Old-time fairy tales ended with "they lived happily ever after". Old time ferry tales - despite sounding the same - unfortunately end at the scrap yard. And such is the case for one of a long line of ferries that once joined New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.
The narrow stretch of the Northumberland Strait between Cape Tormentine, New Brunswick and Borden, Prince Edward Island (sometimes referred to as the Abegeweit Passage) was long the favoured crossing route joining the "island province" with the mainland. The Canadian government operated the service, with management by the Canadian National Railway and then their subsidiary CN Marine, which along with the railroad was later privatized as Marine Atlantic. The ferries themselves were owned for the government of Canada by the Minister of Transport.
In winter it was ruggged ice class ships that maintained the crossing, but in summer there were additional craft to meet the demands of the tourist trade. These featured more open decks that allowed passengers to enjoy the "sea breezes" during the crossings.
The summer ferries in their winter quarters at Borden. The open decks were tarped in to permit maintenance work.
When the Confederation Bridge opened for car and truck traffic, at essentially the same location, the Borden / Tormentine ferry route was discontinued. The ferries were sold off, with the exception of the summer ferry Holiday Island which was transferred to the seasonal Caribou, Nova Scotia to Wood Islands, Prince Edward Island service, operated by Northumberland Ferries Ltd (NFL).
It soldiered on in that role until 2022 when it had an engine room fire resulting in a constructive total loss. It was eventually broken up in 2023 in Sheet Harbour, NS.
The sister summer ferry Vacationland was proposed to operate from Black's Harbour, New Brunswick to Grand Manan Island, NB. It was renamed Fundy Paradise but it was unsuited to sea conditions, and was also too large for the port facilites, so it was sold off too.
By this time the ship was beyond its "best before date" and was then laid up in Liverpool and Sydney, NS then Sorel, QC and finally Quebec City in 2010. Plans to convert the ship to a sand dredge for use on the St.Lawrence River came to naught when the holders of the existing dredging contract blocked the idea.
With no particular plans for the future the ship languished at various berths in Quebec City, building up port fees and continuing to deteriorate.
Finally this spring arrangements were made to scrap the ship at the Marine Recycling Corp's North Sydney, NS, yard. On Sunday, May 11 the tug W.N.Twolan pulled the hulk out of Quebec City. To keep the tow on the straight and narrow, the Quebec City-based tug Océan Raynald T. was stern tethered escort downstream as far as the Cacouna area.
The Fundy Paradise and sister Holiday Island were built by Port Weller Dry Dock in1971. They measured 3139 gt and had a capacity for 405 passengers and 155 vehicles. They operated as double enders with loading ramps and navigation bridges fore and aft. They were powered by two Ruston V-16 engines totalling 7250 bhp, driving Voith-Schneider cycloidal propulsors fore and aft.
The ships were originally to be named after two "Fathers of Confederation", from Prince Edward Island. The names selected were William Pope (1825-1879) and Thomas Haviland (1822-1895). (Their roles in Canada's late nineteenth century history are far too complex to go into here.) The tourism marketing experts apparently weighed in on the choices, and they were soon dropped. The proposed William Pope became the Holiday Island and the Thomas Haviland became the Vacationland.
With the imminent scrapping of the Fundy Paradise there remains only one ship still afloat from the old Borden-Tormentine route and that is the 1947 built Abegweit which since 1983 has served as floating headquarters for the Columbia Yacht Club in Chicago. Safely berthed in fresh water, it will likely last longer than I will.
The W.N.Twolan and Fundy Paradise arrived in North Sydney May 15.
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