The Tyrtles Have Landed

You'll remember Sage Tyrtle from the opening of Description 60, the episode about Canadian citizenship. I'd said the driving force of the brilliant QN Podcast was in the process of applying, with her husband and son, for Permanent Resident/Landed Immigrant status in Canada, having come, like I did, from the U.S.

Well, they made it. They were accepted not long ago. Yaaayyy!

Thing is, when most people apply for this status, they're usually not living in Canada at the time. When I applied, still living "in exile" in Ohio, it was emphasized quite strongly that you needed to go through this outside the country. But the Tyrtles have been living in Toronto for the past few years, with Todd working for a large company which was able to send him here. Very fortunately, that company wanted him and his family to stay here, so they had their own immigration lawyer work on the case for them (I had my Radio York friend Dani Zaretsky for my case, so we all have our legal angels...except for the people who don't). After the usual hoop-jumping and allowance for the times and tides of bureaucracy, they were successful.

However, as landed immigrants, they still had to "land": arrive in Canada from their original country. For me, in 1994, this meant packing up the AMC Eagle (built in Canada, so no import trouble), going to a TPOH concert in Detroit (okay, that wasn't part of the deal, but the timing worked out for a goodbye get-together), then driving up the gut of Michigan to Sault Ste. Marie on my way to my new radio job in Dryden. I had my landed immigrant document, a detailed inventory of what I had in the car, a document that said the car was built in Canada, the job offer letter from CKDR, and I think some receipt from my Canadian bank at the time to prove I had money there (when approved in my interview at the Buffalo Consulate, I was asked to have enough money to live for a couple months before getting myself on my feet, basically). I thought when I crossed over from Michigan to Ontario, people were going to inspect the car against my list and make we wait for hours. But that never happened. They didn't even look at my bank stuff. They just looked over the landed immigrant document and job offer, glanced around the car, had me fill out a one-page form about what I was bringing in, stamped a couple things and sent me on my way. It was only dramatic in its complete lack of drama.

Of course, if you know anything about Sage and her work, it could not possibly have gone that way for the Tyrtles. :-)

Going through a process which has changed over more than a decade, they had to leave Canada and come back to officially land, which they did a few days ago. She tells the story of that trip in today's episode of the QN Podcast, and you would do well to listen to it.

Welcome to Canada, immigrants, and remember if the line was really so imaginary, we would never have thought to cross it in the first place.