We were all alone as we crossed the high, arcing bridge over the St. Lawrence River. As always, our tires made a lot of noise on the steel gridwork, but even so, we could actually hear the birds chattering on the riverbanks. That’s how quiet it was, except for us.

Our car had been the only one at the toll booth on the Ogdensburg side of the bridge, and it was the only one at the entry into Canada on the north side. There, the agent had plenty of time to look at our passports and read my daughter’s letter of acceptance into the University of Toronto. My wife and I were taking her there to start school.

Well, not to start right away. First, Canada was making her quarantine for two weeks.

This isn’t the kind of quarantine people here have been talking about since the pandemic began in March, the kind in which you work or take classes from home, but still go out for walks or to buy groceries. This is more serious. Our daughter is in a hotel, not allowed to leave her room for any reason. The university brings food twice a day to her and its other international students there.

It ends today. She’s booked a taxi to help haul her things the six blocks or so from the hotel to the dorm. (We had hoped she could quarantine in the dorm room instead, but shared bathrooms were considered too risky.)

The U.S.-Canada border has been closed since March for non-essential travel, and Canadians don’t want that lifted anytime soon — not with COVID spreading so fast on our side of the border. Travel for school and work is considered essential, but only with the bare minimum of risk. Canadian citizens like my wife and daughters are allowed to enter, but even they have to quarantine for two weeks.

My wife and I had researched this and knew we were only allowed to drive our daughter to the hotel, turn around and come back the same day — roughly 13 hours of driving, no spending the night.

But even so, we were a little shocked when the border agent informed us that the maximum penalty for violating quarantine in Canada is a $1 million fine and/or three years in prison.

Holy cats.

(By the way, $1 million Canadian is about $764,000 U.S. as of Friday.)

Later, I learned that penalty is only if someone dies or suffers serious harm as a result of your recklessness. If not, the max penalty is a mere $750,000 ($573,000 U.S.) and/or six months in jail.

In New York, it’s a $10,000 fine.

We told the man we’d need to stop for gas at least once in Canada. “Pay at the pump, if you can,” he said.

We did, once on the way there and once on the way back. We also got drive-thru fast food once each way — not the best, but the safest (especially with the new credit card machines where you just tap your card and don’t have to press buttons). We also had to go to the bathroom (washroom, in Canada), but these facilities were closed at some of the gas stations and fast-food joints we patronized. Once we had to duck into a busy Walmart for that purpose. As I left, I saw myself on the security camera footage and wondered if the Canadian government was going to bust me for making an unauthorized stop.

Despite all this caution about Americans, probably half of the people we saw on the busy sidewalks of downtown Toronto were not wearing masks. It was what I’d expect to see in a typical U.S. city, although I admit I haven’t been to any other cities since before the pandemic. I’d guessed people would be more cautious in a country that gives million-dollar fines for COVID scofflaws, but people are people.

To compare, the city of Toronto reports that it has seen more than 16,000 cases of COVID-19 and almost 1,200 COVID deaths as of Friday. Chicago, which has about the same population (a bit less, actually), reports almost 72,000 confirmed cases and 2,900 deaths within the city limits.

On the drive home, the experience was the same; we were again the only ones crossing the border. We chatted for a minute with the toll booth worker, who seemed happy for the conversation.

The trip was uneventful, but one thing was prominent in its absence. In an entire day of driving on one of North America’s busiest highways (401) and in North America’s fourth largest city, we did not see a single other non-Canadian license plate.

It felt like we were the only Americans in Canada.

“There’s a closeness that we’re definitely missing, but I can tell you not anyone that I have spoken to here wants that border opened anytime soon,” Cornwall, Ontario, Mayor Bernadette Clement told CNN in a recent interview.

Judging by what I saw two weeks ago, I wouldn’t expect that to change for a while.