Van Tech Voices
Van Tech's Student-Run Newspaper
Based out of Vancouver Technical Secondary School's Newspaper Club, we publish on a variety of issues relevant to our school community.
Meet the American business owners who became a makeshift help desk for ArriveCAN users
By Martelli Gerund The owners of the popular Ryden's Border Store, located just past the Pigeon River border crossing connecting Ontario and Minnesota, knew they would have to adapt their business during the pandemic, but they never thought they would become an ArriveCAN help desk. Over the last two years, Mike and Sam Boomer were forced to lay off staff and expand their space as parcels piled up, waiting to be picked up by Canadian patrons. But in the last several months, they've been helping more travellers navigate the federal government's mandatory public health platform. "They just come in, we basically sometimes just take their phone, do it [the ArriveCAN app work] for them … it's really exploded and we're really doing, we're doing quite a few a day. It's building great rapport too, I think for us," said Sam, who owns Ryden's Border Store in Grand Portage, Minn., with her husband Mike. "Yeah, we've taken something that's ki...
