Steven Wright knew he was in trouble long before the first snow fell.
Wright, who runs Jay Peak Ski Resort in northern Vermont, realized something was wrong last summer while talking with Canadian season pass holders who had decided not to come to the United States or his property for the 2025-2026 winter ski season.
Political tensions between the U.S. and Canada have reached a fever pitch, especially after President Trump started referring to Canada as the “51st state,” and Jay Peak, just nine miles south of the Canadian border, is about to pay the price.
“I called hundreds of season pass holders, and one house told me about the 51st state,” Wright said in an interview with CNN.
He testified last year about conversations before a U.S. Senate committee, saying many of his clients were “suffocated by the fact that they could not in good conscience come to the United States.”
Beyond the rhetoric about the 51st state, Trump has sparked a trade war with the threat and reality of tough tariffs.
Jay Peak is definitely unique. 50% of our business comes from Canada, making it feel more like a next-door neighbor than a foreign country.
Many ski resorts in the United States are less dependent on Canadian transportation. And as the season progresses, the outflow of travelers from Canada slows significantly, while snowfall in the East increases.
But Wright’s experience highlights the current plight of what he calls the “border economy,” which includes many business owners who live and work near the U.S.-Canada border.
It also humanizes the effects of recent trade policy. Many Canadian residents are abandoning or significantly curtailing their long-standing tradition of visiting the United States.
“We have a hockey arena and we make millions of dollars every year in the hockey tournament business. We have more than a dozen restaurants on site, meeting space and wedding venues. We rely on Canadians to make it all possible,” he said.
The blow to Wright’s business and other ski resorts in the Northeast and West that rely on Canadian tourists comes at an unusual time. Snowfall in the eastern United States has reached massive levels this year. And many areas in the West are suffering from a snow drought.
Although Canadian tourist numbers continue to lag behind the United States, many ski resorts on the U.S. East Coast are breathing a sigh of relief. The mountain’s heavy snowfall this season has attracted many American skiers, making up for Maple Leaf’s hiatus.
Business at Wright at Jay Peak, which has 81 trails, is currently only down 10% to 15%. However, while he is happy that the season started with such a big drop, he is under no illusions.
“The heavy snowfall protected us from a potentially big downside to visiting Canada. It did a great job of de-escalating the situation with Canada,” he said. “What will happen if that snow melts?”
Canadians stay home as snow falls in the West
The number of Canadians re-entering Canada by car from the U.S. decreased every month last year compared to 2024, according to Statistics Canada. In December alone, traffic was down 30% from December 2024.
The number of visitors to the United States from Canada from last year through November was down nearly 22% compared to 2024, according to figures from the U.S. National Tourism Organization. Overall, international travel to the U.S. decreased by 5.4% during this period. (Full numbers for 2025 are still being compiled).
Canada’s importance as a source of tourists and tourism funding cannot be overestimated.
Canada is the largest source of foreign tourists to the United States. As CNN reported last year, more than 20 million Canadians will visit Canada in 2024, generating $20.5 billion in spending, according to the U.S. Travel Association.
But deciphering the Western snapshot is more complicated. Unlike in the East, ski resorts in the West are starved for snow, so fewer people visit from everywhere.
Vail Resorts, which operates about 30 ski resorts in North America, including Breckenridge in Colorado, Hunter Mountain in New York and Mount Sunapee in New Hampshire, reported a 20% drop in ski visitor visits so far this season. “This is one of the worst early season snowfalls in the Western United States in more than 30 years,” CEO Rob Katz told investors last month, according to a news release.
Snowfall in the western resort area in November and December was 50% below the 30-year average, the company said.
It’s no surprise that reservations for Western ski resorts by Canadian travelers fell 41% last month, according to data firm Inntopia.
Indeed, ski resorts have diversified in recent decades, with many offering a variety of other recreational activities. Some are tied to other winter sports, while others are completely unrelated to snow. For example, some ski resorts have built indoor water parks.
Snowmaking operations have also long augmented what Mother Nature has to offer.
Also, some U.S. ski resorts are generally much less dependent on Canadian tourists. For example, the decline in Canadian visitors hasn’t really hurt Smuggler’s Notch Resort in Jeffersonville, Vermont.
