent’s microphone wasn’t working, so s/he chatted the questions to us and we answered verbally. I estimate the interview took less than 3 minutes. The agent told us we would get confirmation of our approval in the app, told us we did not have to check in in-person, and ended with “Welcome home.”

        Did you see the news about softening the new requirements about pets entering the US? They must have received a lot of complaints! https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2024/s0722-dog-importation.html

        • Thanks so much for this. I’ll probably be crossing back into the country on Tuesday and I’m a little nervous about it.

          Yes, I did hear that they changed the requirements. But I’m assuming nothing has changed for returns before August 1? I’ll check that link. Thanks for sharing it. I think the requirements that were supposed to go into place put a really heavy burden on pet owners, especially those who have been traveling for months with their pets.

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