We woke up to glorious, blazing full sun and figured it might finally be time to look into rigging the boat. We had everything splayed out on our “lawn” when Steve looked down the Maine line and said “We’ve got company”. Two US Border Patrol agents- one on a snowmobile, one on an ATV, both armed to the teeth- rolled into our camp and called out our names.
Generally I’m suspicious (and nervous) when federal agents know who I am before I introduce myself, but we got extremely lucky and these two gentlemen were SUPER nice. They explained that they’d heard about us from Canadian border patrol and had come out hoping to catch us before we took off down the river. Apparently, despite my conversation over a month prior with the Fort Kent customs folks (and the Canadian PD’s assertion the other day that we were fine as long as we stayed on US soil and checked in further down the line), the minute we pushed off on the river we would have been considered “entrants without inspection” and WOULD HAVE BEEN ARRESTED AND PUT IN FEDERAL PRISON AS SOON AS WE HIT A BORDER PATROL CROSSING. WTF.
We were horrified (I was also pretty pissed at myself for not taking more detailed notes and getting specific names during my logistical research) and were fully prepared to either a) have to call off the trip and hitchhike back to Vermont or b) beg. The border patrol guys weren’t entirely sure what to tell us, since we’d obviously put in the effort to do our homework on backcountry border crossings and were fully committed (read: sans vehicular transportation) to being in the Canadian/American wilderness for several weeks.
The “easiest” thing for us to do would be to get ourselves, the boat, and our gear to a US Customs Inspection Station to get cleared. (Ironically, we were camped thirty feet from what used to be one, but had been shut down years prior.) Since the next closest was SIXTY MILES AWAY by road, which posed some pretty obvious logistical challenges, the officers couldn’t give us a definitive plan of action and needed to check in with their superiors… which, given the total lack of cell service in a thirty mile radius, meant we had to stay put on the slash under threat of federal imprisonment while our new armed acquaintances drove back to base to figure out what to do with us.
Nothing ruins a day more than going from “let’s leave tomorrow!” to “you’re sort of almost illegal immigrants, please don’t do anything until we get back and also the river is still VERY much iced over like, ten miles from here”.
And so we waited. (Are you sensing a theme on this trip yet?) Steve did some pacing; we stared at the trees; I proved that I CAN lie down comfortably in the boat without removing the thwarts; I re-counted our food supply; and we threw around all of our options for continuing. (They mostly amounted to “go for a multi-day hike with all our shit down the side of a remote highway and put in from wherever we can get inspected”.) Our biggest fear was that they wouldn’t return within 24 hours and we’d have to choose whether to camp there indefinitely or make a call and go rogue.
Impressively, they were back about five hours later to report they’d called “pretty much damn near the president himself” and been granted special authority to inspect us themselves. (HELL. EFFING. YES.) They got photos of our boat, gear, and passports before getting a shot of the two of us to pass along the border so folks would know who to look for as we came through; they “made” Steve wear his stupid captain’s hat for this. He was understandably “devastated” and “mortified”.
Both of us feel WAY better now that we have an actual, federally-approved plan in place now- even if we know we’re going to have to wait ANOTHER day here waiting for the ice to go out. I’m already pretty freaking sunburned, and I’d really like to be on the water instead of parked in a snowbank.