Houlton US & Woodstock border crossing | Customs and Immigration

Crossed at 4pm on a Saturday (15Jun24) and it was really easy. Straight through US exit and stopped by border patrol officer at Canada entry. We’re in a van so went to checkpoint 4 as no height restriction. Some other cars going through but no wait. Showed passports which were scanned but not stamped (US Passports). Was asked if dog rabies vaccine current - had the certificate but didn’t need to show it. Usual questions on what we did for work, where were we going, how long will we be in Canada, are we carrying any weapons, pepper spray, cannabis, tobacco, alcohol. We didn’t get an inspection. All super polite. The question that took a moment for us was on where we were going, saying that we plan to visit all Canada was not a good answer, they need a specific place. Suggestion is if you are touring to pick a place e.g Banff. We had cleared out all meat, fruit and veg prior to crossing but didn’t get checked- though they could have. Luck of the draw perhaps and being confident in the answers to the questions.

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I am a U.S. Citizen and was coming from Canada and clearing through U.S. CPB. I was transparent about produce I had in my fridge. They ended up going through my entire RV and taking my organic lemons and tomatoes, saying there is contamination on some eastern Canadian produce from moths and organic is even worse due to the lack of pesticide usage.
Even if they were grown on U.S. soil, which mine were, it could have been contaminated if placed next to any Canadian-grown produce when being transported/delivered and placed into the stores.
Citrus is the big no-no for this U.S. port (grapefruit, oranges, limes, lemons, etc.)
I would give agriculture a call before crossing and ask for their current list of prohibited items. Their list online also says no dog food with lamb and that explains why they grilled me about my dogs freeze-dried raw food.
They were all professional and just doing their job, but it was annoying and a frustrating “welcome home.” Took about 45 minutes.
I’ve been on the road for 3+ years and other border crossings I’ve been through (in other states, not to Maine) never took my produce that I outright claimed I had on-board… as long as it was purchased at a commercial store. Maybe they have different rules across each state depending on the sensitivity of that state’s soil, so I would definitely do your research… or just cross with an empty fridge.
I’ve attached of them current list of prohibited and permitted items. This list is only for the Houston US station, only. They advised other locations may have additional restrictions.

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We drove past the US immigration around 16:00 o'clock without being stopped or checked out. Handed over our Dutch passports at a window on the Canadian side. 

Since we had to enter on our Working Holiday Visas, they asked us to park the vehicle and to wait in the waitingroom. Officers were stern.

Our Working Holiday Visas were printed and passports stamped within 20minutes. They did however, take an hour to check our Quebec registered minivan com-plete-ly(we live in the minivan, so that is somewhat expected). What wasn't expected was that they opened every bag of clothing, every box, every tupperware, every cabinet, turned over every sock, they checked e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g as if they were searching for something(and left us the giant mess ofcourse, without respect for our valuables like expensive laptop/camera).
And they found receipts; so they found money.

Since we had a breakdown of our car and we had to get new parts, they checked the receipts and we had to pay 25% tax over our parts. After getting into an argument as 70% of it was on our car already, they settled for CAD51,- and told us to file in a complaint were we want to fight it.

As of today we're still waiting to hear back after filing an official complaint as the percentage of tax seems to be incorrect.

Throw out all your receipts guys, if crossing with a (mini)van you live in! Lesson learned here!

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