Never heard of Kerhonkson, N.Y.? Get out your protest banners anyway. This is a call to arms -- or lacrosse sticks. A slick marketer in this depressed Catskills town (population, 1,700) has just dissed us -- us, the world's most inoffensive minority.

"No Artists or Canadians," read the small ad in The Blue Stone Press, a twice-monthly community paper. "Jews, Blacks, Italians (and all others) welcome."

Harris Silver, 39, who runs an ad agency in New York City, spends his weekends in Kerhonkson. After buying four vacant stores on the town's decaying Main Street, he managed to lease only one. In an attempt to rent the other three, he wrote a manifesto-style ad.

It advised potential restaurateurs to "leave your tofu" behind. "And if you want to open a coffee shop, don't make us learn new words for small, medium and large is all we're saying."

No store, let alone a Starbucks, has opened on Main Street for at least a quarter-century. The post office, liquor store and supermarket relocated to Route 209 years ago.

Mr. Silver sincerely didn't want artists. He thinks gentrification ruins small towns. He tossed in Canadians to be funny. "No one came to defend the Canadians," he said, adding that one real-estate agent did urge him to accept artists.

"We don't need artists," Mr. Silver said. "We need someone who will sell socks and underpants."

But he denies that he's anti-Canuck. "First of all, I was born in Canada," he said. "Montreal." He lived there for "five minutes," he added, sounding relieved, insisting that he is American through and through. "I sold my ice skates on eBay a long time ago."

The ad ran the day after the U.S. presidential election. Mr. Silver, a frequent ad buyer in Blue Stone Press, delivered this one just before the paper went to press. No one read it over.

"Omigod," said Donna Viertel, the newspaper's office manager. "We got so many calls -- 'What's this paper coming to?' 'I can't believe the paper printed it.' "

Some callers considered the ad racist and anti-Semitic even though blacks and Jews were explicitly welcomed. Sadly, no one spoke up on behalf of Canadians.

Then The New York Times descended, complete with photographer.

Chelsea Nilsson, a student at Dartmouth College, called it "a postmodern masterpiece!" She plans to write a paper on it for her literature theory class.

Mr. Silver said he has received no death threats from Canadians and hasn't heard from the Canadian Anti-Defamation League (probably because there isn't one).

But our mission in New York sent this stern e-mail message: "My colleagues and I at the Canadian Consulate have been called a lot of things," wrote Shelley Ambrose, a public-affairs officer. "But never have we been so offended and saddened as to see ourselves lumped together in the same category as artists."

Ms. Ambrose concluded by inviting Mr. Silver and his friends over to the consulate for drinks. What sort of drinks? "Beers," he said.

Thrilled with the response, he wanted to run the ad again. "We asked him to censor it," said Chris Hewitt, 29, Blue Stone's editor. Mr. Silver dutifully cut out the Jews, Blacks, etc., but kept in the "No artists or Canadians" line. (Memo to Blue Stone: He still owes you $50 for the first ad.)

Mr. Silver said the outcry helped him rent out a second storefront -- to Mr. Hewitt. "As soon as he saw the ad, the New York Times story, he signed."

Not quite. Mr. Hewitt, who wants to open a print shop, has French-Canadian roots. He also likes lattes. He said Mr. Silver reassured him that he still qualified, but the two are dickering over the $725 (U.S.) monthly rent.

In the second ad, Mr. Silver added this footnote: "We are also not interested in renting to anyone that doesn't know funny. So if your sphincter tightened up when you read 'No artists or Canadians' instead of your lips . . . forming the shape of a smile, we're sorry."

David O'Halloran, for one, didn't smile. He said Mr. Silver doesn't represent the town and called him, disdainfully, "a weekender." Mr. O'Halloran, owner of the Pinegrove Dude Ranch and a big employer in Kerhonkson, has seen firsthand the economic perils of ethnic compartmentalization.

Peg Leg Bates, the famous one-legged tap dancer, once owned a resort down the road that catered to blacks. It faltered after the gains of the civil-rights movement. "Blacks can travel to any resort they want now," Mr. O'Halloran said.

Likewise, the Borscht Belt declined when Jews began feeling welcome elsewhere. Mr. O'Halloran's family bought one of those properties in 1971. "We converted it from a kosher hotel." Today, Pinegrove is an all-inclusive family resort.

Mr. O'Halloran, 43, is anxious to get the word out that Kerhonkson, and his resort in particular, welcomes Canadians. But not at par. He once did, in the 1990s. "But with the way things are going," he said, alluding to the declining U.S. dollar, "I won't need to any more."

Jan Wong is a senior feature writer with The Globe and Mail.