Are we still friends? US-Canada border towns face a strange new reality.
It’s the end of an era for a library straddling the Vermont-Quebec border. The Haskell Free Library & Opera House, a century-old symbol of cross-border friendship, says the U.S. government is setting new protocols that limit Canadians’ entry to the building that’s partly on their turf.
Canadian officials and library leaders held an English-French press conference on the Quebec side Friday afternoon to highlight the library’s legacy. Sylvie Boudreau, president of the library board, took a moment to squash rumors that people of both nations could no longer socialize inside.
“No,” she said. “Inside the library is business as usual.”
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In Vermont and Quebec, residents are confronting a rupture in their close relationship, including at a historic library situated across the border. Some Canadians are canceling their trips to New England or avoiding the United States altogether.
Still, altering library access is the latest American affront felt by Canadians. President Donald Trump has launched a trade war with tariffs, and is threatening more April 2. He’s also claiming Canada is meant to be the 51st state.
As maple syrup season kicks off, Washington’s rhetoric is souring relations in this border region that’s long held close economic and cultural ties. But not all amity is lost. Several Vermonters interviewed here voice support for their neighbors to the north, while some in Quebec are distinguishing between a people and their president.
“I’m boycotting the U.S. I’m not boycotting the people necessarily,” says Daniele Del Torto, who has decided not to shop or recreate there. The Stanstead resident says she wants to “support the solidarity” of her border town.
Fraying of ties
The Trump White House is spurring patriotism in Canadians. As they begin to boycott U.S. goods and tourism, some of their cities are removing American flags. Bestselling Canadian novelist Louise Penny said this month that she was moving the launch of her next book from Washington, D.C., to Ottawa, Ontario, and refraining from events in the United States due to “the ongoing threat of an unprovoked trade war against Canada.” She suggested her book tour could end at the border library.
Polls show most Canadians and Americans oppose President Trump’s assertion that Canada should be the 51st U.S. state. Ninety percent of Canadians said they would vote against Canada joining the U.S., and 60% of Americans have “no interest” in the idea, according to a recent survey by the Angus Reid Institute, a Canadian research nonprofit.
Tariff threats are also alarming Canadians, particularly in Quebec, where more than 70% of the province’s exports are sent to the U.S. In a mid-March poll, 51% of respondents from Quebec said tariffs, Mr. Trump, and U.S. economic aggression were the top issues facing Canada.
Like most of the 5,525-mile international boundary, parts of the woodsy border between Derby Line, Vermont, and Stanstead, Quebec, don’t have barriers. The binational library’s entrance is in Vermont. Border agents have allowed Canadians to enter the building easily via a sidewalk, heavily surveilled, that starts in Quebec. Signs warn against loitering; family reunions aren’t allowed. Canadian visitors have needed to exit the way they came and not venture farther into the U.S.
It’s a federal crime to enter the U.S. outside official ports of entry. The library has posed security challenges before, including a case of gun smuggling from the U.S. to Canada that involved the library bathroom.
Now, the Trump administration decided it was time to act. In a written statement, a spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the area around the Haskell library “has witnessed a continued rise in illicit cross border activity.” To meet a goal of “100% border security,” the agency plans to make changes to the library’s access in stages.
By Oct. 1, most Canadians wishing to enter by the main door in the U.S. will need to use an official port of entry. One is located less than a half-mile away. Exceptions will be provided for several groups, including law enforcement and school groups, who can continue using the informal sidewalk entrance.
Other U.S. officials have also cited security risks. “Drug traffickers and smugglers were exploiting the fact that Canadians could use the U.S. entrance without going through customs,” said Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin in a written statement. “We are ending such exploitation by criminals and protecting Americans.”
The library plans to open a new entrance on the Quebec side the week of March 24 by converting an emergency exit, said Deborah Bishop, Haskell’s executive director.
“I’m embarrassed for my country. And I apologize,” said a teary-eyed Vermonter, Penny Thomas, outside the library Friday afternoon.
After the fatal shooting of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Vermont in January, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem paid Haskell library a visit. Inside, she stepped back and forth across a black-tape border on the library floor, saying “U.S.A. No. 1” and “the 51st state,” which locals took as an insult, reports The Boston Globe.
How locals are responding
While not a Trump supporter, Debbie Latta, a dual U.S. Canadian citizen who now lives in Vermont, says she can get behind the president’s border security and shrinking-of-government plans.
Yet his 51st state rhetoric is “childish and humiliating and disgraceful,” she says at a Newport gym, as players whack a pickleball behind her. In the winter, she organizes games here, which nationals of both countries attend.
Fellow pickleball player and U.S. citizen Real Cotnoir, who has Canadian family, voted for Mr. Trump. But he thinks tough tariffs on Canada will boomerang back and hurt his own economy.
“Are we making them a state to take their resources?” the U.S. Navy veteran wonders aloud. “Or are we making them a state to make them better for themselves and us?”
Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor
Some Canadians, like James Eckerman, won’t let politics get in the way of good fun. An avid skier, he’s soaking up a few days on the slopes of Vermont.
Americans “have a lot to offer the world,” he says, ski goggles in hand. “I just try not to let the politics affect my individual life.”
Still, Mr. Trump’s rhetoric “doesn’t feel great,” says the mechanic from Toronto. His people are patriotic, he says. “We’re happy, like, being Canadians.”
He chose Jay Peak to ski. The year-round resort reports at least half of its 500,000 annual visitors come from Canada. President and general manager Steve Wright took to Facebook last month with a message of support for the resort’s “extended Canadian family.” He was starting to see Canadian cancellations following the start of tariff talk.
“We do empathize with you Canadians that this is a difficult decision,” says Mr. Wright. While Canadians are still visiting and lodging at his resort, he says they’re “clearly spending less money than they ever have” once they arrive.
One Facebook commenter called on Vermont to join Canada instead.
“This beautiful place”
Back over the border in Stanstead, some locals have terse words.
“I’m not impressed with Trump at all,” says Martha Ruck, pausing on a walk with her great-granddaughter. “We’ll never be the 51st state.”
Since Mr. Trump’s inauguration, Ms. Del Torto, in Stanstead, has noticed more patrolling on the U.S. side. Crossing over to the library earlier this week, she says she felt compelled to bring her passport. That’s unusual for her. Once inside, she turned pensive.
“I was sitting there, and I’m looking at this beautiful place – and I said, ‘I hope this is not the end.’”
