Thank You, Canada 🇨🇦

Glad you enjoyed our wonderful home: Canada.🇨🇦

Lyndash, would you be able to fill in some details about the drive through Canada with a dog? We drive to Massachusetts from Washington State with a dog and have thought about detouring through Canada and up in to Cape Breton. I'm mostly interested in what sort of documentation you needed to cross into Canada and back into the US with a dog and whether there were any additional issues regarding dog food and treats.

Several years ago my husband and I took a road trip to Jasper and Banff N.P.s without the dog and noticed just how dog friendly (and people friendly) Canada was. So we'd like to go back.

I have traveled from the US to New Brunswick with dogs quite a bit, typically crossing the border at Houlton, Maine. We used to do this several times a year and would just bring immunization records and documentation of their most recent vet visits. We would proactively offer the packet with all the paperwork we had but the border agents never looked at it. Never had any issues.

When I was way younger, 50 years ago, I contemplated driving up the Alcan highway to Alaska.
At that time much of the highway was gravel, not pavement.
Is that still the case?

Thank you for the nice post. Sadly, your government has treated us pretty poorly the last two years, and anti-American sentiment is definitely growing here. Most of us differentiate between the hostile American government and the lovely American people (most of them), and messages like this remind us that most Americans still want to be friends. I'm glad you enjoyed your time with us.

SJ and darrenblois, I felt like apologizing for our ridiculous President, and the ambassador we sent you as well, to every Canadian we interacted with but refrained. Because most people generally know about Texas we did have folks comment about how far we drove but politics never came up.

Geovagriffith, the Alcan is mostly paved these days but still has its challenges. Frost heaves and road repair in the summer, and keeping a close eye on your gas gauge because gas stations are few and far between. The section from Haines Junction to the AK border is still gravel. It’s not a trip to do without preparation beforehand for sure. We wanted to do it one more time because at 77 and 76 we are a bit more aware the possible health issues that could arise. But it’s a beautiful drive and it seemed like we had less people on the road with us than our other 3 times.

Trotter, taking Bailey into Canada was pretty easy, we had our rabies certificate with us and that was all that was required. BUT! Getting him into Alaska is another story. And this isn’t an AK rule, it’s USA wide. It’s very different than it was in 2017 when we did the trip the last time with dogs. You have to have a certificate of health from a USDA certified veterinarian plus the rabies vaccination certificate. It was a scramble to do that because the vet clinic we use none of the vets were certified. We did find one, got him in and got it done before we left. At the border the guard, very nice friendly guy, didn’t really examine the forms and when asked about it said: Yeah some of us really check those, some of don’t. Sooo….. I’d really look into it before crossing the border if you want to come back. We carried enough food for him for our 8 weeks and there was no problem with that.

Camping our way across the country, it was dog friendly but campgrounds tend to be everywhere we’ve found. Our guy is a very good traveler fortunately.

Im so glad you enjoyed your trip. For most people a round trip drive between Texas and Alaska would be considered quite an accomplishment. To do it 4 times? That's a whole 'nether level! And I hope Bailey had a great time too.

Thanks for the info Lyndash. I had heard somewhere at some time that it was the crossing to the US where additional paperwork was required. Sigh....