I was nervous about my dog Ayla crossing into Canada as I approached the small checkpoint about 10 minutes north of Fortuna, SD, a town so tiny that there is only one bar, a post office, and a senior center in the shadows below the large grain towers. Tubby and slim were bored and kind of excited to see two vehicles at their checkpoint. Slim went to my boyfriend's truck in front of me, and Tubby questioned me. My boyfriend was fine to go inside and waited to the side. Tubby carefully looked over's my dogs rabies papers and said she was fine to go to Canada, but he wanted to see me inside after I admitted that I had a can of mace. He took the mace, but let me keep the large jumbo sized can of pepper spray called "Bear Spray". Then he started questioning me about how long I was going to stay and how much money I had, and asked me what my plans were if I broke up with my boyfriend. They kept me about an hour and a half, and even had me talk to an immigration officer on the phone in the big city who made me sign a paper saying I would leave Canada in exactly two months.
Tired and hungry, I was free to go into Canada and I immediately noticed the difference. South Dakota is grassland with thousands of hay bales lined up on the road and on pretty green fields in the middle of July. Canada, especially Saskatchewan, seemed to be one large canola field. Sure there were hay bales too, but the bright yellow fields were beautiful to look at. There were also a lot of oil rigs scattered across the land, most the profits going to Canada since they bought all the mineral rights out from under farmers years ago. Most the oil goes to the US while Canadians pays European prices for oil. We stopped in a big town an hour from the border to fill up on gas which was a couple dollars a liter (ouch!) then had "dinner" at A&W (that is what they call "lunch"). They gave us real mugs to drink out of and the whole menu was so different from the ones in the states. I got Poutine, French fries drowned in gravy with bits of cheese curds, and twin sirloin burgers that were covered in mustard instead of ketchup. We drove a few hours into the lake covered state of Manitoba. I started to notice that the canola fields weren't as bright and full because of the flooding. It seems that someone up in heaven has forgotten to turn off the rain in Manitoba. Some fields weren't even planted at all, and were a muddy mess.
Me and my boyfriend were talking on the radio back and forth the whole drive. He pointed out that people cleared most "the bush" (that means "forest" for you Americans), except for the trees surrounding the houses on the farms. They need the trees because the wind in winter is so horribly cold, the trees block it. It was weird seeing the swampy sad canola fields and small patches of bush that hid the farm houses.
We arrived late at night, and I was greeted first by the Canadian Air Force (that is what they call their mosquitoes) then the whole family.
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