Sneaking into the US from Canada

If I'm not mistaken, neither country takes that border too seriously. We're pretty good friends and most of the towns are close enough that some are one town in both countries.

Unless the character is wanted they might be able to just drive through a border station for a day trip to the mall.

Does your story take place before or after June 1, 2009?

If after, then you are correct, he has to have a passport to cross legally. Even infants need passports.

I don't know about that particular intersection, but there are tons of places along the border where you can just stroll across. It's a bit more risky with a car, but not much - border control officers (from both countries) do patrol, but there's a heckuva lot of border and not that many of them. Crossing at an odd time (like dawn or 10 PM - middle of the night might draw too much attention with headlights and whatnot, if he's the only car on the road) might help, as would having a car that can cross a field or something so he's not stuck using just regular roads.

I don't know exactly the space you're talking about but walking there's just tons of space you can do that so I'd wager if it doesn't look like it where you're thinking, you're probably fine. There's no fence, signs or anything along much of the border - it's thousands of miles long. We don't have fencing along much of the border with Mexico and there's a big outcry that we should. There's not a lot of outcry about fencing off Alberta.

The Neal Stephenson book 'Reamde' features a whole group of characters (some of them terrorists) crossing into the US from Canada somewhere around there.

I remember driving a county road in Okanogan County and seeing a town that had been part of Canada and then became part of the US. It was hard to tell where Canada ended and the US began. There was an official entry point, but it was such a mountainous region that I don't recall a fence.

There's no real fence.

A few months back there was a farmer in Abbotsford who called the police because people were trampling through his fields at night. They caught one of the six carrying weapons into Canada, they backpack pot to the states and weapons back here.

If you're scared and willing to do some hiking, just go up to Manning, or Skagit Valley park and backpack across. There is literally nothing there. You're more likely to get eaten by a bear than meet border security of any kind. If you take that route you'd probably want someone waiting on the other side, it's a long way to civilization.

There are lots of places you can boat across too. The border is ridiculously porous.

If there's anything specific you want to know, maybe I can help. I live in Vancouver and I've been across and along the border many times (the main highway east runs within two miles of the border).

I think the biggest trick is to be sure something's there on the other side. You can't drive across most places, and the closer you get to hubs of civilization the more likely you'll be caught. Out in farm country you'd need to know how to steal a car to get anywhere. You could take a bike or a light motorcycle across though.

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

I know someone whose father and uncle sneaked into the US from Canada in a truck filled with hay.

I know other people (two of them) who just drove across.

All of these were pre-2009.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

Many areas of the Canada/USA border are simply a line of concrete markers spaced every 100 feet or so. The border looks like a typical power line cut, forests on each side. Most of it is electronically monitored, but the response time is fairly long. The further you get from a town, the less guarded it is.

Jeeps, 4x4 vehicles, snow machines and motorcycles can get across most areas, regular cars and trucks cannot. Walking across is easy.

Jeff

Jeff had my thought - just have the guy cross on a dirt bike (motorcycle or bicycle). In Winter, cross-country skiing may be good enough in some areas.

Once can cross from Vancouver Island to the San Juan Islands in a very small motorboat on a calm day. It is even easier for a mainland-to-mainland boat trip across the border. You could probably find a great deal of information on methods of boat border crossing from researching how it is done in the Mexican-US border waters off Southern California.

I know it's a couple of weeks late, but I just came across this video today and thought of this post. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WOfHLS-PUo&feature=share

Hope this helps.

You can just walk on over. That's what some of my forebears did. They walked into Canada, hung around for a bit, maybe a century, then they just walked on back in the late 1800's.

There's no fence. No nothing. Crossing is a piece of cake. Asian people-smugglers do it all the time...

Necro thread, peeps.