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Borderline
One of the three things that I’m holding below
is not required to cross the border between Minnesota and Ontario or
between Michigan and Ontario or, if you have a boat, between Wisconsin
and Ontario.
Let’s see. Coffee? No, that’s an absolute
necessity even to drive across town some days. A map? Well, sometimes
it’s good to wander freely and risk being temporarily adrift, but
still, you should take a map. Ah, must be the passport.
 Just as we were headed to press with this issue, the
U.S. government announced that it was extending the deadline, at least
until June 2008, for requiring passports for land and water travel into
Canada. That could be extended again (maybe even by the time you get
this magazine) and the new rules may allow for a special identification
card that’s less expensive than a passport. With a backlog of almost 3
million passport applications, the U.S. government wisely put things on
hold for its pending requirements.
I’m impressed that 3 million U.S. citizens who maybe
didn’t have passports want them. I’m hoping a number of them plan to
visit our Ontario shore of Lake Superior. As you can see, I’ve got my
passport … and I actually needed it to drive up to Thunder Bay this
year. That’s because my husband and I flew from there to France. It was
a wonderful route to take and I highly recommend it.
For now, instead of a passport, the secretary of U.S.
Homeland Security says you should have a driver’s license and a copy of
your birth certificate on your Circle Tour. (If you thought that I was
going to take a picture with my birth certificate, even to illustrate a
point, you are much mistaken. Too close to a new decade. In our forays
across the border so far this year, I have not yet been asked for this
highly revealing document. Of course, it’s the driver’s license that
tells the weight.)
Here at our offices, we regularly field calls about
whether a passport is required to cross one direction or another around
Lake Superior. One young fellow inquired because he intended to do the
Circle Tour on a bicycle. Leave that passport home for now, save the
pocket space for blister patches was my advice.
On these pages and on our Website -
www.lakesuperior.com - we will keep you as updated as possible on what
is and is not required to complete your Lake Superior Circle Tour.
Meanwhile, don’t miss a memorable trip for fear over some paperwork. If
you do, you won’t get the chance to see some of those great Ontario
lighthouses featured in this issue or you might not find out the
secrets of the Not-So-Secret Marquette revealed in our story by insider
Frida Waara.
We’ve got some great advice about driving the circle with children in our “Circle the Station Wagons” story by Ann Treacy.
And if you don’t travel around the Big Lake this year,
you’ll miss the chance to join in the movie thriller fun unrolling this
summer from Visit Duluth. Check out www.visitduluth.com/themovie to see
the movie trailer for a suspense film starring actors with some
suspiciously familiar names: Hartley Field, Enger Tower, DeWitt Seitz
and Barton Peak. I’m not going to tell you the plot, because that would
ruin it, but I will say that there is also a contest for making your
own Duluth getaway video to be found on the Website and a cool “movie”
poster to download. But to be in the contest, you must shoot your video
in Duluth this summer.
So don’t stay away from a town nearby, or from trying
the entire Circle Tour … even if you have to show your birth
certificate to do it.
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