Hey guys, finally finished dealing with Canada in regards to getting approved to transit Canada from the lower 48 up to Alaska with ammo and restricted firearms.  Just have a couple notes in case anyone else is planning this anytime soon.



1. With restricted firearms, you can only enter Canada through Alberta or British Columbia.  When you fill out the non-resident authorization to transport, there is a field for port of entry and it lists entrances for every province....but once they get your form, they will deny anything but those 2 provinces.  So my route has now changed, I'll be entering through Alberta



2. When getting approval for restricted firearms, their factory specs are what matter.  For instance, I have a Springfield XD9 that came from the factory with a 4.0" barrel (lower limit is 4.1" for Canada).  Now, I have a Storm Lake threaded 4.75" barrel.  Does not matter to them, since it started as 4.0", they have to match it to their "list" of approved firearms, so that gun is now prohibited and cannot enter Canada.



3. Magazines that can be both used in rifles and handguns are easily prohibited.  For example, Ruger BX25 mags, they can be used in both the 10/22 and Charger pistol, so they are over the limit, even though they are rimfire.



4. When filling out the form for ammo approval (to bring more than 5k rounds per person), you do need to fill out every make/caliber/count combination.  So I have like 10 different brands of .308, had to fill out a line for each one.  When you get your approval though, they just round up on the total volume of everything and mark it as "small arms cartridges", not even noting the calibers.



Everyone I dealt with at the RCMP and Natural Resources groups were super helpful, took time to explain things, check on guns to see how they would fare (non-restricted vs restricted vs prohibited), very nice folks.



We'll be on the road soon headed up that way.  At least until my boss tells me that I NEED to move to Georgia

You should have asked about this one, it was discussed quite a bit last year.

You could have listed your .308 as one line, and marked the manufacturer as "Various" and then just a total round count for each caliber.

My single use permit last year was good for 40,000 rounds of ammunition.

For the firearms, I sent those with the movers/household goods as they went to the west coast and then up to AK via barge/ship.

I actually did call because I thought you could just write various, but the guy I talked to in Canada said I had to list each mfg separately.  Thankfully most cals are a single mfg, but 308 was very varied


Wife and I are just taking our cars, so whatever fits gets to come with us been a bit of a purge the last couple weeks, but it's just stuff. Most of which we probably haven't touched in the past 10 years.


 

Border cross was pretty quick and painless. Stop, go inside, talk guns with the guy for a few minutes, he keys in info from my papers, pay 25 bucks. Took about 15 minutes and I was outta there.  Now to finish the drive...

Rolled into Alaska yesterday afternoon finally.  Ended up going Dallas > Omaha > Billings > Calgary > Fort St John > Watson Lake > Tok.  Not too bad of a drive surprisingly, even with us driving separate cars (wife took the dog with her, he got through the trip like a champ).





About 4k miles, burned through a quart of oil in each car, got an extra chip in each windshield , quite a few tanks of gas, but good times.





We stopped at the Tetsa River Lodge for a cinnamon bun and some pepperoni snack sticks, yum. Their dog was real friendly too, followed my dog around peeing on everything to make sure my dog knew this was HIS place.





When we got to Watson Lake, forgot to fill up that night before we went to sleep...nothing was open in the morning, oops.  Between other stations not opening until 7 (we left early), or just closed/closed for the season, I had to work real hard to make it to Teslin.  Needle was below E, distance till empty said "---", barely rolled in on fumes over the bridge where I saw the permanent police car





I tell ya, that road from Destruction Bay to Beaver Creek, yikes.  Between the whoops, potholes, rough (and I mean ROUGH) roads, and the gravel, that is a heck of a stretch.  Pretty sure I bottomed out my suspension about 1,000 times and need to have all the fillings in my teeth replaced.





But we made it, now to find a place to live for a bit!





Some pics from along the way (big horn sheep, caribou, bison).  We also came across some black bears, pronghorn, and wild (?) horses.










 

Welcome    Btw, the gun show is going on in Fairbanks this weekend.

We just drove a UHaul up the AK HIghway.  We did not take any firearms with us.  We told the Agent we each had 17# of smokeless gun powder, 5,000 primers, "less than 5000 rounds of ammo" and "less than 5000 cases".  He questioned us about why so much shooting stuff but no guns, but was happy with our reasons.  He asked about Mace and Magazines.  We explained we mailed all the mags to ourselves.  After that he told us where we could find a spot to get a room for the night.  It wasn't easy for us to find a motel that could take a truck and trailer in the parking lot in the middle of the night.

Gas in CAN was between $.999 and $1.299 per L or over $5 per gal!

Coming into AK the agent asked us about firearms and any fruit or veggies.

BC had lots of rest areas where there was a garbage can but no toilet!  The road was OK most of the trip but turned to "Extremely Dusty Road" for 44 KM just before AK.  Even some of the stuff in plastic tubs had dust when we unpacked the truck.

Nice, where in AK are you ending up?

We bought a cabin in Houston about 13 years ago.

What did US BP ask or do about your guns?  We hadn't thought about them...just worried about CAN.  We didn't have any with us so wasn't a problem.  Was not expecting US to ask, just never thought about it.