Maine
Trump policies expected to cause 25% drop in Canadian tourism to Maine
Maine could see a 25% drop in Canadian tourists this year because of economic insecurity, the prospect of higher prices driven by new tariffs and lingering animosity over President Donald Trump’s talk of annexing their country, the state’s top tourism official said Friday.
In a typical year, about 900,000 Canadians vacation in Maine, supporting local economies in beach communities like Old Orchard Beach, said Carolan Ouellette, director of the Maine Office of Tourism. But she expects to see 225,000 fewer visitors this year because of federal policy changes and political rhetoric that have upended relations with Maine’s northern neighbor and most important trading partner.
That drop is likely to be part of a larger decline in international visitors more broadly. Ouellette had expected an 8.8% increase in international visitation, but now she expects it to drop by about 9.5%.
Canadians account for about 5% of Maine’s overall tourist visits, but they are a vital piece of the market from some communities and businesses.
“Anecdotally, we are hearing stories about cancellations that are occurring,” she said. “It’s a very mixed impact across the state. In some areas and some properties, this is critically part of their visitor base overall in Maine.”
Ouellette’s sober assessment comes as state lawmakers are grappling to understand how Trump’s first few months in office will impact the state revenues.
In addition to the tariffs announced this week, Trump has worked to slash federal spending and the federal workforce, and his administration has been threatening to pull other funding from Maine because of an ongoing dispute with state officials over transgender athletes and diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
The state’s independent, nonpartisan economic forecasting commission met earlier this week and made modest downward adjustments to income projections and increasing expectations of inflation. But it remains unclear which of Trump’s policies, especially his sweeping tariffs and his efforts to cut federal grants from Maine, are here for the long haul.
That economic outlook is a key component for the nonpartisan panel trying to provide the Legislature with a revenue forecast so lawmakers know how much — or how little — additional tax revenue they will have to supports state programs and services. The Revenue Forecasting Committee is expected to meet April 28 and deliver its report to lawmakers by May 1.
Sheena Bunnell, an economic professor at the University of Maine in Farmington and chair of the Consensus Economic Forecasting Commission, said the state and national economies have strong foundations that will likely withstand the effects of Trump’s new tariff regime in the long term and that they could even prosper if companies bring manufacturing operations back to the U.S., as the administration hopes.
But Bunnell also criticized Trump’s “sledgehammer” approach to tariffs as a “very painful way” of resetting the economy and predicted that Maine residents and business could experience financial pain and uncertainty in the short-term.
Expectations for short-term pain is reflected in the stock markets, which this week experienced their largest declines since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the economy. And the countries targeted by Trump’s tariffs are already announcing retaliation, escalating the global trade war.
But Maine’s economy has weathered similar storms in the past, Bunnell said.
“We have been through pretty tough times in the past, including the financial crisis, COVID and now this. So we’ve had three shocks since 2007, and we have done fine,” she said.
It’s unclear how long that short-term uncertainty and pain will last, however. Bunnell predicted uncertainty about the direction of the economy could last six months or so, but Trump himself has indicated it could take two years before the U.S. could see any manufacturing resurgence resulting from the tariffs.
Even six months of uncertainty would be hard for Maine tourism businesses to swallow.
“That six months of uncertainty is our prime travel season,” Ouellette said.
Republicans on the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee, which heard presentations Friday form tourism officials and the state economist, were more optimistic that Maine would weather the drastic changes in federal policy, especially in terms of tourism. They expect tourists from other states, as well as locals, will fill the void being created by a drop in Canadian tourists.
Rep. Amy Arata, R-New Gloucester, said she was looking forward to a summer with fewer tourists.
“I’ve lived in Vacationland most of my life and often during the best time of year I can’t find a room anywhere and the beaches are crowded, there’s no parking,” Arata said. “So, on the bright side, I look forward to taking my family and having some staycations in Maine … and I think that other Mainers will do the same thing.”
Filling the gap with tourists from other states may not be easy.
Ouellette said that the overall drop in international tourism will cause larger states, including New York, Florida, California and Texas, to also ramp up marketing efforts aimed at U.S. tourists.
Ouellette said that about 80% of tourists drive to Maine, and other states will be targeting the same travelers in the greater New England and mid-Atlantic areas.
“Everyone targets that market heavily,” she said. “So it will be a very competitive landscape, particularly with destinations up and down the East Coast looking to target that same drive market.”
