Seven Days: A Vermont Lens on Quebec, 2023–2025
For Seven Days, the border crossing is an act of ethical travel, a statement of cultural openness, and a reassertion of regional identity.
Each May since 2023, Seven Days, Burlington's alternative weekly, has published a themed travel feature promoting visits to Québec. Underwritten in part by Bonjour Québec (the province's tourism marketing arm), the articles are positioned as editorially independent, but they function unmistakably as soft diplomacy. For a publication deeply embedded in Vermont's progressive culture, these stories do more than recommend restaurants or attractions; they stage the border crossing itself as an act of ethical travel, a statement of cultural openness, and a reassertion of regional identity.
2023–2024: Familiar Curiosities and Cautious Neighbors
In the summers of 2023 and 2024, Seven Days offered two breezy, image-rich travel features on Québec — “Five Easy Trips Over the Border” and “Five More Easy Trips Over the Border.” As the pandemic receded into the background and U.S.-Canada relations entered a more neutral phase, these articles served less as bold invitations and more as gentle nudges. Their tone? Comfortably casual. Their purpose? To remind Vermonters that Québec — despite its border guards and French signage— remains just up the road.
Together, the pieces present a Vermont view of Québec as both familiar and slightly exotic. The destinations are not framed as “must-sees” in a Lonely Planet sense. Instead, they are “easy trips,” a phrase that reflects a subtle Burlington ethos — adventure with a side of convenience. You don’t need to learn French, just show respect for it, the pieces seem to say. You don’t need a plan, just a passport and a willingness to drive.
It is revealing that both articles frame the trips as easy. The repetition of the word signals a certain caution — as if writers and editors know that even a short international trip can feel like a challenge for Vermonters. There is a thread of cultural hesitation woven through the region: not everyone in Chittenden County sees Québec as a natural extension of their world. For some, Montréal remains foreign in the truest sense — urban, French-speaking, and fast-paced. For those farther afield — in rural corners of Addison or Lamoille County — the border can feel less like a gateway than a wall.
But the Seven Days approach cleverly sidesteps that reluctance. By emphasizing proximity (day trips), affordability (farmers’ markets, bike rides, beach days), and ease (Google Maps, English menus, credit cards accepted), the features demystify Québec while retaining just enough magic. They’re not romanticized dispatches from some unknowable place — they’re neighborly winks across a shared border.
What is left unsaid in these features is just as telling: there’s little overt mention of politics, cultural tensions, or linguistic challenges. This is not due to avoidance but audience awareness. Burlington’s progressive, college-educated readership thinks about politics all the time and does not need Québec to be explained from scratch — readers just need to be reminded that Québec is worth the effort. These pieces meet readers where they are: curious, a little cautious, and increasingly ready to rediscover a place that has always been close but never routine.
In that way, the 2023 and 2024 articles reflect an evolution in Vermont’s border psychology. Where the Trump-era questions were “Am I welcome?”, and the early 2020s asked “Is it even possible?” 2025 posed a subtler one: “Why haven’t you gone yet?” The answer, it turns out, might just be: You should. It’s easy.
Nevertheless, subtle tensions surface. Multiple references are made to the difficulties Vermonters experience crossing the border into Canada — delays, stern questioning, unexpected holdups — whereas reentry into the United States, though more confrontational, especially in 2025, receives less narrative attention. The NEXUS program — theoretically ideal for frequent, low-risk travelers like Vermont day-trippers — is dismissed as too cumbersome to justify. There is a quiet irony in how the articles insist on Québec's accessibility while simultaneously documenting its perceived friction. While Burlingtonians will hop on a flight to Lisbon or Mexico City, many remain oddly hesitant to make the 90-minute drive to Montréal. Québec, the article implied, remains psychologically farther than it is geographically.
2025: New Excuses, Familiar Terrain
By 2025, the tone in Seven Days’ Québec coverage has shifted subtly. Gone is the insistence on ease. Instead, the most recent feature speaks to readers who are already, at least partially, convinced. The rhetorical strategy has matured: instead of making the case for crossing the border, the article assumes that the reader has done it before and is now looking for something novel, refined, or even just Instagrammable. Michelin stars. Immersive art. Trail-running stations modeled after European alpine hubs.
