Clancy Day and Canadian Trips

Over on the Stormvale list, we're discussing Clancy Day and trips to Canada. Over the years, I have noticed there is perhaps a little less interaction between the SCA in Canada and the US than there used to be. When Ealdormere was part of the Middle Kingdom (indeed, at one time part of Pentamere), we used to head over pretty regularly. Even after the separation, it was no big deal to hop over the Blue Water Bridge into Sarnia for an event or a practice. Since 9/11 and the possibility of long lines and more intrusive checks at the border, there has perhaps been a little less contact.

Clancy Day is an event of very long standing held by the Shire of Starleaf Gate in Windsor. Starleaf Gate is the only Ontario group not to go with Ealdormere. Windsor is of course much closer to Roaring Wastes and Detroit than to the Ealdormere population center around Toronto. I don't know whether the Starleaf Gate crew feels a bit isolated since 9/11 or not - I actually haven't been to a Canadian event since the late 1990s. Melisande and I went quite frequently in those days and made good friends; our apartment hosted parties of event-goers from Toronto on a regular basis in return.

We never had any trouble going back and forth over the border. The only incident was one time, the Canadian border guard asked whether we had any weapons, and to my flabbergasted surprise, Melisande innocently volunteered the fact that she was carrying mace in her purse. Mace is illegal in Canada - it had never occurred to me that she might not have realized that. There was a brief delay at that point... but actually they didn't give us a hard time, just made us go back over the border and get rid of the mace and come back.

No passports are required yet unless you're flying, but I've been planning to get passports for us soon anyway. (Not before Clancy Day, obviously.) Strange that I've never had one, but I've never needed one, having travelled only in North and Central America. But we want to go to England in the forseeable future, Canada will be an issue sooner or later, and passports make remarkably good ID no matter where you are.

Not sure about Clancy Day. Definitely going to Coronation at the end of April.