MONTREAL--Even in the dead of Montreal's winter, today may be the first day of the rest of your life. For the young American who has just crossed the Canadian border fleeing the bite of the draft, there isn't much choice. Today's beginning is legally yesterday's ending.

Return to the States usually promises only indictment for draft evasion, jail, and a huge fine. Attorney General Ramsey Clark prosecuted more than a thousand people under the Selective Service Act last year. With the new draft law, business is likely to increase.

So will the flow to Canada. Between five and ten thousand are there now. More than 1500 are in Montreal. The local Council to Aid War Resisters here reports that that number is increasing by 20 a day.

And yet, among the more radical expatriates there is little sense that exile from the U.S. is final, even less that they are separated from significant events there. The violent opposition to the war that has caused many of them to seek refuge in Canada has united them here. Much of the Montreal anti-war movement is American-inspired and American-led.

More surprising, activities are not confined to Canada. More than twenty exiles living in Montreal risked the threat of arrest in the States to march in October's Moblization Against the War in Washington. "Americans in Exile," a self-styled "cadre patterned on the model afforded by Che Guevara," is presently organizing units to foray into the States to encourage others to follow the route that they have taken.

A Place to Organize

Among the far-left radicals who comprise at least half of the American contigent here, Montreal isn't a new home but a new place where organization against the war can safely be continued. They look back across the border more than forward to what kind of life they can make here.

"I couldn't go to Vietnam," explained one ex-Worcester school teacher, "so it came down to a choice between five years in Leavenworth and coming up here. I can't do any good for anyone in prison, but the problems that I am trying to solve are North American more than American and I will be as effective here as I ever was in the States."

For another large segment of exiles, the rationale is less articulate and perhaps myopic. Most of the radical Americans in Montreal are either college dropouts or recent graduates. But the publicity that has attended their exodus has filtered down to a younger and more naive group. More and more high-school dropouts, teeny-boppers, and hippies are arriving in Montreal armed with little money and less ability to rationalize what they are doing here.

Many aren't even opposed to the war. Service was a hurdle that Montreal got them around. "What the hell," said one nineteen-year-old from the Bronx, "I got my notice one day in the mail and went to a bar to have a drink before I went. There was a guy there just back from Vietnam: two wooden arms, two wooden legs, and no disability payments. 'What's in it for me?' I said to myself and caught the next bus for here. I would have gone except Canada's where it's at and the Army wasn't going to take care of me if I got shot." He is sure he will get back to the States when the heat cools off.

Aura of Unreality

It is almost certain not to. There is a real aura of unreality to the exile scene here that is produced by the tension between the expectations of the expatriates and the demands of the United States laws. The radicals focus only on today's war, the hippies on tomorrow's bread, and the law on forever. Except for a few unlitigated areas it is almost certain that flight to Canada to avoid the draft means that you spend the rest of your life there.

Few here have come to grips with that fact yet; fewer still have started to assess the possibilities of making a fresh start in a foreign land. Among most there is the vague and some-what naive assumption that this isn't the final thing but only a moment in their lives.

The more sober and responsible resisters stake their faith in the few cases where local draft boards, notified of a registrant's move to Canada before they have issued an order to report, have re-classified him I-Y in order to avoid unbecoming publicity. Others see the election of a benevolent President in 1968 or 1972 who will grant a general amnesty. And for the radical fringe the revolution in the States is impending. When it comes they will return vindicated and triumphant.

In the meantime their safety, if not their economic well-being, is guaranteed in Montreal. There is nothing formidable about coming through the Canadian checking points despite the feeling that such an illegal act as fleeing the draft should be more exciting. The customs officials ask few questions, require no identification, and listen to no answers.