Denouement of Steggie's vacation

It was all a lie.

The trip was very nice, but it was conducted under a false premise.

It took much longer to get to Washington than I was expecting. I had failed to consider that there might be a wait to get across the border. There was a wait. An hour and a half wait. In the car. The very warm car. The Pacific Northwest was experiencing a heat wave. (Seriously, it was 100. Warmer even than Davis! I longed for Victoria, which was 10 degrees cooler.)

Once I finally got across the border, I had to turn around and go back to the US border station for commercial traffic to drop off the paperwork. (Incidentally, there was no wait in this direction. Canadians are flocking to the US, but not the other way around it would seem.) By that time I was so hungry (it was well after lunchtime) and my coffee-to-food ratio had reached such heights that I was shaking. Which wasn't helped by the general anxiety I feel whenever doing these official, bureaucratic type things. The border agents must have thought there was something wrong with me; it's a wonder they let me in!

But everything went well, and I was on my way (after lunch of course) south to Tacoma. The next day I had a very nice visit with my Grandma. The day after that I had planned on spending holed up in coffee shops and public libraries and reading journal articles, but I decided at the last minute that it would be criminal for me to be in Washington and not go to Mount Rainier. So Steggie and I hied to Paradise! It was wonderful. I had such a marvelous time. It was such perfect timing too. The meadows were full of flowers, including both forms (flower and seed head) of my all-time favorite: pasqueflower, aka mouse-on-a-stick.



I went on a short hike up to Panorama Point. It's been 5 years since I was last at Mount Rainier, and 10 since I spent much time at Paradise or got up to Pan Point. I'm so glad that I threw responsibility and those journal articles to the winds!

And that accounted for our three days in Washington. The next day I drove back to the border (carefully timing it to arrive 72 hours after I'd dropped off the paperwork) only to have the US border agent tell me that I didn't have to export my car.

What?!!

He had happened to ask me if I would be moving back to the US with my car. Since I will be, he recommended that I ask Canada if they would temporarily import my car. A temporary import wouldn't require first exporting the car. Wouldn't require three days in the US. Now they tell me! (His response was, "You should have asked!" More on that later...)

So I walked over to Canada. Asked if it was possible to temporarily import my car.

"Yes, that will be easy!"

Uf.

So I walked back to the US. Let the nice border agent know that they would temporarily import Steggie. Collected Steggie, and drove to Canada.

Temporary importation is the best. It doesn't require exporting. It doesn't require paying duty or tax or excise tax. It doesn't require a federal inspection. It would be even better if its existence was anywhere to be found on the official websites of US and Canadian customs.

Initially I didn't mind. I had a wonderful trip to Washington. My day trip to Mount Rainier couldn't have been better, and I really needed something like this enforced vacation to make me take time off work and visit my Grandma. But as I waited and waited for a ferry back to Vancouver Island (I had to wait through two because it's tourist season and they fill up quickly), it festered and I became more and more irritated by all of the misinformation.

I blame the state of the world today.

It's so impossible to speak with a human being anymore. Normally that wouldn't bother me. I'm relatively shy (believe it or not) and I generally will try to do as much online as I possibly can. But I knew in this instance that I needed someone to help me. Someone who knows the ins and outs of the process. I knew that I was not likely to figure it out properly on my own.

So I tried. I really really tried. I called everyone I could think of calling. I called BCAA, the local branch of the American Automobile Association. It seems like they'd be a good start. They're the automobile association, after all! And they're my insurance provider in the US. They weren't very helpful. They referred me to ICBC, or the insurance corporation in BC.

ICBC was extremely firm. They informed me that I had to import my car and that I must do it immediately upon arriving in BC (ha). I tried to get out of it by telling them that I was only here temporarily, that I was in essence here on an academic appointment. To no avail. They never changed their tune. Looking back on my notes, I don't think that she actually told me anything untrue. She said that I would need to import my car, but didn't go into the details. That was left for me to figure out, on my own, as it turns out, because of the impossibility of getting a human on the phone. I suppose it's too much to hope for her to let me know about temporary imports...

I called Canadian Customs. There was nobody to talk to there. Just a recording directing you to the website and reading out the process to import a car. Reading out only one process to import a car, involving the exporting it to import it rigamarole. I had the option to speak with an agent, but as it turns out I didn't, as it did not happen to be a particular hour in Ontario. Of course not. The website (which I'd already found) told a similar story. There was only one way to import a car, and it involved exporting it, paying a lot of taxes, and having it inspected. No mention of temporary imports.

I called US Customs. Again, a recording. This one didn't even have the option of speaking with an agent. If you have questions you're supposed to email or leave a message. Maybe they'll get back to you. Maybe. (I kept my disgruntlement to myself when the US customs agent said, "why didn't you ask us?!")

But even if I had spoken with someone, would it have made a difference? My impression from the authoritarian ICBC lady and from Canadian Customs, both their website and their phone recording, was that there was only one way to import a car. Why would they include all this step-by-step information for only one process if there was, in fact, more than one possibility??

The customs agent that helped me at the border seemed very amused by the extent of my misinformation. I'd ask a question or allude to some part of the process and he'd inevitably laugh and respond with, "you learned that online?" Ai! Apparently none (or at least very little) of it applies to people with a work permit, like I have. It all assumes the mainstream course: that the person importing a car is a Canadian citizen (or permanent resident, I suppose), importing a car into Canada for keeps. Fine. That probably does account for the majority of the cases. But I can't imagine that there is a completely trivial number of people with work permits... So why don't they have a link on their website, or a button to push on their phone line, for people with work permits? For people who only need a temporary import?

So what would the chances be that, if I had gotten somebody on the phone, I would have actually said the right keywords to trigger getting the right information from them? How would I know to say "work permit" or "temporary import"? I'd tried that with the ICBC lady, remember? I told her I would only be in Canada for less than 3 years. Made no difference whatsoever! Urrr.

I think perhaps Customs has no information on the temporary option because they really don't care. If it were up to them, I wouldn't have to import my car at all. Their law is that if you're in the country less than 3 years, you don't have to import. They even asked me if I still had a California address and suggested that I continue registering there. But, of course, that isn't really an option. It may square with customs, but it doesn't with the province and with insurance laws.

Oh well. It was still a nice trip. I just wish the motivation hadn't all been a lie!