Staff at Ship 49, in Blaine Wash., have a front row seat to the activity at the Canada-U.S. Pacific Highway border crossing.
Or lately, the lack of activity at the border.
“So right now, we’re at a plateau at 60 per cent down revenue,” Josie Frodert, manager of the parcel service told Global News.
“We’re getting less than 30 packages, 30 to 40 packages a day. That’s down from 150 to 200. It is our slow season already, so it does slow down, but this is very, very slow.”
Frodert said as a result, they have reduced the hours of operation. She is leaving the lights and the heat off as much as possible to save any money they can.
“We want to stay in business,” she said.
“We love our customers. The owner’s Canadian.”
Frodert said they used to have 45 to 60 customers a day come in but now it has dropped significantly.
She said they are also hearing from their customers, saying they are scared to cross the border.
“They’re scared to come over and then they don’t want to pay the tariffs going back,” she said. “That’s huge.”
Frodert said the rumour mill is going strong, with customers telling her stories about hearing the military was staged at the border turning Canadians around, that border guards will search everyone’s phone and they will ask you if you like U.S. President Donald Trump and if you say, ‘no,’ then you are banned from the U.S. forever.
All of which she said are untrue.
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“Those are the kind of things that I’m hearing, that customers hear, not first hand, but from other people and so gossip exactly, and it scares them to not want to come down,” she added.
“I’ve had multiple customers email and call, just abandoning their packages because they’re scared to come.”
Frodert said she hasn’t heard of any of her customers having a negative experience at the border.
However, she was surprised to see the secondary inspections start happening at the border crossing for travellers returning to Canada.
She told Global News she thought it was a drill because she had never seen border agents do that before.
“Now it’s been ongoing for almost two weeks. Not all day, every day; they do it for about four hours at a time and take a lunch break,” she added.
“But, you know, I thought at first it was the Canadian side doing the outgoing inspections, but then I realized it was the U.S. side.”
Frodert said she works four days a week and she has seen the additional border checkpoints “almost every time” she has worked and she is worried they will be a further deterrent for customers.
She said Blaine has been suffering from the reduced border crossings. She said businesses are laying off workers, no one is hiring and she’s worried it will become a ghost town.
“Hopefully we can hang on because our customers love us. We love them. They’re like family to me, and I miss a lot of them. You know, I know most of our customers by their first names.”
Fewer British Columbians are driving into Whatcom County as data from the four Lower Mainland crossings show there were more than 200,000 B.C. vehicles crossing southbound in April 2024.
However, that number plunged by more than half this April.
Other nearby businesses are also trying to lure Canadians back.
Mark Andrew, regional vice-president for Columbia Hospitality and general manager at the Semiahmoo Resort Golf & Spa, told Global News they are currently running a promotion where Canadians pay 30 per cent less, putting it on par with the U.S. dollar.
“It’s not up to us to mend hard feelings, but rather to go ahead and celebrate the relationship that exists between British Columbians and Washingtonians,” he said.
“We feel this whole resort was built because of our location. We’re a stone’s throw from White Rock. We’re a stone’s throw from Blaine, and it’s the relationship that exists between U.S. and British Columbians.
“We were built to serve our neighbours to the north.”
Andrew said B.C. visitors make up a “major part” of the resort’s clientele.
He said they are starting to see some bookings for the summer but visits over spring break were down.
He is, however, optimistic about the future.
“We find that when people are coming across the border, they’re coming for a purpose and a reason,” he said.
“They’re coming to celebrate a restaurant, they’re coming to get away from whatever work they’re doing. So we’re finding that business increasing, and we’re finding that people are getting away from all the crazy news that’s in the world to enjoy some peace and calm at Semiahmoo.”
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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