What he says doesn't register: "I'm sorry ma'am, but you can't bring that with you into Canada." I stare at the Customs Officer blankly. He's smiling, so he must be joking, right?
"I am sorry, but you can't bring an oosik into Canada,” he says. “If you like, you can go back to Alaska and mail it to the lower 48, but you cannot drive into Canada with it."
Wrong; he’s not kidding, and the 60-mile drive back to Tok, Alaska, where the nearest US post office is located, is nothing to joke about, either. Why, just the 20 miles separating the United States from this Canadian port of entry—which happens to be the widest border crossing at any point between the two countries—is the worst dust-eating, butt-bumping road I've ever traveled. Making that two-and-a-half-hour drive over it again requires some thinking.
"Please, take your time,” says the courteous, thoughtful Customs Officer. “Just pull out of line, park over there and let me know what you decide."
A jerk would make me angry and justify the nasty mood I'm in, but this guy is Mr. Nice Guy and now I have to be rational.
The hot August sun pierces billowing clouds and blazes through the windshield. The slowly moving line of cars stirs up dust particles so thick they turn the streaming sunbeams into impenetrable lasers of light. Loki, my Labrador retriever traveling companion, pants ferociously. I want to gag. I feel trapped. Mostly, I don't want to drive back to Tok.
I had just purchased the oosik this morning in Tok, the last Alaskan outpost before taking on the Alcan Highway through Canada. The oosik had cost a whopping $82.50. Never mind that I had traveled the whole state of Alaska and had made a last minute, emotional decision to buy one. Never mind that I knew I paid the highest price in all of Alaska for an oosik and never mind that even at that price, the oosik was on sale.
What really slays me, though, is that only three people know what an oosik is: The shop owner who sold me the bone; me, a writer who has researched laws pertaining to products made from endangered species and the customs agent who wants to take away the walrus bone—more specifically, the walrus's penis bone.
Yes, I had purchased the very essence of walrus masculinity. Something very simple, really; roughly the size and shape of a billy club, but with more rigidity. Oosiks tend to be the envy of lesser endowed males, the subject of northerly poems and songs and, no doubt, an item few people on earth would recognize. And in my mind of recognition, for some strange reason a walrus's penis bone and its ivory tusks don't fit into the same legally protected paragraph.
Harder still is understanding what separates these bones from grizzly bear skulls, caribou antlers, lynx pelts and ermine tails, all items for sale in every Alaskan shop; all species under pressure to sustain habitats needed for survival. In fact, how can shop owners anywhere in the US sell me anything from any protected species? And why can I mail it from the United States, but not from Canada? Aren't walrus protected in the US, too?
Because the shop owners didn’t feel compelled to mention its protected status, was this some kind of black-market deal? How can I be so stupid?
I need answers: I carry the wrapped oosik indoors and formally surrender my contraband to the Canadian Customs Officer for information.
Alas, very little is forthcoming. Oh, the customs official is as helpful as possible; he just doesn't know why I can buy or mail an oosik in the United States. Here on the last frontier’s border, in the very heart of the wilderness, Canadian authorities simply don't want to speculate on another country's laws. But of one thing Mr. Nice Guy is absolutely certain: I cannot bring an oosik into Canada.
Upon returning to the United States through the border crossing into South Dakota, US Customs and Border Patrol officials there have no more answers than did the Canadians. They give me a booklet, Know Before You Go, which is equally vague about wildlife. They mention that they think Native Americans in Alaska can kill and sell parts of animals as art. (This is true, and it's outlined under Alaskan Subsistence laws.) But the agents are unsure of specifics. They say maybe Canadian officials would have allowed me to keep the oosik if I had a note from the Native American who sold the artifact. Problem is, the couple who own the shop and who sold the oosik to me weren't Native Americans.
Back home, Customs and Border Patrol agents can't clarify matters any further, furthermore, they don't know what an oosik is. Because CBP officials check border crossings for some 40 different United States agencies, detailed information about one agency's policies is hard to come by. Information is out there somewhere, but in this particular case, I will have to call Fish and Wildlife, or the Department of Agriculture, or jeez, what's a traveling shopper to do?
Even as borders are being closely scrutinized for everything from terrorism to human trafficking, the best advice I could get is "call Customs immediately before you buy."
Yeah, right—even the customs official who offered this nugget thought it was unlikely I'd put my impulse to buy, say, a puma-claw necklace from a Chilean street vendor on back burner while I hunt down a phone.
Like me, thousands of uninformed tourists loose their souvenirs coming or going across borders. And becoming informed is no easy task. When in doubt, flip that coin you might otherwise use to make a phone call, and remember: You take your chances when you buy anything that used to breathe.
No comments:
Post a Comment