Gander marks 25 years since the diverted flights, with the U.S. ambassador under protest

Gander, Newfoundland, is marking 25 years since 38 civilian airliners landed there on 11 September 2001, when American airspace closed. About 7,000 passengers and crew from 95 countries spent days in a town that nearly doubled overnight. The musical Come From Away later turned that week into a global story about casseroles, church halls and borrowed towels. This year's ceremony is running into a colder Canada-United States relationship.

U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra is on the guest list for Friday's event at Gander's arena, along with Governor General Louise Arbour, former prime minister Jean Chretien, Premier Tony Wakeham and David Collenette, who was transport minister in 2001 and helped run Operation Yellow Ribbon. The arena holds about 2,000. Mayor Percy Farwell said he would not be surprised by 2,500. Some residents have asked that Hoekstra's invitation be pulled. His office said it knew of a petition and declined further comment.

The BBC and the New York Times both treated the backlash as a measure of the present, not of 2001. Donald Trump has spent his second term raising tariffs, talking about Canada as a future state, and insulting Canadian leaders. Prime Minister Mark Carney recently walked away from tariff talks and told reporters, "You're at war when you're attacked, and we got attacked." Negotiations have been frozen since late August. Tit-for-tat duties remain.

Thursday's event at the College of the North Atlantic campus kept the official theme of kindness. Americans who were stranded in 2001 stood with retired administrator Mac Moss, who ran the campus operation that week. CBC reported that those returning visitors publicly distanced themselves from their president. The kindness stories and the trade-war talk occupied the same room.

Farwell, who was deputy mayor in 2001 and is mayor now, told the Times it would be foolish to pretend the politics were not running in the background. A local woman, asked about the old friendship, called the present hurtful. The gift shop at the North Atlantic Aviation Museum still sells a shirt with 9 and 11 drawn as towers filled with the two flags and the line Beyond Words. The shirt has not been updated for the tariff schedule.

Gander's runway was built for the mid-century Atlantic crossing. American soldiers used it as a last North American stop on the way to European and Middle Eastern wars. On 11 September 2001 that geography became a shelter. Thirty-eight aircraft that could not enter the United States used a Newfoundland field because it was long enough and because the town said yes. The town is saying yes again this Friday, with more conditions in the letters to the editor than in 2001.

Collenette will speak about Operation Yellow Ribbon, which landed some 200 diverted aircraft across Canada. Alan Doyle and the Ennis Sisters will play. Those are Gander's preferred memories. Hoekstra's chair is the argument. Whether he sits in it or not, the 25th anniversary in this town is no longer only about stew and spare rooms. It is also about whether a story Canadians told about themselves still includes the government that sent the ambassador.

The passengers of 2001 got home. Some of them came back this week. They will hear the names and the songs. They will also hear, if they listen to the talk outside the arena, that the border they once crossed as guests is now a tariff wall with a sovereignty argument stacked on top. Gander cannot settle that argument. It can only hold the ceremony and count who still wants to be in the photograph.

Come From Away made Gander famous to people who will never land there. The risk of a 25th anniversary held under a trade war is that the musical becomes the only version that still feels warm. The living town has to host an ambassador some residents do not want, greet Americans who apologise for their president, and keep the arena polite. That is harder work than a standing ovation on Broadway. It is also closer to what the town actually did in 2001: deal with the people who arrived, not the story that would later be told about them.