During the summer of 1998, I signed up for a salmon fishing trip in the Queen Charlotte Islands put together by the Sandy River chapter of the Northwest Steelheaders, near PDX. The plan was to drive from Portland to Vancouver, spend the night, and then take a couple of small planes further north, one to a small landing strip on the island of Bela Bela, the other a float plane to our final destination, a renovated ocean-going tugboat.

On the morning of July 13, a fellow pulled up by my apartment with whom I had prearranged to share the ride to Vancouver. As I loaded my gear onto his tiny A/C-less, radio-less vehicle (evidently normally towed behind an R/V), he asked me whether I had any guns.

I thought about the question for a moment. It wasn't that I did not know the answer - it was just that I guess I had never been asked that question before. "Am I supposed to?" I replied.

He explained that "for some reason" the Canadians tend to look somewhat askance at Americans and their love affair with guns. He thought that I should be aware of that "just in case" I was planning to bring any along. I told him that I was not planning to shoot any salmon although I have been know to shoot my mouth off Besides, I didn't own any guns, so off we went on the 6-7 hour drive north to the Canadian border.

Once we arrived at the border, we waited in the car on a fairly lengthy line until it was finally our turn to be queried. We were asked a couple of questions and then an extremely polite Canadian customs officer directed us to pull off to a special area, where we were instructed to vacate the car which would then undergo a much more thorough inspection. The entire process took about an hour and all of the Canadian customs personnel were polite and proper throughput the entire endeavor. But as I wandered around bored, I happened to meander towards the back of the vehicle, whereupon I noticed that the bumper had been adorned with an assortment of pretty NRA sponsored bumper stickers. I presume that's what had done the trick.