Whether you agree with his latest song or not, one thing is certain: one of our own has the world's attention again.
-Kingston Ontario, By Hans Wilder
Whether you agree with his latest song or not, one thing is certain: one of our own has the world’s attention again.
Kingston, Ontario-born rock legend Bryan Adams released his new Canada Day anthem, “51st State,” this week, pushing back against suggestions that Canada should one day become part of the United States. The song quickly generated hundreds of thousands of online views and international media coverage.
Here along the St. Lawrence River, however, this story carries a little more meaning than it might elsewhere.
Kingston isn’t some distant Canadian city. It’s our neighbor.
From Cape Vincent to Clayton, Alexandria Bay to Sackets Harbor, generations of Northern New Yorkers have spent weekends shopping in Kingston, attending concerts, visiting museums, watching CKWS television, listening to Kingston radio stations, and making lifelong friends across the river. Likewise, thousands of Canadians have crossed south to shop, vacation, and explore Jefferson County.
Bryan Adams was born in Kingston in 1959 before growing up primarily in Ottawa, eventually becoming one of Canada’s most successful recording artists with worldwide hits including Summer of ’69, Heaven, and (Everything I Do) I Do It for You. More than four decades later, he’s still making headlines.
His new song is unapologetically patriotic, but it also contains an important reminder often lost in today’s political debates. Adams sings that Canadians and Americans have “always stood beside” one another and says the two countries are “better off together”—even as he argues Canada should remain independent.
That sentiment may resonate especially well here in the Thousand Islands, where the border has never erased the cultural ties between the two communities.
Whether crossing the Thousand Islands Bridge, taking a boat through the islands, or simply watching the lights of Kingston from the New York shoreline, residents on both sides have long shared the same river, the same weather, much of the same economy, and more than two centuries of intertwined history.
Politics may come and go.
Trade agreements change. Tariffs come and go. Governments change.
But the St. Lawrence River remains what it has always been: less a dividing line than a place where two neighboring communities continue to look across the water at one another.
And this week, one of Kingston’s most famous sons reminded the world that our corner of North America still knows how to make headlines.
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