I feel badly for Kraig Jacobson, I do.

The university student from Alpine, south of Salt Lake City, is stranded in Canada because down in Utah they apparently don't know you can't just bring your pistol across the border.

Kraig and his brother Keith were arrested by Canada Border Services last month while on a six-week motorcycle camping holiday cum cancer fund-raising trip.

According to The Associated Press, the Jacobson boys crossed the border at Niagara Falls, Ont., to take a brief view of the falls.

That's when the trouble started. Kraig had a handgun with him, brought along for protection against bears and such when they camped.

When a border agent asked him if he was carrying any firearms, Kraig lied at first. When he was ordered to pull over for a more extensive search, he admitted he had a pistol locked in his bike's trunk.

"He had been riding all day in the heat, and he was kind of dehydrated and stressed out and said no," his father, Gordon Jacobson, told the Salt Lake City Tribune.

Faced with a search, Kraig "came to his senses" and told the second officer, but by then, "It was too late," his father said.

He was arrested and charged initially with a weapons offence, plus smuggling with malicious intent and lying to the border agent, according to the Tribune.

Kraig, who turns 27 on Wednesday, was held in the Niagara Detention Centre for several days before being bailed out and is now staying with Canadian relatives of his neighbours in Alpine, The Associated Press said.

Gordon Jacobson said the gun charge was dropped because authorities determined he did not knowingly violate Canadian gun laws. But the other charges remain and the case is not scheduled for trial until next Jan. 24. Conviction carries the prospect of a four- to-six-month jail term.

His family had hoped Kraig would get off with a wrist slap, a fine and deportation, for his "honest mistake." But the Crown prosecutor is taking the case to trial.

"He is stuck in a country where he can't leave and can't hold a job," Gordon Jacobson told the Tribune.

Jacobson said he didn't even know Kraig had been arrested until his brother Kevin, who wasn't charged, posted it on Facebook.

Kraig and friends have started web site to raise money for his legal fees, including selling T-shirts. They've also started a petition asking the prosecutor to go easier on him.

The prosecutor wouldn't comment about the case, so it's hard to understand why the Crown wants to make an example of Kraig Jacobson.

[ Related: Gunless in Calgary: American policeman jeered for letter ]

The Canada-U.S. border in southern Ontario is one of the major conduits for smuggled American guns, and with the recent spate of shootings in Toronto, perhaps the Crown's policy is to get tough.

A Florida man last month was sentenced to three years in prison after being caught trying to sneak 75 guns across the border at Coutts, Mont., into Alberta, according to CBC News.

But the vast majority of guns seized at the border belong to Americans who simply didn't know they could bring their shootin' irons with them on vacation or while transiting to Alaska with no paperwork.

Kraig Jacobson said he met other Americans in detention facing similar charges.

"It's just really hard to prove I didn't have criminal intent to sell guns up here," he told The Associated Press. "There are a lot of Americans being held up here in the same situation."

"Kraig recognizes his mistake," his father said told the Tribune, and knows he needs to pay the consequences but "It seems to me a year out of his life is a little ridiculous."

"There is no tolerance on the Canadian side for making an honest mistake," said the elder Jacobson with no hint of irony, living in a country that that prizes zero-tolerance law enforcement. "They will throw the book at you."

Interestingly, most commenters to the Tribune story had little sympathy for Kraig's plight.

"If he had spent 35 seconds Googling this, he'd have discovered that ANY handgun with a barrel shorter than 4" (which is most of them) is illegal in Canada," said one.

" Intentionally packing a gun and failing report it at a border point is not an honest mistake. Stupid, yes. Honest, no," said another. "Use your time in Canada to learn something about the culture. Come to understand why Canadians are not gun crazy."

[ Related: Who may carry handguns in Canada? ]