I’m going to Glacier National Park in a few weeks and would love to pop over the Canadian border into Alberta. The thing is, I have only the following ID with me:
*Valid driver’s license
*Social security card
*A photocopy (not notarized) of my birth certificate
*A US passport that expired, oh, 12 years ago
This site says it’s okay to have an expired passport as your ID, but I’m still nervous (plus, it sounds like those are Canadian rules, not American).
Any authorities or voices of experience?
Also, to get my birth certificate copy notarized, can I just show up at the public notary’s office and hand it over for the stamp? Would I need the original with me?
For the second: contact the place where you birth certificate is kept (usually, the town, village or city where the hospital was where you were born) and they can get you a notarized certificate. It’s a little trickier post-9/11, but the paperwork isn’t difficult.
Your driver’s license and expired passport will be more than enough. And besides which, the US will let you back in if you’re a citizen, no questions asked other than “do you have anything to declare?” - if the Canadian border patrol lets you in with an expired passport, I don’t see any reason why the US won’t let you back in.
PS: Horridly jealous. I’m from that general area - only 3 hours drive north of Great Falls. Wave at my aunties as you hit Waterton townsite.
ENTRY/EXIT REQUIREMENTS: All persons entering Canada may be required to present proof of citizenship and identity. U.S. citizens are encouraged to show a U.S. passport. If they do not have a passport, they should be prepared to provide a government-issued photo ID (e.g. Driver’s License) and proof of U.S. citizenship such as a birth certificate, naturalization certificate, or expired U.S. passport. U.S. citizens entering Canada from a third country must have a valid U.S. passport. A visa is not required for U.S. citizens to visit Canada of up to 180 days. Anyone seeking to enter Canada for any purpose besides a visit, (e.g. to work, study or immigrate) should contact the Canadian Embassy or nearest consulate prior to travel. Anyone with a criminal record (including some misdemeanors such as Driving While Impaired (DWI) charges) may be excluded or removed from Canada, and should contact the Canadian Embassy or nearest Canadian consulate well in advance of any planned travel for further processing, which may take some time. For further information on entry requirements, travelers may contact the Embassy of Canada at 501 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 20001, tel. (202) 682-1740, or the Canadian consulates in Buffalo, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York or Seattle. The Canadian Embassy’s website is: http://www.canadianembassy.org/.
Find more information about Entry and Exit Requirements pertaining to dual nationality and the prevention of international child abduction. Please refer to our Customs Information to learn more about customs regulations.
Notaries cannot make certified copies of documents when certification of those documents is available from the source that issued them.
Hmm, that doesn’t sound exactly right. If you can get a certified copy of a document (birth certificate, driving record, etc.) from a public office, a notary public is not allowed to make a certified copy of it.
I think that would vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and depend on the local laws governing notaries public. I am a notary public (in Canada) and have never heard of that restriction on my ability to certificate. When I applied for temporary membership in another province’s Law Society, I needed to send them a notarised copy of my birth certificate, which is also available from the provincial Vital Stats. The notary had no trouble certifying it, even though I could have got a certified copy from Vital Stats. YMMV.
A notary can only certificate something as a true copy by comparing it to the original. If you were to come to me with a photocopy but not the original, I would politely decline to certify it until you came back with the original for comparison.
In Spain they are, but they have to make the copy themselves (that is, you have to be able to bring the original). A Spanish “birth certificate” is not the register kept by the government, but a document in official paper stating that your birth was registered in suchandsuch place, thisandthat date, in tome blah section uhm foilo whatever of the registry. You’d be able to get this copied at a notary’s office and a stamp put on the copy saying “we made this copy and certify its authenticity”.
I’m sure there’s differences between the way notaries work in different parts of the US, too.
I expect that the issue concerning notarial copies might have more to do with an organization not being willing to accept a notarial copy when a certified copy can easily be issued from the originating institution, rather than any restriction on what types documents can or can not be certified by a notary as being true copies of the original.
Different jurisdictions have different laws, but here in Ontario there is no restriction on the type of document that a notary can deal with. Amusingly, the law says that notaries can do what notaires usually do. : http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/DBLaws/Statutes/English/90n06_e.htm . Desite this, some organizations simply do not accept copies certified by a notary to be true copies, particularly if the document originated abroad: http://www.brocku.ca/registrar/admissions/intldocs.php . I expect that what it comes down to is that it is too easy to forge a notary’s seal (anyone can order up a seal from an office supply company without further ado), and it is too much bother to check up with the government (or some foreign government) to determine if a notary really is a notary.
Under the heading of silly but useful things they don’t teach you in law school, as far as making notarial copies goes, I’ve found that using a rubber stamp and using a red seal is the best route to go, despite neither being required in my province. A few months ago, a client came in with a document that had been notarized by a Justice of the Peace, but then had been rejected by an eastern European nation (I can’t recall which one) because the seal was gold, rather than red. I slapped a red seal on it, rubber stamped the heck out of it, and gave it back to him to re-submit. It worked. I have faced similar issues with Portugal/Azores. I don’t know if different jurisdictions have rules of stamps and seals and colours of seals, but in general, I think that stamps and seals and particularly the colour red works well with the bureaucratic mind, just as shiny things work well with ravens.
If you go via Highway 2 (which you come to off of I-15? - the Interstate that goes north from Great Falls) and then cut across just South of Calgary, it will take you somewhere in the neighbourhood of three hours to drive there. 150 miles, 300 km. The speed limit on most Alberta highways is 110 Kph.
See, I woulda said that, but I’m sure he can figure it out on his own. He’s from Montana, where they drive even faster than in Alberta. There’s this twisty, windy road which goes from Glendive to Great Falls (201?) and I could do 75-80 mph on it and still be passed.
I see a link has been given, but I just came in to also reccommend that you just get the passport renewed, since as of 1/1/07 you’ll need a passport to get into canada anyway.
I don’t think that’s right. I’ve not seen any indication that the Canadian federal government will require Americans entering Canada to have a passport. Rather, it’s the US federal government that will require anyone entering the U.S. from Canada to have a passport, even if they’re American. (Or alternatively, a secure I.D. card issued by the US federal gov’t.)
Far from requiring passports for cross-border travel, the Canadian government has been lobbying the US government not to bring in the passport requirement, because of concerns about the effect a passport requirment will have on trade and tourism.