TOPSFIELD, Maine — Jenna Stoddard is not sure where her son will spend his days when he starts preschool next fall.
Sending him to East Range II School would be convenient and continue a legacy. Stoddard lives just down the street and her husband graduated eighth grade there in 2007, one in a class of three. Topsfield’s population has dropped since then. The school now has five students, two teachers, few extracurricular activities and nobody trained to teach music, art, gym or health.
Stoddard’s son is too young for her to worry about that now. But the school may not be open by the time he is ready to go. Topsfield, a town of just 175 residents, will vote on whether to close the school on April 30. If it closes, the boy would likely be sent to preschool up to 30 minutes away in Princeton or Baileyville.
“That’s a pretty fair distance for a kid, a 4-year-old, who is now on a bus all by himself,” she said. “[If] school starts at [7:45 a.m.], what time is the bus picking 4-year-olds up here? And what time is he going to get home at?”
Topsfield is an extreme example of how an aging, shrinking population and rising property taxes are forcing Maine towns to make difficult choices about their community institutions. Just over a dozen people came to a Wednesday hearing on the idea of closing the school. The crowd was mostly in favor of it.
“It is emotional to close the school in a town,” Superintendent Amanda Belanger of the sprawling Eastern Maine Area School System said then. “But we do feel it’s in the best interest of the students in the town.”
Teacher Paula Johnson walked a reporter through the building, which is small by Maine standards but cavernous for its five students. It has four classrooms, a small library, and a gymnasium. There is also a cook and a custodian for the tiny school.
A hallway trophy case serves as a reminder of when the school was big enough to field basketball teams. Topsfield’s student population has never been large, but the school’s population has dropped dramatically over the past few years. It had 25 students in 2023, with many coming from nearby Vanceboro, which closed its own school in 2015.
As the student population dwindled, the cost of sending students to Topsfield climbed. With fewer students to defray the costs, Vanceboro officials realized they would be paying $23,000 per student by the last school year. So they opted to direct students to nearby Danforth, where tuition was only $11,000 per student.
East Range lost seven students from Vanceboro, bringing its enrollment below 10. Under Maine law, that means the district may offer students the option to go elsewhere. Parents of the remaining students in grades 5 through 8 took the option and sent their kids to Baileyville. This school began the year with eight students; three have since pulled out.
In Topsfield, Johnson teaches four of the remaining five, holding lessons for pre-K through second grade in one classroom. Another one down the short hallway is home base for the other teacher. She focuses on the school’s lone fourth grader and occasionally teaches one of Johnson’s first graders, who is learning at an advanced level.
The other teacher, who holds a special education certificate despite having no students with those needs, plans to leave at the end of the school year. If the school stays open, that will leave Johnson responsible for educating Topsfield’s youngest students, though the school will need to budget for a part-time special education teacher just in case.
After 11 years at the school, Johnson is not sure what she will do if voters shut it down.
“We’ll see what happens here,” she said.
Topsfield’s school board, which operates as a part of the Eastern Maine Area School System, is offering its residents a choice: continue funding the school only for students between preschool and second grade at an estimated cost of $434,000 next year or send all students elsewhere, which would cost less than $200,000.
At Wednesday’s hearing, the attendees leaned heavily toward the latter option. Deborah Mello said she moved from Rhode Island to Topsfield years ago to escape high taxes.
“It’s not feasible for the town of Topsfield,” she said. “We cannot afford it and it’s not like the children don’t have a school to go to.”
Others bemoaned the burden of legal requirements for the small district, including the need to provide special education teachers even if they don’t need one. Board members also mentioned that in 2028, the district will become responsible for educating 3-year-olds under a new state law. That adds another layer of uncertainty to future budgeting.
“It sounds like we’ve been burdened something severely by this program and that program by the Department of Education, to the point where a small school can’t even exist,” resident Alan Harriman said.
“And that’s been happening for a long time,” East Range board chair Peggy White responded.
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural government as part of the partnership between the Bangor Daily News and The Maine Monitor, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.
BANGOR, Maine (WABI) – Good morning and Happy Sunday everyone. Skies are cloudy with fog across much of Maine this morning. Rain has entered locations along the interstate and to the northwest. Temperatures vary from the upper 30s to mid 40s. Winds are out of the SE between about 5-15 mph.
