Just had a helpful guy from a removal firm round to give a quote to move our goods out to Edmonton. He said they ship to east coast then railfreight to west.
Since I have to be present at customs to clear the goods would I need to travel out east to do this.
I forgot to ask him and whilst I'll send him an e-mail I thought it worth asking here, cheers

Depending what service you get no travel is required out East. You should be asking for door to door service. Basically container is put on ship. Arrives in either Halifax or Montreal. Is then shipped by rail to a rail intermodal facility near where you live. Is then put on a truck and delivered to your home. The only travelling you need to do is to the local Customs office to clear the goods once goods arrive at the rail intermodal.

Our process was as FL described.

Our container's journey:

Truck: Manchester - London - Liverpool
Ship: Liverpool - Montreal
Train: Montreal - Toronto
Truck: Toronto - Ottawa

It travelled 'in bond' to us and we cleared it at CBSA in Ottawa.

A bizarre routing. Guess it depends who your shipping companies handlers are at this end.

Strangely, when our stuff came over I did not need to go to the customs office at all! I just scanned and sent the "goods to follow" list to our removal firm (in the UK) and the stuff duly arrived at our house in Canada. I was quite expecting a trip to the port...

When my stuff 'finally' arrived, they shippers rang me, and arranged that the container truck would meet me at the Customs office, and we met there and went through the paperwork. The customs officer required that the container be opened so he could have a look, as I was bringing a car, and he wanted to verify that I hadn't exchanged it for a brand new Mercedes! Anyhow, they were very kind and didn't make us open it at Customs, but he popped around to the house mid morning and could not have been more charming. Although the shipping procedures were long winded the Customs could not have been kinder or more willing. Very best of luck.

I think it depends on who you use as to whether you physically need to meet the goods at your local customs office. I was told two different things by two different companies. Our experience has been the same as Millie's, meeting at the local office (airport in our case) to check over paperwork.

Make that three people with the same experience - ours was the same as Millie and bcmama