“We’re definitely seeing fewer bookings from Canadian travelers than in previous years. Most of them are from Ontario, but we don’t have to rely on a large number of Canadian travelers,” said Matt McCauley, a spokesperson for the resort. “I think more people are traveling to Vermont. I think New York, New Hampshire and Maine are the same because of the heavy snow.”
No matter how you look at it, snow is amazing. McCauley said the Vermont resort has already seen 200 inches of rain and thinks the seasonal record of more than 400 inches may be broken.
“It’s like white gold,” he said.
Other resorts are located near Canadian provinces and are less bothered by new political messages coming from the United States. For example, Whitefish Mountain Resort in Montana attracts tourists primarily from Alberta. In Alberta, a local secessionist movement is finding common cause with the conservative MAGA movement in the United States.
“Canadian visits have always been a significant portion of our business,” Chad Sokol said, adding that there has been no “drastic decline.”
But across the street from the ski resort, the town of Whitefish has seen a sharp decline in Canadian tourists.
Canadian visitor numbers have fallen by nearly 25 per cent in 2025, according to data collected by local tourism agency Explore Whitefish. This town is near Glacier National Park.
Zach Anderson, executive director of Explore Whitefish, said in a written statement that Canadian tourist visits have long been “the cornerstone of Whitefish’s winter economy.”
In the case of Montana and other places, domestic tourism is stepping in to make up for some of the decline. Moreover, political tensions are not the only factor keeping Canadians in the country. The weak Canadian dollar is also a contributing factor.
But property owners are already anxiously looking ahead to summer, when many resorts will market themselves to Canada’s mountain bikers, golfers and other outdoor enthusiasts.
For example, Killington in central Vermont saw a double-digit drop in the number of Canadian tourists visiting the resort for mountain biking last summer, said spokesman Josh Reed.
“This is a big part of our summer business,” he said. “Quebecans love mountain biking.”
Mr Reid said he spoke to many mountain bikers who skipped visiting the US last summer and said they were “very angry” over political tensions.
Killington offered discounts and perks like the Vermont Mountain Biking Association’s promotion, which hosted a “Canadian Ride Free Day” in August, helped the resort bring back some of the Canadian customers it had been keeping away.
“By the end of the summer, we were hearing more French,” Reid said, adding that this was an anecdotal measure of Canada’s tourism segment.
This provides a respite for Killington and other Vermont tourism operators. However, this highlights the year-round nature of the problem, even in ski resorts. They are not only in the ski business, but also in the tourism business.
“The whole state of Vermont is suffering,” Wright said.
Statistics from Vermont, which derives nearly 10% of its gross domestic product from tourism, show that vehicle border crossings between Vermont and Canada fell by 27% in 2025.
As many have pointed out, Canada’s population exodus is the result of more than just the tariff debate, so it’s unclear how this year will play out. The rhetoric about annexing Canada and making Canada the 51st province irritated many Canadians, and it became clear that long-simmering tensions were not eased. Just this week, President Trump threatened to block the opening of a new bridge between the United States and Ontario.
Once the snow melts on Jay Peak, the summer schedule revolves around hockey tournaments, and the most exciting games are between hockey-loving Canadians and Americans.
“If Canadian players don’t play, it’s going to hurt the American market as well, because American teams want to play against Canadians,” he said. “Then we have no business.”
This echoes comments from officials at the North Country Chamber of Commerce in Plattsburgh, New York.
“Our leisure travel market is about 70 per cent Canadian, which is a very large part of our business,” Christy Kennedy, vice president of marketing and business development at the New York State North Country Chamber of Commerce, told CNN last year.
Tourism operators continue to roll out incentives aimed at Canadian tourists, which may ultimately stem the tide. For example, Minot, North Dakota is one of a growing number of towns where some businesses accept Canadian dollars “at face value,” even though the Canadian dollar is currently weaker against the Canadian dollar. (Even some casinos in Las Vegas have taken this unusual step of admitting Canadian lunatics.)
The friendship between the two countries is storied and has experienced many setbacks, observers say. The question is how long the two friends will remain estranged.
“This is going to come back,” Wright said on Jay Peak of the Canadian travel boycott. “But it’s going to have a long tail for some Canadians.”
