[QUOTE=saoirse]
When my sister moved back from Alaska, she and her family came by road, with everything packed up in three trucks. Her husband brought his pistols, locked up in a strongbox. He admitted this when they asked and was sent back, wheere he had to have dealer forward the guns to a club near here. He insisted that he should be able to keep his guns with him, because he wasn’t planning on spending any time in Canada doing anything but driving, and he really just wanted to get to the other side. The border guards were not unsympathetic, but they couldn’t let him in with his guns.
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A friend from Texas had almost the same thing happen to him. Apparently, on long motor trips, he always takes his guns. And for his vacation one year, he was planning to drive his RV from his home near Houston to visit a friend in Anchorage, Alaska. Long trip, but it would, of course, take him through Canada, which he just wanted to get through. In other words, nothing more than stops for fuel and coffee–like your sister’s husband, he was just planning on driving through, his destination was Anchorage, and he was not going to be in Canada any longer than necessary. Thankfully, he had the good sense to contact me first to find out if he could take his guns with him through Canada.
As you can see, the answer was (and is) NO. Not even if, as he suggested, he kept them in a locked strongbox, dissassembled, with ammunition kept separately. Well, he grumped and groaned, stated that it was his God-given right as a red-blooded American and especially a Texan to have his guns with him everywhere, stated and restated that he would be “only passing through,” blamed me a bit for having such a wimpy government, apologized for that remark, and ranted a bit more until he realized that none of his arguments would hold any water with the Canadian government, or especially Canada Customs when he got to the border.
In the end, he still had his vacation. He drove his RV to Seattle (with guns), had a great time seeing the USA from Houston to Seattle, and left the RV at a Seattle friend’s place, while he flew to Alaska to visit his Anchorage friend. I believe that he packed his guns up and checked them as luggage on the aircraft. At any rate, he did later thank me for the information. He avoided losing his guns at the Canadian border (at best), and he avoided being arrested (at worst), and he was grateful.