Last month I traveled to the Canadian wilderness to interview the owner of a construction company about the huge equipment that he and his workers use to construct roads into the thick woodlands there.
I knew we were going into rough country so I was sad to leave my Kershaw knife at home. I’ve seen the movies – you end up having to lash your pocketknife to a stick to fend off grizzly bears. But there was no getting a knife through airport security so I went unarmed into the adventure.
We left Atlanta pre-dawn so I got to see the sun rising on the Atlantic Ocean. High, thick clouds flashed like the scales on a fish. In the distance I saw the Toronto skyline, mysterious and shrouded in pearl-like mist. The sun reflected off both the water and the plane wing, making it look like there were three suns rising instead of only one.
When we landed, I felt a little apprehensive I hadn’t traveled out of the country since 1983. But my passport was in order and I had been assured, because we were working for an American company, that no special papers were needed.
Because we were trying to catch a connecting flight north, we hustled into the line that said “International Travelers.” I had my passport in hand and waited my turn. An officer called me forward and examined my freshly minted passport. “What brings you to Canada?” “I’m here for work. For three days.” He regarded me with narrowing eyes. “Where are your papers?” I handed him my production binder that contained hotel information and questions for the interview. He glanced through it and stamped on my card “Denied.” Then he told me, “You have to go to Immigration.”
I looked around for the rest of the crew. They had already been processed and were on their way to the gate. The officer directed me firmly in the opposite direction.
In Immigration, I wanted to text my producer and tell her where I was (the clock was ticking and I knew if I missed my connection I would miss the entire job) but cell phone use was prohibited. I sat there, sweating it out with the rest of the detainees, unsure if I were going to be allowed into the country. Finally, I got called up and the officer looked at my “Denied” card. He initialed it and said that I was good to go. Seems like there had been a mistake upstairs. I ran through the airport and made the flight by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.
The next morning we were driven out to the lumber camp (an hour away on black top and two hours away on a bumpy dirt road (not a lot of rest stops out here, ladies). The owner of the company and his band of Canadian lumberjacks were characters and we got great interviews from them. It was a successful trip.
The next day found us back in the Toronto airport, where we made it safely through customs and settled into our seats on the plane. It was a full flight so I was happy to see there was an empty seat next to me. I was in the middle of a good book and was looking forward to making some progress on it. We were almost ready to pull out of the gate, when I saw a girl making her way down the aisle, heading straight for the empty seat beside me. I put my book down. No way I was getting any reading done.
She was in her mid-twenties. She was tiny (compared to my Wagnerian proportions) and had dark curly hair. She was wearing a ball cap that said “Emory University.” Her eyes were swollen from crying. She sat next to me and shivered. I asked, “Are you ok?”
She told me her name and I had to ask her to repeat it. I finally understood it on the third repeat. She told me she was named after a mosque and showed me a photo of it on her cell phone. The building was beautiful, intricately designed, topped with a gold dome. I found out she was a medical student from Emory who had been visiting family in Canada. Because one of her parents was American she had dual citizenship. Her Canadian passport was valid, but her American passport had expired and they weren’t going to let her back into the country. She’d spent the whole day in immigration, scared that she wouldn’t be able to get back to school for her finals.
She started crying again and apologized. I said, “You’re safe now.” We talked for a long time. She told me about studying medicine and why she chose to be a doctor in America. Because there are so many uninsured people in this country, people who don’t have access to healthcare, she felt a calling to serve them. She had big dreams and a big heart.
The plane landed in Atlanta. The girl took off and I hung back with our crew to make sure all our bags were accounted for. Before she disappeared into the crowd, she turned back and flashed a grateful smile. Later I thought about her bright future as a doctor and was glad that she chose our country to be the place where she would serve humanity.