Passenger ferry connecting Campobello and Maine close to setting sail
CBC
On a June morning on a Maine wharf, the fog lifts to reveal a Canadian neighbour.
New Brunswick's Campobello Island, just across a small ocean strait from the U.S. city of Eastport, is tantalizingly close.
These communities are separated not just by a distance of two kilometres, but also by bureaucracy.
For six years, proponents on Campobello have pushed to establish a passenger ferry to Eastport.
A water link would turn a 65-kilometre drive through Maine into a brief boat ride.
The island in southwestern New Brunswick, at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, has a year-round population under 1,000.
There is a summertime vehicle ferry that goes to Deer Island and then onto the mainland. Otherwise, residents have to drive across a bridge to Lubec, Maine, and through the United States to re-enter Canada at St. Stephen.
Despite having a local boat and operator from Eastport, the U.S. and Canadian governments have held up the project because of customs concerns.
An agreement late last summer allowed for crossings to begin for a few short weeks.
WATCH | Ferry connecting Campobello and Maine eagerly awaited:
The boat from Eastport would land at Welshpool Wharf on Campobello, and a van would drive passengers six kilometres up the road to the Canadian customs station at the bridge connecting the island to Lubec, Maine.
But when the 2024 season started to approach, it became clear to organizers that governments on both sides weren't necessarily going to offer the service again, when U.S. Customs officials said the ferry wouldn't be possible this year.
"That's been more of a struggle than we could have imagined," said Ron Beckwith, president of the Friars Bay Development Association on Campobello, the group that has been pushing for a ferry.
But now, Beckwith said, an agreement is in the works with U.S. Customs to screen passengers heading back into Eastport.
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