Cultural Gravity and Fresh Lures: “New Reasons to Head to Québec This Summer”
While Jen Rose Smith’s companion article on American-Canadian relations deals in political nuance, “New Reasons to Head to Québec This Summer” is an exuberant catalogue of new temptations. It makes the case that the Vermont-Québec relationship isn’t merely nostalgic — it’s evolving, diversifying, and even accelerating in cultural relevance. This is not a borderland frozen in memory or rural kitsch; it is, the article suggests, a place generating ideas, aesthetics, and experiences that cannot be found on the U.S. side.
The piece opens with a familiar rhythm — a nod to the comfort of well-trodden Montréal favorites and Eastern Townships wineries — but quickly pivots to showcase what’s new and audacious. What emerges is a Québec of gourmet gravel rides and immersive digital art hotels, Michelin-anointed boreal cuisine and First Nations storytelling. The article doesn't just list attractions; it maps out a Québec that is more cosmopolitan, ambitious, and culturally layered than many Vermont readers may appreciate.
The strongest current in Smith’s dispatch is one of sensory abundance and artistic experimentation. The immersive digital arts scene, for instance — featuring Moment Factory’s cathedral-sized light shows and the boundary-pushing exhibitions at the new Sonolux hotel — reveals a Québec where technology and culture merge in ways rarely seen in New England. MUTEK and ELEKTRA, two of the continent’s most prominent digital arts festivals, offer Vermonters a kind of urban intensity that Burlington cannot match, no matter how vibrant its music scene.
Then there's the food. The Michelin Guide’s first-ever venture into Québec has stirred up controversy, not least because Montréal was eclipsed by Québec City. But even that regional tension becomes part of the draw. Food becomes both a literal reason to cross the border — with set menus ranging from $90 to $300 CAD — and a metaphor for Québec’s growing confidence on the world stage. When a chef in Rimouski can suddenly find themselves with a Michelin star, it’s a reminder that cultural capital is being redistributed — and that Vermont's northern neighbor is part of that shift.
One of the article’s most thoughtful moves is its inclusion of Indigenous voices and institutions. The permanent “W8banakiak” exhibit at the Musée des Abénakis in Odanak signals a serious investment in cultural reclamation and education. That matters in Vermont, where Abenaki identity and recognition have been contentious and politically fraught. Here, travel becomes not only scenic or recreational, but historical — a means of encountering First Nations culture on its own terms, curated by its own people.
The Eastern Townships gravel routes are perhaps the most “Vermontish” attraction of the bunch — rural, scenic, and full of cheese — but even here, the story is subtly different. These are curated, structured adventures, complete with equipment rentals and culinary pit stops. They suggest a Québec that understands experience as hospitality, not just terrain. This is not unlike Vermont’s own recreation economy, but it’s more formalized, perhaps more European in style — and, crucially, it is presented in a way that welcomes newcomers rather than assuming deep local knowledge.
That invitation matters. Throughout Smith’s piece, the subtext is that Québec wants visitors — not just any visitors, but engaged, curious ones. Whether it's an Abenaki language exhibit or a trail-running refuge, the sense is that this is a place that’s investing in being visited. Unlike some Vermont destinations that seem fatigued by tourists, Québec here is not just open for business — it is in cultural bloom, inviting Vermonters to witness that bloom firsthand.
In her political article, Smith subtly reframes travel as resistance, but this text reframes it as cultural participation. Together, the pieces make the case that Vermonters should not visit Québec because it is familiar, but because it is becoming unfamiliar in the best ways. It is changing — modernizing, innovating, decolonizing — and it offers a vision of what a post-pandemic, post-nationalist tourism could look like: slower, more ethical, more curious.
What’s striking, though, is how much of this is still couched in a form of reassurance. The piece opens with the writer’s confession of being a frequent Québec visitor — as if to say, “I’ve survived this journey many times; you can, too.” She mentions her seasonal favorites — canal-side bike rides, circus performances, vineyard visits — not unlike someone sharing her favorite recipes with a nervous host. And while there’s no direct mention of the border this time, the ghost of it still hovers in the lines about whether Americans are “even welcome” right now.
Strained Symbols, Open Borders: Politics and Projection in “Are Americans Even Welcome in Canada Right Now?”
