Responding to the significant body of recent political science research investigating social and political attitudes across rural regions in North America and Europe, including the emergence of right-wing populism in many countries that seemingly gather strength from rural regions, this paper approaches rural public opinion in a new way. Drawing from our ongoing project that employs ethnographic methods, including periods of intense, short-term immersion, interviews, and participant-observation at local events in seven selected communities across rural Canada, to explore the roots of political, social, and economic attitudes of rural citizens. With a particular focus on the social element of meaning-making and the role of the community itself as a space where people “make sense” of – that is, develop opinions and attitudes about – events in and beyond their communities, we offer a more nuanced exploration of the diversity of social and political attitudes that exist in rural communities across Canada. This paper will highlight our initial analysis of the data collected and will close with some thoughts on the relationship between these finding and those expressed in more positivist, rural-focussed public opinion scholarship that has emerged in the past 5 years as well as what it means for understanding “rural Canada,” and rural areas more generally, within discipline of political science.