This past winter I had the wonderful opportunity to read my mother’s account of her time spent in a Texas jail for staying in the States longer than her Visa would allow her. It was a marvelous story, and you could sense her terror throughout the whole documentation of her three day stay. It was all the more pleasant to read, because I was naïve enough to believe that the priveledge of being a white, middle class, male would never put me in such a situation. Well, I was wrong. I encountered a similar experience, to which my mother’s only response was, “I guess our family has trouble at border crossings.”
I recently made the wonderful journey into the Northern part of the American continent. I did my research on how to get into Canada. I rehearsed what I would say, I made sure I did not take the wrong stuff, I shaved, I dressed up, and I tried to be as friendly as possible. My research led me to believe that the real struggle was getting back into the US because the Canadians are so much more forward thinking and care-free than us Americans right?
I pulled my truck loaded with supplies and climbing equipment into line at the border crossing, and nervously waited for my turn to get through. The other line was moving much faster than mine, which this only added to my anxiety: “Is this line’s officer stricter?”
When I pulled up I stressed even more, because it's hard to pull a car close enough to the booth to pass the documents over the void without smashing into the curb. I answered the first set of questions correctly.
“Where are you going, how long will you be there, do you have any fruits or vegetables, do you have any weapons, do you have anything that starts with the word ‘fire,’ and when was the last time you were in Canada?” I made it though the initial questions until they asked me what I would be doing in Squamish, Canada? Not wanting to lie, I responded with emphasis for the reason I would be crossing the border: “ROCK Climbing!”
This was apparently the wrong thing to say. From here on I could not answer a single question without fumbling over the details.
“What is your profession?”
“Uh… Student/unemployed?”
“Where will you live when you get to Squamish?”
“In the car at a campground… Or something like that.”
“How much money do you have with you?
“Uh…”
“Do you have health insurance? How will you pay for your hospital visit, since you will most likely get hurt doing something as stupid as trying to go up rock cliffs?”
The barrage continued, and when I thought I was in the clear, I was signaled to park and go inside for further questioning. The sense of failure at this point was immense, and I was trembling out of fear of what the Canucks might do to me and my travel companion.
We met a young Aryan officer inside with bleach blond hair and piercing blue eyes. He went through the usual questions and was clearly not satisfied. Eventually he had to give up on questions and explain everything a little more clearly for us.
“You know, usually when people just graduate college they have an immense amount of debt to pay off, how can you justify this trip? Where did you get your money from? Who is paying for this?”
I responded saying that we got through college with the help of our parents and scholarships, and that we had worked for our entire college career. I wanted to tell him that I was a miser and not a societal pawn who cast away his money into absurd debts, and that from childhood I had been conditioned to save money and consider how every purchases logic fit into my existence. I also wanted to tell him that we are two of the most fortunate individuals in the world who have the privilege of a hundred men, and we are rude enough to aknowledge it.
“So your parents are paying for this?” He replied.
He was wrong, but rather than correct him and make him angry, we let him reach his own conclusions and moved on. He wanted to know if we had health insurance. At this point of the conversation he realized we were not too foreign and began to pronounce his words with the typical Canadian tendency to shorten his ‘ou’ sounds.
“Ya see here in C’nadA, we are socialists, which means dat if yu eever get hurt we wud take care of yu. Sou yu have to show us dat yu have health insurance ‘cus we doo nat want to pay for yur injuries.”
I had to keep myself from laughing, because as he sprayed his socialist propaganda at us he had the most peculiar smirk on his face. His face was showed me that he had the confidence to pick us up by our beritches and march us right back to the American side of the continent.
He sent us out of the interrogation room to wait while he searched his data bases for any incriminating evidence. After waiting for twenty minutes, he called us back in and showed two pieces of paper he had printed off of one of those old fashioned inkjet printers that squeal with every pass of the ink cartridge.
He opened by saying, “well boys, I’m going to allow yu to leave Canada today.”
“But wait, we actually want to come to Canada,” I replied. My head was racing with too many questions, what if we chose to stay, can we stay if you arrest us, what if the Americans hassle us between the two nations and we are left in international purgatory?
We signed the documents and were on our way, after making sure we knew what to bring back to the officer when we returned. My fear of the American border officers was completely pointless. They just laughed at us and sent us on our way to print out documentation of money in our bank accounts and health insurance.
This allows us to leave Canada.
International PurgatoryWe made a quick stop at the local library in Lynden, Washington (which must get a lot of these types of visits), and raced back to the border. We took the same line, and it was still the slowest line. We expressed our rage by blasting dance music as loud as my poor trucks speakers could go. We were preparing for battle. This time, I had all the right answers. I pointed the rear view mirror at my face, since I could not see through the junk in the back of the truck anyway, and gave myself a pep talk.