In the 2025 Québec Guide, Seven Days directly confronts a political undercurrent that has shadowed all three years of its cross-border travel reporting: the fear among liberal Vermonters that they are unwelcome in Canada, particularly under the renewed presidency of Donald Trump. Jen Rose Smith’s article, “Are Americans Even Welcome in Canada Right Now?” is one of the most explicit attempts in the series to thread a careful needle — acknowledging legitimate discomfort while also reframing travel as an act of bridge-building, not ideology.
Smith's article does something unusual: it shifts the gaze. Rather than dwelling solely on how Vermonters view Québec, she examines how Québécois might view Vermont — and finds, tellingly, that they largely do not. The vignette with the friendly Montrealer who remembers Vermont only vaguely and associates it with a single ski trip in 2004 reminds us of how lopsided the attention is. Vermonters tend to overestimate both how foreign Québec is and how much Québec cares.
But the real substance of the article comes in its reflections on Trump-era politics and how they reverberate across the border. The piece does not deny that Canadians — including many Québécois — are disgusted by Trump’s policies and rhetoric. The anger is real, evidenced by boycotts, rebranded coffee drinks, and public protest. Yet Smith carefully separates the reception of America from the reception of Americans. This is a crucial distinction that the article insists Vermonters learn to internalize.
Smith also avoids the trap of turning the Québécois into moral validators. She gently mocks Americans who look north for absolution — who want to explain, “I didn’t vote for him!” — as if Canadians are waiting to hand out moral awards. In doing so, she calls out a tendency among Burlington-style liberals: to treat Canadian travel not just as leisure, but as a form of political performance, a way to reassert their identity as “the good Americans.” The article reminds readers that travel, at its best, is not self-justification — it is observation, listening, and humility.
And yet Smith does not scold. Her tone remains thoughtful and affirming. She argues that travel is not a distraction from politics, but an alternative to its isolationist logic. Visiting Québec becomes an act of quiet resistance to the closed-border, xenophobic worldview that Trump represents. It is not redemptive, but it is connective. The piece subtly reclaims travel from consumer escapism and reframes it as civic action — modest, human-scale diplomacy.
It is in this balancing act that Seven Days journalism reveals its complexity. While deeply informed by liberal Vermont anxieties, it also challenges them. Smith doesn’t let her audience wallow in fear or superiority. She insists on travel as a two-way mirror: we look out, and we see ourselves more clearly in return.
The phrase “even welcome” gets to the heart of the Vermont-Québec dynamic. For all their shared history, these are two societies that misunderstand one another. Québec sees Vermont as a pastoral counterpoint to the American mainstream: small-scale, unarmed (a great misperception), and vaguely European in its habits and politics. Vermont, in turn, sees Québec as both familiar and opaque — a place where the food is better, the language is trickier, and the bureaucracy a little more capricious.
This dynamic is particularly resonant in Burlington, where progressivism intersects with privilege in curious ways. The city’s educated, left-leaning elite is perhaps more inclined to see travel as a form of ethical engagement — what Rick Steves has called “a political act.” In this view, crossing into Québec is not a leisure activity; it is an act of hemispheric cosmopolitanism, an extension of Burlington’s self-image as both hyper-local and globally aware. The recent Seven Days article reflects this ethos: it offers not just destinations, but justifications. You are not just going to a new restaurant; you are participating in cultural exchange, ecological tourism, even reconciliation with Indigenous communities.
And yet, despite this progressive framing, a quieter anxiety persists. For many Vermonters, Québec remains just unfamiliar enough to provoke hesitation. The cultural codes are different, the social expectations slightly misaligned. The province’s fierce defense of French as a public language, for instance, can feel intimidating even to well-meaning educated travelers whose response to French will be to try to learn it. And in recent years, political shifts — from Québec’s secularism laws to its tightened immigration policies — have made the province’s progressive credentials more complicated.
In this light, the latest Seven Days feature reads like a soft nudge toward re-engagement — not just with place, but with difference. It’s a curated reminder that just beyond the border lies a world that’s not only accessible, but instructive. The question isn’t whether Americans are welcome in Québec. It’s whether they’re ready to engage with it on its own terms — and what it says about us if we’re not.
References:
https://www.sevendaysvt.com/guides/a-sugar-shack-tour-through-quebecs-laurentian-mountains-43115419
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