Dong Guangping, a Chinese political dissident, landed in Toronto following an Air Canada flight on Friday, his friend Sheng Xue said on social media Saturday.
Dong was aboard a 10.8-foot inflatable boat in the waters off a western South Korean island in May when he was detained by South Korea's coast guard for allegedly violating the country's immigration law, and it was his fourth known attempt to flee China.
Dong, a former police officer in China, had previously been detained several times for his activism and was imprisoned for three years in 2001 for "inciting subversion of state power," according to past statements from Amnesty International.
He spent more than eight months behind bars after being arrested in 2014 for participating in a memorial for victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, Amnesty International said in past statements.
He previously escaped to Thailand and Vietnam but authorities there deported him back to China, and he also unsuccessfully tried to swim to a Taiwanese island.
At a court hearing in South Korea after his arrest, he told reporters that he hopes to go to Canada to reunite with his wife and daughters, who have already been resettled there.
Sheng Xue, a Chinese Canadian activist, posted a photo of Dong in a car with her and another photo of Dong holding a bowl and wrote, "He just had a big bowl of noodles with eggs, tomatoes and shrimps."
In a follow-up post, Xue wrote, "In the process of fleeing for his life more than ten times over a decade, risking his life and facing constant failures, he has never uttered a single word of complaint or discouragement." She added, "Souls that love freedom are full of strength."
Xue wrote that she has spent more than 10 years trying to get him out of China.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has not immediately commented.