We were met by a round woman at the booth who instead of a number on her uniform like the rest of the officers, had her name: Belvediere. I answered all of the same questions without stumbling. When she asked us when the last time we were in Canada was, I avoided my instinct to say that we have never been to Canada, and chose to say, “We were in Canada TWO hours ago!” As I said it, nervousness boiled in my stomach: that was proabbaly the wrong thing to say.
“Oooh, really?” she said. “And whyy did we aask yu ta leave Canada den?”
“We couldn’t show that we had money.” I replied.
“Well den, ya can yust paark over der and head an in to da office.”
The office was a cement building with fluorescent lighting. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of affect such poor architecture could have on the officer’s personalities. It was cold inside, and the air was dead. We went to the counter and gave proof that we had money and health insurance. They told us to have a seat and then informed us that they were going to search the truck.
We waited for and hour while they searched every nook and cranny, every page of notes, and every document in the cab of the truck. They did not even do a complete search, because I think they realized that they were in for a really challenging search if they wanted to go through all of our stuff in the back.
They called us into the interrogation room after the search was completed and after they kindly put all of our things back into the truck. Two officers stood behind the desk holding two pieces of very fancy paper.
“Well boys, we are going to allow ya to come to Canada.” We jumped for joy and we let them know how excited we were to come in. They told us that the sheets of paper gave us a list of rules and a departure date. While a younger officer took an epoch to fold the sheets and staple them into our passports, the older officer jollily told us why we were profiled.
“Ya see, a lot of people come over as draft dodgers and burden our system, and they usually go to Squamish, and den we have to go trompin' tru the woods to find dem.”
I asked myself, “So this is what climbing has been reduced to at international borders? Draft Dodging?” We nodded our heads, grabbed out passports, memorized the rules, poked fun at the whole process with the officers, and then ran out the door.
This form allows us to be in Canada until August 31, 2010, and we have to hand it in when we leave, or we will never be allowed back!
As I was driving away, there was a hollow feeling in my stomach that did not come from my hunger for food after such a long ordeal. I discovered that the feeling came more from something comforting about being interrogated. It was better than what people made it out to be. There are no other times in our lives when other people want to know so much about you, and actually care about what you are telling them. Granted in this case you are only telling them things that will improve national security, but there is still something pleasant about it.
I wanted them to pry more, like therapy. I wanted them to hear all of my feeling and give me an objective opinion about my lifestyle. I wanted them to find an artifact in the car so that I could explain myself to them and give them more information about myself so that they could piece my life together like a puzzle. I wanted them to like me so much that I could see myself lying to them so that they could find a hidden truth about me. I wanted to ask the officers to comb my mind for lost memories, feelings, and predictions of what my future would be like.
“What do you really think officer? Will I be happy, will I live long and free, do you want to know where I first felt love, do you want to know what scares me? Or do you really only want to know if the I Canadian Healthcare system will be burdened by my prescence?"
My mother spent three days in jail for trying to cross into Mexico. As a kid she always made sure I knew the horror that she felt over those three days. It was a different time, and a young Swedish woman had her reasons to be scared, but sometimes, and only sometimes, do I try to imagine that her real purpose for such a long visit was to give her life story to people who cared, so that they could send her on her way to American Womanhood.
This was an interesting landmark that told us where to camp after driving for 6 hours from The City of Rocks, Idaho to the Tieton River Valley, Washington.
On our first day of climbing, we took this epic drive through the logging roads of the Tieton. After an hour of following obscure directions slowly guiding us up the switchbacks of incredibly steep mountains, we arrived at the crag. After 10 minutes of walking this is what popped into view: Mt. Rainier.
On our second day we found an incredible crag with Indian Creek Splitters in Columner andesite (lava that forms in columns which makes great cracks to slam your fingers and toes into). This is Jason using perfect finger locks and carefully stemming on Wildcat Crack.
George on Wildcat Crack. This was a challanging route for Jason, Lacey, George, and myself, and we all sent it! It was an awesome day.
The Tieton River Valley was incredibly hot, so we eventually escaped to Leavanworth, WA (The Bavarian Capital of America). Leavanworth has spiky peaks and is loved by one of my best friends, Tressa Hoegh! Tressa came to climb with us one day. This is Tressa and George on the amzingly exposed Outer Space.
Tressa builds trails during the summer, and hiking with her is like being led on the Bataan Death March. This baby goat and Tressa made friends atop Outer Space, except I think the billy was trying to make Tressa his property.
Look at that, we were in OUTER SPACE!
On our last day in Leavenworth we went bouldering and hung out down by the river. Tressa tried to catch some dinner, but lost her lure on her second cast.
As we were leaving Leavenworth we realized that George and I needed to trim up and look our best for the border crossing into Canada. Everyone chipped in and gave George a haircut and a mustache trim so that we would not be hassled at the border for looking like Americans. 
