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Frustrated snowbirds changing plans after U.S. extends land border closure

JOANNE LEE-YOUNG

Panicked snowbirds had held off booking winter reservations for Fort Camping RV sites that Marilyn Stone manages in Fort Langley, Agassiz and Parksville, in hopes the U.S. would finally ease border restrictions that have been in place since the start of COVID-19 in March 2020.

But now, with the White House announcing this week that restrictions at the land border on non-essential travel by Canadians will be extended until Oct. 21, some are worried “it's getting too late” to start driving south, said Stone.

Waiting another month to see whether the land border will be opened means they'll have to deal with winter driving conditions in late October and early November.

“Phones started to ring yesterday and people who had been holding off were more panic stricken, asking, `Do you have a place?' ” said Stone. “They don't want to go over the mountains with their big rigs (that late). There are the (Rockies), but also mountains going down to the U.S. wherever they go, to Arizona or Texas.”

She said, “Last year, we were definitely packed to the gills for the winter. It's looking like it could be the same for sure.”

Canadian travellers to the U.S. currently can arrive for non-essential reasons only by air.

The Canadian Snowbird Association said Tuesday it has “been engaging with U.S. government officials and agencies to safely reopen the land border to Canadian citizens as soon as possible. This is an advocacy priority as over 70 per cent of Canadian snowbirds travel to the U.S. with their vehicles.”

“I think my confusion, and that of a lot of other snowbirds, is that I can't understand why I can fly, but not drive. That's still my frustration. Driving seems to be much safer than going in and out of airports,” said Wendy Caban, who lives in the Okanagan and has a place in Mesa, Ariz.

Stone said that, at the Fort Langley site that's been running a winter program for a decade, “we had a bunch of new people come (last winter) from the Prairies and as far as Ontario who would normally drive to the U.S.”

Howard Galganov and his wife, Anne, who are semi-retired, usually escape the freeze of southeastern Ontario by heading to Texas, but they'll be back at Fort Langley again this winter.

“The thing is, I'm not even sure (the border) will open after Oct. 21. I don't want to sit and wait for the American government. They're in no rush to open it,” he said.

News of the land border restrictions on Canadians being extended came on the same day the White House announced it plans to begin opening air travel for all vaccinated foreign nationals in early November.

“For some reason, Canadians with an RV are a different situation,” said Galganov, adding they usually spend about $20,000 when they winter in the U.S. “It's not the end of the world. I'd rather be going south, but Fort Langley is a beautiful place, too.”

Meanwhile, in Washington state, Whatcom County's smaller businesses, hit hard by the loss of Canadian snowbird traffic and continuing border restrictions, can apply for grants from a new program that will be launched by the state's Department of Commerce in early October.

Canadians haven't been able to frequent these businesses, but vaccinated Americans are allowed by Canada to cross the land border for non-essential reasons such as tourism and shopping. They have been arriving in higher numbers, but nothing nearing pre-pandemic levels.

During the first four weeks that Canada allowed vaccinated Americans to cross, a total of 120,840 foreign nationals entered Canada through land ports in the Pacific region, which includes Whatcom County's five border crossings from Blaine, Lynden, Sumas and Point Roberts, according to the Canada Border Services Agency. That's an average of 4,316 people per day between Aug. 9 and Sept. 5, and almost triple the daily average number of crossings from the same weeks in 2020, when Canada wasn't allowing non-essential crossings.

But it's only about a quarter of the crossings from the same weeks in 2019 before the pandemic.

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2021-09-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

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