We - with my wife - successfully landed in Carway on Saturday, Aug 23, 2014.
Here is our experience:
We drove from Fort McMurray to Calgary and we just drove to the border on Saturday after breakfast. We arrived to the border a little bit after noon. At the US border we told them that we came here to land in Canada. They already know the procedure, so they asked us to park in the lot and come in to the building. When we went inside about a minute later an officer came with our refusal paper (however we have a visa but they didn't asked for it at all) and told us to good luck with our landing and that's all. They were all very kind and friendly.
Then we drove to the Canada border, and we met a not too friendly officer - I guess he just had a bad / busy day. We told them smiling - as we were exited in a positive way - that we came to land. Then he asked us, why we land in here, why we have not booked an appointment in Edmonton or Calgary. I told him that I did not knew that I can land there, and also in our landing paper was told: 1. drive to the border or go to an airport border to land 2.
if you can not do this, then call this and this number, etc. But still, he told us that they are busy, several other waiting already, so it could take 4 hours or more, and it's not even sure we can land at the end if any data is not matching what's in the system, etc. My feeling was that he wanted to scare us away.
But I told him, it's OK, we came to land so we'll wait, does not matter how ling we should. Then he took our passports and told us to park our car and go inside the building. There, a lady officer came - more friendly - and she took our landing papers and she asked for a proof of address - so I gave her my driving licence. Nothing else was required. Then we went to a waiting room what was full and waited....about after 1.5 hrs later they called my name (however there were some other people waiting longer than us), so we went to the officer's desk, "our officer" came with our paper, asked us to sign them, and he gave us the client copy signed then he told us to go to get our new SIN number and that's all. So I asked him, so we're good to go? We are PR now? And he just said, yeah, you good to go. (I was expecting something like congratulation, and to tell us few things, but nothing).
So we just drove away, stopped at the Welcome to Alberta sign to make a selfie about our landing, and then drove back to Calgary.
Actually we were happy, so we did not care much after about this unfriendly officer, the bottom line is that we are PR now!!!!
