In his four years of taking tourists across the border for rafting trips with Tatenshini Expediting, Cris Siegel, who owns Skagway Float Tours, has never had a problem getting across the Canadian border.

But on Friday, Siegel found himself detained at the border in Fraser, B.C., for more than four hours on his way to pick up 14 tourists and bring them back to Skagway.

'I've been doing this trip for four years,' he said in an interview this morning from Skagway.

Siegel arrived at the Fraser border at 8 a.m. Friday on his way to pick up the tourists he had recently taken to Haines Junction for a rafting trip with Tatenshini Expediting.

After providing the border guard with information about who he was and where he was going, Siegel said the guard suggested he was lying. However, the guard wasn't willing to make the phone call to Tatenshini Expediting to confirm Siegel was indeed going there to pick up tourists and drive them back to Skagway in the van he was driving, Siegel said.

'All it would have taken was one phone call,' he said.

Instead, the border guard asked him to provide information like his social security number and financial statements from his business.

Siegel noted that, while he wasn't sure what the rule in Canada is, in the United States, a person is supposed to be innocent until proved guilty.

'I did not feel that way,' he said.

Siegel noted he has an operating licence in the Yukon to transport tourists in and out of the territory.

It wasn't until approximately 12:15 p.m. that Siegel said he got the go-ahead from the border guard to travel into Canada. He arrived just in time to get the tourists and take them back on the ferry from Haines to Skagway.

Siegel believes there has to be some sort of accountability in bureaucracy.

He noted that on the way back at the Pleasant Camp border crossing, though there was some confusion between him and another person thought to have crossed the border, the border guard was more pleasant about it and the matter was resolved fairly quickly.

While the rafting trips with Tatenshini Expediting aren't a major part of his business, Siegel noted if the border guards were to continue to delay him when he does the trips, it could impact the Yukon's economy. It could mean ending that portion of his business, he added.

It would more likely have an impact on Tatenshini Expediting, he said.

'I would be really upset too because I enjoy it,' Siegel said. He pointed out a number of businesses in Haines Junction also benefit from the tours through the purchase of gas and other goods.

While Siegel hasn't had any problems getting across the border prior to Friday, Bob Daffe of Tatenshini Expediting said Friday he's had other tour operators who bring him clients held up at the border.

'If that keeps happening, they'll cancel,' Daffe said in an interview Friday afternoon while Siegel was being detained at the border.

Customs spokeswoman Faith St. John said this morning she couldn't speak to specific cases due to privacy issues, but in general, customs officers are 'Canada's first line of defence'.

If there's an issue with someone going across the border, it often gets referred to the Canadian Immigration, she said.