In my experience they ask: "where were you born?", "how long will you be
staying?" and "do you have anything to declare?" Answer them all well and
you're in!
Only rarely have I been asked to show ID (although I'm sure it's more common
now) and I've never had the car checked (as in pulled over and checked).
All you need, it seems, is one well-spoken Caucasian with a nice big car and
you can just load up the trunk with terrorists.
As an aside the same rules do, technically, apply to boats. There is a well
defined (well, sorta well defined) border in the middle of the river: once
over it you can be pulled up by the coast guard (of either side) and
questioned. It was a well-known fact when I was growing up that the
Canadian's were much stricter with drunken boating, for example, if pulled
up you're boat was impounded (on the Canadian side) until you came up with
the fine.
On the American side it was nearly scripture to become drunk while fishing,
baby the boat back to the dock, fumble the thing onto the trailer and sleep
it off in the truck. (Note that nobody in my family drank, but when we went
out you ALWAYS gave other boats an exceptionally wide berth because you
never knew the capabilities of the steersmen)
At least once a year you'd hear of a drowning when some drunk idiot fell off
the dock trying to trailer their boat. Or falling into the water trying to
untie. Much more often you'd see the poor saps that tied off, dropped their
lines and then drunk themselves silly in the wee hours of the morning, then
passed out on the boat only to wake hours later with their skin crisped off
from sleeping in the sun. ;^)
It was also pretty common (since we were upstream form the Falls) that you'd
hear stories in the paper of some trawlers drinking themselves into
stupidity and having to be towed back by the coast guard before they hit the
rapids (there's obviously a point a few miles up from the Falls after which
no boats are allowed to pass). The Niagra (as I'm sure you know) is an
exceptionally fast river - you can end up miles further than you expect in a
very short period of time.
Jim Davis
From: dana tierney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, August 01, 2004 7:52 PM
To: CF-Community
Subject: Re: Look Out New York!!
I was thinking along the prairies but Jim makes a good point about the
boat. Jim, my experience along the Sault, Niagara and Thousand Island
bridges is that they do talk to every car. Fast, but they do. If you
wanted to avoid that you would not want to go by road.
[Todays Threads] [This Message] [Subscription] [Fast Unsubscribe] [User Settings] [Donations and Support]
