Good info so far.
A friend has traveled into Canada with handguns several times. He gets all his paperwork ready ahead of time. There has to be a good reason, like participating in target shooting or historical recreation events, and you have to prove you are participating, have registered, blah, blah, blah, and on, and on,... Lots of verifiable supporting documentation on why you want to bring a handgun into Canada. No hollow point handgun ammo either, at least when I went through in the past.
He said the border people get bug eyed and start saying "You cant bring handguns into Canada!", and he gets his paperwork out and shows them. They have to remain locked up when in transport, and unloaded. In case you didnt get the gist of it, having a gun of any kind for self protection from people is not a legitimate reason to have a gun in Canada. Self protection from wild animals is (long guns, non military-ish for the most part). Same for pepper spray. Bring in pepper marked on the can for people protection, no go. For bear protection, thats OK. One doesnt even joke about self defense when at the border. Border folks are specially trained not to have a sense of humor.
Some people have gotten safe deposit boxes on the US side.