Does an American citizen need a passport to go to Canada and return?
An American must have a passport to get back into the US. So Canada insists they have a passport to get into Canada. Otherwise, they would be stuck in Canada, I never used to be that way. Border officials in both countries pretty much took peoples word about who they were. If they had doubts for any reason, they could check further, but in my experience it didnt happen very often. 911 changed all that.s Actually, I just remembered that in about 1967, my wife (long before we met) and her best friend decided to go to the US and go camping for a long weekend. Her friend had her passport with her and showed it to the Border Patrol officer as a bit of a joke. Well, he had no sense of Ha Ha. He figured any Canadian who actually carried their passport into the US must be up to no good. They were held up for a long time before they finally convinced them that all they wanted to do was go camping for the weekend!