As someone recently posted landing experience in Toronto - I thought I would take time to write up our in February this year.
My wife and I and our then 6 month old son travelled on a reccie to Calgary and on to Fernie with Monarch airlines and also to activate our PR status. Although our son had gone through a medical in Jan 09 at 3 months old the expiry for all of us would be July 09 when my wife and I had ours ( My wife had had her medical done whilst pregnant and we asked for a delay on forms whilst our son arrived in the September) Once we hit immigration we declared our intent to become PR's and we were welcomed and asked to go through to a separate area in the arrivals immigration hall. There were two other families and a couple of guys on work visas I guess for the ski season. We were greeted by a friendly female Officer and various official forms were talked through and signed. My wife's photo was no good for the file, so a new one was taken. Not a problem.
For a Canadian address I offered a friends but this was not accepted as we had stated that we would only be in Canada for two weeks as we were returning back to UK - (This was the Immigration Officer's view which I did not challenge) We were then given an information sheet telling us how to advise CIC once we had a permanent address for them to send the PR cards to - again all done in a friendly way. She then wished us all a happy stay and welcomed us to Canada.
This took about 20 mins including my wife having her photo taken. You will note that I have not mentioned proof of funds - We had bank statements etc all with us however they were not asked for.
We then moved on to collect our bags and then go to customs to declare our goods accompanying and goods to follow.
We were greeted again and I handed the lists (Excel spreadsheet list with generic desciptions quantity of boxes and estimated value etc) over to the customs officer who briefly reviewed them I offered duplicate copies as I had brought about four copies of everything! To which she smiled and said she wished everybody was as well organised. The document was scanned and a bar code issued and attached and a map of the collection point given for when we do ship - Again we were welcomed to Canada and that was it after about 15 minutes.
All in all the process was straightforward with no problems - We had prepared as best we could and done eveything to keep it trouble free. Much of the information I had taken from this Forum to get prepared and as long as everyone has a commonsense approach and follow guide lines I do not think problems will be encountered.

As a footnote and to provide clarification - PR Cards -
There is a six month 'free' grace period from date of entry to provide canadian forwarding address to issue the PR Card thereafter it is $50 to get issued.

We are returning to Fernie in early September for a couple of weeks to look at property etc and if anyone wants to hook up for a drink chat we would love to meet up.

Once we have tied things up this side of the pond we hope to finally move early 2010 - It has been a long wait but worth it !!!!!!

Big thank you to everyone who has provided help to us

Thanks for a very informative account of your landing, gives us an idea what to expect when we arrive for our TWPs.

Good luck with your trip and for when you finally move over.

Kev & Mandy