Minnesota welcomes Canadians as U.S. border crossings reopen

DULUTH – In true Minnesota fash­ion, a moose-cos­tumed hu­man greet­ed the first Ca­na­di­ans across the U.S. bor­der at the Grand Por­tage cross­ing Mon­day.

For the first time in near­ly 20 months, full­y vac­ci­nat­ed Ca­na­di­ans can en­ter the Unit­ed States to shop, trav­el and see fam­i­ly, the start to a much-need­ed boost for Minnesota tour­ism, said Lin­da Jurek, the Vis­it Cook County ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor who dressed as the moose. "We're re­al­ly jazzed about wel­com­ing peo­ple back," she said.

Gov. Tim Walz even pro­claimed Mon­day "Ca­na­di­an Travelers Day" in Minnesota. "We wel­come Ca­na­di­ans back to Minnesota with open arms," reads the proc­la­ma­tion.

About 1.75 mil­lion peo­ple crossed U.S.-Ca­na­di­an bor­der check­points in Minnesota 2019. For many Ca­na­di­ans, the pan­dem­ic clo­sure meant fewer places to va­ca­tion, but for some liv­ing near the bor­der, it cut off fam­i­ly, school ac­tiv­i­ties and es­sen­tials such as near­by gro­cer­y stores.

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., her­ald­ed the change at a news con­fer­ence in St. Paul with Minnesota tour­ism and trade of­fi­cials and Ar­i­el Delouya, the con­sul gen­er­al of Canada in Minneapolis. Klobuchar said she has been ad­vo­cat­ing for the change with the Bi­den administration.

"How can it be that you can lit­er­al­ly fly from Mon­tre­al to Mi­am­i, or you could fly from Ot­ta­wa to Fargo, but you couldn't drive from Thunder Bay to Duluth?" Klobuchar asked.

The open­ing, Delouya said, "brings us one step clos­er to find­ing that pre-pan­dem­ic nor­mal a­gain. Our com­mu­ni­ties, es­pe­cial­ly those along the bor­der, have great­ly missed the deep per­son­al con­nec­tions they have long en­joyed."

While many re­joice at the mile­stone, it comes with a neg­a­tive COVID-19 mo­lec­u­lar test­ing re­quire­ment for re-en­try that can be a cost­ly de­ter­rent.

"Nat­u­ral­ly, I think it's prob­a­bly going to pre­vent some of the un­neces­sary trips," said Joe Henry, ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of Lake of the Woods Tour­ism. "But it's great to get it open a­gain. With­out Ca­na­di­ans com­ing and shop­ping, our stores see an ab­so­lute hit to their busi­nes­ses."

Before the pan­dem­ic, Minnesota host­ed 536,200 over­night visi­tors from Canada an­nu­al­ly, ac­cord­ing to Ex­plore Minnesota, the state's tour­ism pro­mo­tion of­fice. In 2020, that num­ber was 132,000. In 2019 Ca­na­di­an visi­tors spent $175 mil­lion in Minnesota com­pared to $37 mil­lion in 2020.

Ex­plore Minnesota re­cent­ly launched Canadian mar­ket­ing cam­paigns in Win­ni­peg and Thunder Bay that say, "We missed you, dear friends." A full-page print ad, news­paper in­serts, ads on so­cial me­di­a and in­ter­net search­es and bill­boards in­vite Ca­na­di­ans back to Minnesota to shop, eat, ski and stay.

"These are our friends, our neighbors to the north and, in some cases, our fam­i­ly," said Alyssa Hayes, a spokes­wom­an for Ex­plore Minnesota. We "couldn't be more thrilled to wel­come them back."

In Duluth's Canal Park, Ca­na­di­an visi­tors typ­i­cal­ly ac­count for 10% of annu­al revenue, said Matt Baum­gart­ner, pres­i­dent of the Duluth Chamber of Commerce.

Ca­na­di­ans of­ten stay multi­ple nights, he said, and be­cause of the dis­tance from the bor­der, they might now stay even long­er be­cause of the re-en­try re­quire­ments.

With an open bor­der, "a strong­er and more sus­tained eco­nom­ic re­cov­er­y is pos­si­ble," he said.

The bulk of visi­tors to Grand Por­tage Lodge & Ca­si­no are Ca­na­di­an. Wheth­er the re­open­ing af­fects busi­ness is too soon to tell, said the ca­si­no's mar­ket­ing man­ag­er, Todd Ford. A lot will de­pend on peo­ple's ap­pe­tite to the test­ing re­quire­ment and its costs. But the ca­si­no still wel­comed back Ca­na­di­ans with 2-for-1 drinks and a poutine spe­cial.

American travelers to Canada have been al­lowed to cross with proof of vac­ci­na­tion and a neg­a­tive COVID test since Au­gust. The U.S. won't re­quire tests for ground trav­el but will re­quire them for for­eign na­tion­als fly­ing into the coun­try.

Delouya said the ad­opt­ed meas­ures are gov­erned by con­cern for public safe­ty and the health and safe­ty of Ca­na­di­ans and Ca­na­di­an visi­tors.

"Those meas­ures are con­stant­ly be­ing re­as­sessed on the ba­sis of what we learn sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly in terms of the vi­rus, and in terms of what we see at the bor­der and what works to make sure that trav­el can be made even smooth­er," he said. "It's early days, ob­vi­ous­ly."

As cir­cum­stances change, they will re­as­sess test­ing re­quire­ments and oth­er regu­la­tions, Delouya said.

Klobuchar said there are con­tinued talks about what the re­quire­ments should be and ways to make test­ing more af­ford­a­ble for travelers. She said it would be good to have sim­i­lar re­quire­ments on both sides of the bor­der.

Travelers who are driv­ing down to the U.S. from Canada might have a dif­fer­ent fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion than a vis­i­tor fly­ing from across the world for a long­er vis­it, Klobuchar not­ed. She said that needs to be con­sid­ered as they look at the cost of test­ing for visi­tors.

Com­mu­ni­cat­ing how visi­tors can ob­tain a COVID-19 test, free or other­wise, be­fore re­turn­ing to Canada is "criti­cal" to al­le­vi­ate that bar­ri­er, Cook County's Jurek said.

And for some places, such as the bor­der towns of Baudette in Minnesota and Rainy River in Ontario, the test­ing re­quire­ment makes today "a nonevent."

Shop­pers aren't like­ly to cross into Baudette to buy gro­cer­ies if it means a COVID test, said Lake of the Woods Foods own­er Chuck Lind­ner, whose store is less than a mile from the new bridge to Canada.

Since March 2020, many Rainy River resi­dents have been driv­ing 45 min­utes to the near­est Ca­na­di­an gro­cer.

"We're not com­plain­ing; this is a step in the right di­rec­tion," Lind­ner said. "But we're hop­ing the bor­der is op­ened with­out en­cum­brances."

Jana Hollingsworth • 218-508-2450