Today will be a wet and impactful day with rain and even snow anticipated as a large cold front passes through Maine. Skies will be cloudy with plenty of fog lasting through the morning. Rain will expand across the interstate by the late morning hours, reaching Downeast locations by midday/the early afternoon.
By the early to midafternoon, temperatures will start to drop across northwestern locations as the cold front passes through Maine. This will result in rain turning over to mixed precipitation and eventually snow across the Western Mountains, Moosehead region, and Northern Maine. Rain will continue steadily and at times heavily across the foothills, Interstate, Coast, and Downeast. A few thunderstorms are even possible closer to the coast.
Snow will expand across areas to the northwest of the interstate this evening, reaching all the way down to Interior Midcoast communities, the Bangor region, and Interior Downeast areas by sunset and into the start of the night. Precipitation will taper off across Western Maine shortly after sunset, before exiting the entire state around midnight tonight. High temps today will vary from the low 40s to low 50s with SSE to NW gusts reaching 20-25 mph.
Snowfall totals will vary under 2 inches across Western, Northern, and Interior Downeast locations. However, a few pockets of 2-4 inches are possible, mostly in higher elevations across the mountains. Rainfall totals will accumulate around a half inch to three quarters of an inch when all is said and done.
Precipitation will be out of Maine by midnight tonight, with cloudy conditions giving way to mostly clear skies by sunrise. Lows overnight will dip back below freezing across much of the state, from the low 20s to mid 30s tonight, so cover up any plants or flowers outside. WNW gusts will reach 20-25 mph. A Small Craft Advisory is expected offshore.
Skies will be partly to mostly sunny across the interstate and coast on Monday morning. However, by the late morning to midday hours, clouds will build with a few scattered rain and snow showers in spots. Conditions will remain on the cloudier side in the afternoon before clearing up around sunset into the start of Monday night. Highs will be chilly on Monday, from the low 30s to upper 40s. WNW to SW gusts will be a bit breezy, reaching 20-25 mph, which will add to the wind chill factor.
High pressure will build on Monday night, remaining overhead on Tuesday. Skies will be sunny in the morning, becoming partly to mostly sunny in the afternoon. Highs will remain cool, in the 40s across the board with North to SW gusts only reaching 15-20 mph.
A weaker low-pressure system could bring showers across Maine on Wednesday and Thursday. There is a bit of model uncertainty on exactly when it will impact Maine. The GFS has impacts on Wednesday, while the EURO, GRAF, and GDPS models have most of the impacts on Thursday. We will continue to monitor this system and potential impacts. All it looks to provide as of now are cloudier skies and rain showers, with some snow shower chances farther to the North.
By Friday and Saturday, conditions are trending on the drier side with sunshine and average temperatures returning to the forecast.
SUNDAY: Highs from low 40s to low 50s. Cloudy with AM fog. Rain becoming widespread throughout the day, turning over to snow to the north & west during PM. SSE to NW gusts reach 20-25 mph.
MONDAY: Highs from low 30s to upper 40s. Partly to mostly sunny early. Developing clouds with scattered rain/snow showers by midday/afternoon. WNW to SW gusts reach 20-25 mph.
TUESDAY: Highs throughout the 40s. Sunnier AM. Partly to mostly sunny PM. North to SW gusts reach 15-20 mph.
WEDNESDAY: Highs from low 40s to low 50s. Mostly cloudy with a few rain showers. Few AM snow showers possible North. SSE to SSW gusts reach 20-25 mph.
THURSDAY: Highs from mid 40s to mid 50s. Cloudier skies with rain showers possible. Some AM snow showers possible North. NW gusts reach 20-25 mph.
FRIDAY: Highs from upper 40s to mid 50s. Partly cloudy. NNW gusts reach 20 mph.
Copyright 2026 WABI. All rights reserved.
Editor’s note: This story was originally published in September 2022.
When it comes to Maine hiking, summiting Katahdin is the ultimate achievement.
Maine’s tallest mountain stands at 5,269 feet, and there are a number of different trails hikers can take to get up and down Katahdin. And while some are harder than others, none are easy.
But the views are incredible.
Whether it’s the rugged terrain of the Knife Edge or the vast landscape of the 200,000 acres that compose Baxter State Park below, here’s a look at what it’s like to climb Katahdin.
Hunt Trail
Abol Trail
Chimney Pond Trail
Cathedral Trail
Saddle Trail
Northwest Basin Trail
Knife Edge
Tablelands
South Peak
Hamlin Peak
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