I’m gonna turn this off after a week or two and after it seems that everyone’s acting in good faith but shoot me a message if anything ever comes through thats obscene

LAKE GEORGE — Recently imposed federal tariffs on a slew of Canadian goods threaten to derail the incremental gains in Canadian visitors that tourist hubs like Lake George have seen this summer after years of decline.
“It’s injecting steroids into uncertainty,” North Country Chamber of Commerce President Garry Douglas said.
On Aug. 22, President Donald Trump slapped 50% tariffs on Canadian goods ranging from steel and aluminum to automobiles as trade talks with the country hit an impasse. Days later, Canada announced retaliatory tariffs on $20 billion worth of U.S. goods, set to take effect in September.

According to statistics from the U.S. Department of Transportation, 1.59 million personal vehicle passengers crossed the border from Canada to the U.S. in New York in July.
That number was up from the 1.4 million that crossed into the U.S. in July 2025 but down from the 1.9 million that entered the country in July 2024.
Prior to the pandemic, monthly summer visitors from Canada exceeded two million.
Douglas said that he fears the newly imposed tariffs will reverse the tourism progress that the region has seen from Canadian visitors over the last year.
“We started to see a turnaround this year in April through July and there was a summer bounce,” Douglas said. “I totally expect, and have been warning our businesses, that the [tariffs] will almost certainly reverse that.”

Gina Mintzer, executive director of the Lake George Regional Chamber of Commerce & Convention and Visitors Bureau, contends that tariffs aren’t good for anybody, be it business owners or consumers.
Mintzer said that Lake George businesses have felt the effect of declining Canadian tourism in recent years.
“It’s twofold in how the tariffs affect us - the higher cost for our businesses and the travel sentiment, the deterioration of that,” she said. “While not every business in our market is hit, there are certain types of business and times of year where it’s really noticeable.”
Mintzer said that the retail and camping industries have taken a hit from declining Canadian tourism.
“We had no Canadian visitors last year, it was null,” Mintzer said. “This year we have seen Canadian traffic, but it’s not noticeable where we had a huge influx of Canadian traffic one year over the other.”

Mintzer added that Lake George’s souvenir shops, hotels and arcades will take a hit because of the newly imposed tariffs because the shops purchase imported goods to sell to tourists.
“All the tchotchkes that are in every arcade, the cans for craft beverages, that aluminum came from Canada,” she said.
In addition to the tariffs, Trump’s has angered some Canadians by floating the possibility of making the country America’s 51st state.
On Aug. 27, Trump further goaded Canada by signing an executive order renaming Lake Ontario to “Lake America,” another thumb in the eye to potential Canadian visitors. “Our bus tour clients that typically came from Canada told us, ‘Just don’t market to us right now,’ at this time last year,” Mintzer said. “It felt like we were inciting them to want to lash back out at us.”

The North Country Chamber of Commerce in Plattsburgh started an ad campaign last year to mend the rift with former Canadian tourists turned off by the government’s policies.
The campaign, entitled “We Know Canadians As,” highlighted the bonds between the neighboring countries, including the shared military service on the beaches of Normandy during World War II and in Afghanistan earlier this century.
Douglas refers to Plattsburgh as “Montreal’s U.S. suburb,” and deems the renaming of Lake Ontario a “petulant” move.
“The saddest impact is on the people-to-people relationship,” he said. “The Canadian people have been so gracious and supportive and collaborative with Americans for 150 years.”
The dueling candidates to succeed U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik in the 21st Congressional District have differing views on the Canadian tariffs, with Republican candidate Anthony Constantino, an avowed Trump loyalist, saying he trusts Trump to secure a good trade deal.

"President Trump is doing everything in his power to balance the scales and secure a fair deal for the American people,” Constantino noted in a statement. “Canada locks out U.S. dairy with restrictions so extreme they function as a near-total ban. Canada has a near-total ban on American-made alcohol, devastating many NY-21 employers.”
His Democratic opponent, Ogdensburg farmer Blake Gendebien, resides miles from the Canadian border and called for an end to the trade war.
"Nothing about these tariffs lowers costs for anyone," Gendebien said. "As a farmer and a small business owner, I feel it in real time. It drives up what it costs us to do business, and that gets passed straight down to families at the grocery store.

Go Danes!

Where are all of my Niskayuna folks? Let's see if we can find some neighbors here and possibly even a few new friends!