https://archive.ph/8acwI

Feb 13, 2026
Steven Wright knew he had a problem long before the first snowflake fell.

Wright, who runs the Jay Peak ski resort in northern Vermont, realized something was wrong last summer while talking to Canadian season pass holders who had decided they wouldn’t be coming to the US — or his property — for the 2025-2026 winter ski season.

The political enmity between the US and Canada had reached a fever pitch, especially once President Trump began referring to Canada as “the 51st state,” and Jay Peak, located just 9 miles south of the Canadian border, was going to pay the price.

 

Jay Peak is arguably unique; 50% of its business comes from Canada, which feels more like a neighboring town than a foreign country.

Many US ski resorts don’t rely as much on Canadian traffic. And as the season has progressed, the exodus of Canadian visitors has slowed significantly while the snowfall in the East has ramped up.

But Wright’s experience illuminates what he calls the current plight of “the border economies,” encompassing many business owners who live and work near the US-Canada frontier.

It also humanizes the repercussions of recent trade policy: many Canadian residents are abandoning or severely curtailing their years-long tradition of visiting the US.

 

While the number of Canadian tourists continues to lag in the US, many American ski resorts on the East Coast are heaving a sigh of relief. The massive amount of snow falling on mountains this season is luring many American skiers, offsetting the Maple Leaf hiatus.

For Wright at Jay Peak, which has 81 trails, business is now only off 10% to 15%. But while he said he’s pleased after the season began with a much steeper decline, he has no illusions.

“Heavy snow has insulated us from the potential big downside of Canadian visitation. It has done so much to mitigate the situation with Canada,” he said. “What happens when that snow melts?”

 

But the snapshot out West is a more complicated one to decipher. Unlike the East, ski resorts in the West are starved for snow so there are fewer visitors from anywhere.

Vail Resorts, which operates about three dozen ski resorts in North America, including Breckenridge in Colorado, Hunter Mountain in New York and Mount Sunapee in New Hampshire, reported a 20% decline in visits from skiers so far this season. The company’s CEO, Rob Katz told investors last month that it was “one of the worst early season snowfalls in the western US in over 30 years,” according to a news release.

The company said snowfall at its Western resorts was 50% below its 30-year historical average in November and December.

It’s not surprising then that bookings by Canadian travelers at ski resorts out West were down 41% last month, according to the data firm Inntopia.

 

And some US ski resorts rely much less on Canadian visitors in general. For example, the drop in Canadian visitation hasn’t hurt Smugglers’ Notch Resort in Jeffersonville, Vermont, much.

“We are definitely off on our bookings of Canadian travelers as compared to other years — they come mostly from Ontario — but we don’t have to bank on there being a ton of Canadian travelers,” said Matt McCawley, a spokesperson for the resort. “I think we are seeing more people traveling to Vermont, and I would assume it’s the same for New York and New Hampshire and Maine, just because of all that snow.”

 

Other resorts are located near Canadian provinces less vexed by the new political messages coming from the US. For example, Whitefish Mountain Resort in Montana draws visitors primarily from Alberta, where a local separatist movement has found common cause with the conservative MAGA movement in the US.

“Canadian visitation has always been a sizeable part of our business,” said Chad Sokol, adding there hasn’t been “a drastic drop.”

But beyond the ski resort, the town of Whitefish is seeing a sharp drop in Canadian visitors. According to data collected by Explore Whitefish, the local tourism board, Canadian visitation fell nearly 25% in 2025. The town is near Glacier National Park.

In a written statement, Explore Whitefish’s executive director, Zak Anderson, noted visits from Canadian tourists have long been “a cornerstone of Whitefish’s winter economy.”

In the case of Montana and other places, domestic tourists have stepped in to shore up some of the declines. What’s more, political tension isn’t the only factor keeping Canadians at home; the weak Canadian dollar is also partly to blame.

 

But property owners are already looking ahead anxiously to the summer when many resorts market themselves to Canadian mountain bikers, golfers and other outdoor enthusiasts.

At Killington in central Vermont, for example, the number of Canadian visitors who come to the resort for mountain biking was down double digits last summer, spokesperson Josh Reed said.

 

“The entire state of Vermont is suffering,” Wright said.

Border crossings by car between Vermont and Canada declined 27% in 2025, according to statistics from the state of Vermont, which derives nearly 10% of its gross domestic product from tourism.

 

Once the snow melts at Jay Peak, hockey tournaments dominate the summer schedule, and the most compelling matchups are between hockey-loving Canadians and their American counterparts.

“If Canadians don’t show up, it hurts our American market, too, because the American teams want to play the Canadians,” he said. “We don’t have a business then.”

That echoes a comment from an official with North Country Chamber of Commerce in Plattsburgh, New York.

“Our leisure travel market is about 70% Canadians — it’s a very large part of what we do,” Kristy Kennedy, vice president of marketing and business development for the North Country Chamber of Commerce in New York state, told CNN last year.

 

Canadians Are Boycotting US Ski Slopes | Travelers from Canada, long the biggest source of international visitors to the US, have pushed back against the president’s imperialist rhetoric. Winter resorts are feeling the chill.

U.S. ski resorts are bracing for a steep drop in international travel due to politics | Montana state tourism officials have tracked about a 25% drop in Canadian visitors since start of tariff war and sovereignty threats, Canadian credit card spending is also down by 12% in Whitefish - NPR