Chris, the delightful constable in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, met me at the pier on his steed. That’s a quad bike up here. He needed me to go with him to his station so that we could call the Canadian Border Agency and negotiate our legal entry into Canada. Not an easy thing to do in remote Labrador.
So off I went riding pillion through Makkovik (a town of 300 and one of the larger settlements in this region) and up the hill to the police station. Constable Chris had already taken a trip out to the boat and inspected our firearm and heard our story of how we had washed up in this remote corner of Canada. Not too many yachts come this way and few, if any, arrive here from Greenland!
We had already tried to call the Border Agency from our satellite phone 10 times and just got told that we must sail a hundred miles inland to check in at the official entry point. This time, when the RCMP made the call, we got a different guy who calmly took all the details and logged us onto the CANPASS system. We were legal.
Even the gun wasn’t a problem and when I offered to donate the ammunition to the RCMP his advice was, “keep it because there was a polar bear in town yesterday”!
Thus we are now legally admitted to Canada and free to wander at will. Thanks RCMP for the ride and for making that call. A great welcome to Canada and it’s good to be back in polar bear country.
When I got back to the boat freshly caught wild salmon fillets had been delivered to the boat at anchor by a fisherman and his dog. The dog was, of course, a Labrador!