Coming to Canada Part 2

After a period of time living in Calgary on our emergency visa, it became imperative that we apply for Landed Immigrant Status (a term no longer used). On our emergency visa it was stated that my wife could not work, which was fine at the time as we had just had a second baby born in Calgary, and work was not an immediate issue. Also, our children could not attend public school, also not an immediate issue. However, we needed to clear up our status.

Using an immigration lawyer, we applied. The process was a bit complicated, however, all of these processes including citizenship which we achieved many years later, are complicated processes. My feeling was that as long as you were educated and spoke one of the official languages of the country, it was not daunting. However, we clearly were in a minority as very few of the immigrants we’ve seen and met have both spoken an official language and were educated.

After fees were paid and time moved on we received notice that we could enter Canada as Landed Immigrants. This was great news; however, we had to leave the country in order to enter. This was a questionable activity, and even though I questioned it, the answer was, we had to leave the country in order to enter.

Where do we go? We had to leave Canada. The answer became quite simple, simpler if we lived where we do right now as we could go to Niagara Falls, NY and return; however, we were in Calgary. We went off to Montana, our native land.

Three hours down the road with the kids, we landed across the border. We drove past Canadian Customs into Montana about 50 yards, and before we reached US Customs, we made a U-turn and went back to Canadian Customs (a very small building on the Alberta Montana border) and went in. We were the only car at the border at that moment. We were taken into a private room and filed our papers and got out border stamps etc., and were welcomed to Canada, the place we already lived. I think we had already eaten our lunch at Subway in rural Alberta, so celebration was three hours north back in Calgary.

These have all been memorable experiences, and I guess I’ll repost our citizenship event tomorrow or so, just to complete the journey.