The Half-Naked Truth About Canada

Kairos/How I normally tell it: I tell this story whenever something Canada related comes up, or when people start talking about the places they’ve been outside the country. I count Canada as one of mine because of this experience. 

The Half-Naked Truth About Canada

“Excuse me, it’s a thousand dollar fine if you do that.”

We whipped around and there stood a Mountie. We jogged sheepishly back to the Canadian border station, and my friend muttered something like, “Sorry, we didn’t know we were supposed to stop…”

It was late on a hot summer evening and we had just run over the bridge of the St. Croix River, thinking we could sneak into Canada. Perhaps sitting on a High Adventure bus for ten hours made us do it, but entering passport-less into a foreign country seemed like a pretty good idea.

“Did you try to run in on purpose?” the Lady-Mountie asked us. “Uhhh, no,” was our reply. “Ok, let’s set you up to come to Canada,” was hers.

The conversation with the Lady-Mountie went like this:

“Passports?” (We didn’t have them.)

            “S’Ok, what are your birthdays?” (We gave our birthdays.)

            “Where were you born?” (We told her where we were born.)

“Are you carrying any weapons, drugs or contraband?” (She looked us up and down, half-naked in our short-shorts.)

“Obviously not. Ok, you’re free to go.”

We thanked her and jogged on, pumping our fists and applauding our resolve in doing the impossible: we had duped the Canadians. So we ran on into Canada, and realizing that Canada was boring, we turned around and ran back.

Running over the bridge a second time, we ran up to a stoplight and stopped, because even when you’re not in a car, you stop at the stoplight. An American border patrol agent moved from his seat and turned the light green for us, and we ran up to his window. A small TV was playing a McDonald’s commercial over in the corner, and other border patrol agents milled around in another room.

“Passports?”

“Uh, sorry we don’t have ours.”

He looked up at, furrowed his brow, then he turned his whole body to us in his chair. “You need a passport to come into the country.”

“Sorry, we don’t have them.”

“Well you need one.”

“Well we don’t have them with us.”

Visibly miffed, he turned back to his computer and asked, “Who are you with?”

We told him we were with our church youth group, doing a High Adventure trip on the river; we made sure to emphasize “church.”

“Where are you from?” (We told him the same thing we told the Lady-Mountie.)

“Where were you born?”

I answered, “Greenwich, Connecticut.”

Now my friend answered, “Go-Ju-Ru, Japan.”

The agent stopped typing and looked slowly up at us. He didn’t say anything for a little while, and my friend was starting to get a little flustered. Finally I blurted, not knowing if this would help or not: “His parents are citizens!”

The agent sighed grumpily, and continued typing, “Ok, you’re free to go. Next time, bring your passports.”

Retelling the story

Kairos: I changed the story to make a bit more of a distinction between easy-going Canadians and hard-nosed Americans. It would definitely resonate more with travelers.

Go With the Flow: A Maple Syrup Story

            No one had told us not to, or that we could get detained, or that it was just a bad idea [parallelism, polysyndeton]. We just thought because it was there, we would be stupid if we didn’t try. Thus, my friend and I snuck, passport-less, past the American border station (it turns out they don’t really care if you leave the country) and across the bridge to Canada.

            We passed the Canadian border patrol without any incident, those wide-eyed, wonderful Mounties practically waving us on [alliteration]; the Mounties, and Canadians in general, just go with the flow like warm maple syrup, and half-naked runners entering the country are no cause for crisis [simile, definition]. So we ran into the country, and realizing that it was actually quite boring, we turned around.

            Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, the red-tape ridden bureaucracy of the American border patrol badge gave us a problem [division]. Why, as American citizens, was it such an issue to let us in? [rhetorical question] Those ever-trusting Canadians gave us a once-over, and we were in; the Americans, however, wanted proof [antithesis]. But ay, there’s the rub: passports. An expatriate American without a passport is more expatriate than American in the eyes of an underpaid American public officer. So no passport, no entry [antecedent/consequence]. With no small amount of convincing, my friend and I squeaked into the country, but not without learning a lesson about the difference between warm Canadian maple syrup and its cold American counterpart.