Detained in Canada

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Crossing the Canadian Border and Driving to Homer, Alaska

*Remember my photos are all from a disposal camera. Pic #1: Me in Homer, Alaska, Pic #2 Grand Canyon, Pic #3 Our camp spot outside of the Grand Canyon; Pic #4 Me and the "boyfriend", Pic #5 The Homer Spit where I camped for that whole summer. They call that road "The Spit" because it ends right at the tip of the Kenai Peninsula. I wish I had more pics from that adventure but that was what I found.

This is a good follow-up from my Mexico post. My friends and I stayed in Mexico for about a month. When we came back to the States, most of us parted ways temporarily to reconvene in Alaska for the summer. My boyfriend (calling him that for simplicity, though he would never have admitted it—pause for eye roll) and I decided to drive up from the border town of Nogales to Homer, Alaska, and meet our friends there. We stopped at the Grand Canyon on the way north.

We didn’t stay long, but it was “grand” and beautiful, as you can imagine, though way too many tourists for me. We headed north, camping along the way wherever we found campgrounds.

When we got to Bellingham, WA, the border town before crossing into British Columbia, Canada, we stopped at a rest area. My boyfriend, a total stoner, had a dime bag of weed, a very small amount. Being the idiot he was at the time, he decided to hide his little bag of weed in one of our backpacks and stashed it at the bottom of all our stuff in my car.

Let’s take a moment here for me to describe my car at that time. I was driving a red Ford Metro, which was basically a piece of crap. I still can’t believe to this day that it got me to Mexico, Alaska, and back to Utah. My car was literally filled to the ceiling with all our belongings. We were planning on moving to Alaska for the summer and didn’t know our plans after that, so it was packed to the rim. My back windows were duct-taped shut. We had just come from being in Mexico for a month and camping all the way up to the Canadian border. We looked as crappy as my car did. My boyfriend and I pretty much looked like homeless hippies.

Back to that idiot hiding his weed and about to cross the border to another country. Probably should go ahead and get your eye roll out of the way now. We left the rest area and got in line to cross the border into Canada. As soon as it was our turn, the border patrol asked us to pull over and get out of the car. My boyfriend looked like he was going to shit himself, and I felt like I was going to puke. Why didn’t I tell him to throw that shit away? WHY? Because I was young and dumb. As soon as they started searching, they literally went straight to the backpack where he hid his dumb weed. To this day, I think there are cameras at that rest stop in Bellingham because those Border Patrol guys knew exactly where to look. Once they found the dime bag, we were detained and put into separate holding cells alone. They detained us for about 3-4 hours. That was the longest 3-4 hours of my life. All I was thinking about was my family and that I was going to have to call my parents and tell them what happened, tell them that I had let this freaking moron hide his weed in my car and didn’t stop him. It makes for a good story now but didn’t feel that way at the time. While in the holding cell, we both got strip-searched by Border Patrol. Yes, you read that right. They strip-searched us both. I had to lift up my breasts and spread my cheeks as if I was hiding more drugs on me. Not only was I freaking out with fear and anger, now humiliation was added to it.

After contemplating what the hell I was doing with my life and this idiot for 3-4 hours, the Border Patrol told us that the amount of weed we had wasn’t enough to arrest us but that we were denied entrance into Canada that day. So you remember my piece-of-shit car? Once they let us go and we got back into my car, I tried to start it and it wouldn’t start. So the Border Patrol helped push-start our car so we could leave and cross back into the States. This really did happen. When we pulled up to the US Border station, we had to give them the paperwork that stated why we were denied entrance, and then they had to search our car as well. After we were allowed to leave the station, they also had to push-start my car so we could leave. Truly, a pretty humiliating day.

We camped the night in Bellingham, marveling at the fact that somehow we had made it out with just a scare. To be fair, the idiot boyfriend apologized profusely all night. The next day, we went to cross the border again because we were meeting our friends in Alaska for the summer. The Border Patrol had to pull us over and check the car again since we now had a record with them. We were granted access this time because the moron did not have any more weed, but they did have to push-start my car again. They even waved to us as we drove away. I’m pretty sure they kept the weed for themselves and strip-searched us to mess with dumb kids (22 years old at the time) because as we were driving away, they were laughing at us. I mean, it is and was really comical.

You would think the story ends here. It does not. We had to push-start my car the whole drive up through British Columbia, the Yukon, and into Alaska. At one point, we camped overnight in the Yukon to get much-needed sleep. In the morning, my car wouldn’t turn on with the push-start. I don’t know what you know about the Yukon, but it is, quite literally, the middle of nowhere, and no one is around for miles. If you see a gas station, you make sure to fill up even if you don’t need to, just to be safe. We didn’t know what we were going to do. Maybe a couple of hours went by, and out of nowhere, we heard a truck coming down the road. We hailed him over. He was your stereotypical super-friendly Canadian, and every other word out of his mouth was “Eh.” We told him about the car situation. I’m sure he thought we were insane, but I think he might have been just as crazy as we were. He was like, “Maybe you just need more speed with the push to get it to go.” He said, “I have a chain we can attach to the front of your car, and I’ll pull your car with speed and then you stick it into gear, and maybe that will work.” Guess what? It worked. He unhooked my car, said good luck, and waved goodbye. We thanked him and were off to the last part of our trip to Alaska. We never turned the car off again until we got to Homer, Alaska. We even kept it running when we filled the car up with gas. Yes, I know, we were dumb. Did I mention how stupid we were? My only excuse is that I was 22 years old and, obviously, my frontal lobe wasn’t fully developed yet.

We did make it to Alaska. Once we got there, my car didn’t work again for the whole summer. I used my car as a closet because I camped for the whole summer.

As I mentioned before in an earlier post, I will be sharing stories in no particular order. I have been processing a lot in my life for the past year since my ex-husband left me with no warning, only to discover now he is identifying as a woman. Of course, that is a story to tell, and I don’t know when I will be ready for that, but I plan on sharing it at some point. Maybe I’ll share next time how he and I met because the story of our love is just as incredible as the story of the loss.

Here are 3 items that were my life savers for that whole summer:

• Skydome Camping Tent that became my home for a whole summer

• Inflatable Sleeping Pad; if you like camping or backpacking, these sleeping pads are amazing. They pack up nice and small to fit into your backpack. I slept on my sleeping pad all summer. I know I was only 22 but it was a life saver.

• All weather sleeping bag is a must for Alaska