WHITEFISH, Mont. — A chairlift cranks into gear as a group of ski patrollers at Whitefish Mountain Resort gets the mountain ready for another season.
This is a typical safety training. They'll practice how to evacuate people off chairs if there were an emergency. But not much here feels typical. For starters, no one is in boots or on skis. Despite the training happening in late November, there is no snow at the base lodge, and the slopes leading up the mountain are brown, which is adding to the broader anxiety in the resort tourism industry right now.
"Yeah, if we don't have snow, that's going to dictate how our season goes," says resort spokesman Chad Sokol.
Going into the Thanksgiving holiday — the traditional start to the ski season — resorts across the West delayed openings due to low or no snowfall, and many couldn't even make artificial snow due to the balmy weather. It's not clear how much of an effect this has had on winter bookings.
The snow has finally started falling in the Rockies and Pacific Northwest this week, including in Whitefish. But the ski industry is also bracing for a continued drop in international guests due to President Trump's tariffs and his negative rhetoric about their countries.
Our friends from up north are welcome here
The Whitefish Mountain Resort, long known locally as Big Mountain, sits about 60 miles south of the U.S.-Canada border and has historically gotten a quarter of its business from up north.
"We think of Canadians as our neighbors, and British Columbia and Alberta, we're right here — we're a border state," says Zak Anderson, executive director of Explore Whitefish, the local resort chamber.
Montana state tourism officials have tracked about a 25% drop in Canadian visitors since Trump slapped steep tariffs on Canada and suggested that it should become the 51st U.S. state. Locals are sad and frustrated.
"We don't have a say in, you know, national politics," Anderson says.
Canadian credit card spending is also down by 12% in Whitefish's upscale boutiques, restaurants and hotels. It's a big deal for a town with less than 10,000 people — and Anderson hopes Canadians will come back.
"You know, for a little community like ours, the message is, we're here — we're open for business," he says.
This anxiety extends far beyond the American ski industry. The U.S. Travel Association is projecting that 5 million fewer international visitors will visit the United States this year.
"I don't know if you'd call it a boycott, but definitely a growing attitude of disenfranchisement maybe," says Amir Eylon, president and CEO of Longwoods International.
Longwoods, a tourism market research firm, has been surveying Canadians monthly since last winter. Most are citing U.S. politics like the tariffs and Trump's rhetoric as the reason for canceling their trips. But nearly a majority have also consistently cited the weak Canadian dollar.
"You had many Canadian travelers that were already on the fence about coming to the U.S. just from their own financial perspective and then they're going to feel insulted or hurt," Eylon says. "It makes it much easier for them to say: 'You know what? Not this year.'"
Welcome Back Canada
Small towns dependent on tourism are launching campaigns to entice Canadians back, including Kalispell, Mont., near Whitefish and Glacier National Park. Since it opened in 1912, the Kalispell Grand Hotel has been welcoming Canadian guests, says General Manager Mitchell Bump.
"Back in the day, it was kind of like the cowboys, you know, rugged people," Bump says, smiling.
Sixty-five percent of Flathead County voted for Trump last year. But they stand to take a big economic hit from the cross-border politics. The local chamber of commerce has launched a "Welcome Back Canada" initiative. Canadians get 20% off hotel rooms in the city. Bump and his staff were eager to take part in the promotion.
"I'm a hotel manager, so, like, not really a politician. Our job is to take care of guests and keep rooms filled year-round, especially in shoulder season, and that's really the lens I'm looking through," Bump says.
Uncertainty is the word of the year in tourism
Back in Whitefish, no one is really sure how many Canadians will show up this winter. The ski resort is coming off its second-busiest season on record, though. Sokol, the resort's spokesman, says the tariffs hit after some of the resort's busiest, most important weekends.
"So our busy periods were already behind us at that point," he says.
Christmas week is often the make-or-break time for resorts, and local bookings for the upcoming holidays look solid.
Anderson, at Explore Whitefish, says the drop in Canadian business this year for now has been buffered by a spike in domestic tourists and Montana's population boom since the COVID-19 pandemic. But he says that even domestic tourists are tending to book at the last minute and that's hard for businesses to plan for.
"There's so much uncertainty — it's hard to know what's going to happen," Anderson says. "The political winds seem to be shifting on an hourly basis."
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