Smiles and tears of joy as ferry route between Newfoundland and Saint-Pierre reopens
'You can kind of feel it in the air,' says tourism manager
There were waves — and smiles — in Fortune on Wednesday as the ferry run between St-Pierre-Miquelon and Newfoundland and Labrador was reinstated for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the route 17 months ago.
Vehicles rolled off the ship one by one, some with trailers, boats and ATVs in tow.
"It's very exciting. We're seeing people come out through these doors and reunite with their families. Everybody seems excited. You can kind of feel it in the air," Danielle Ambs, manager of a tourism partnership between Legendary Coasts of Eastern Newfoundland and Tourism St-Pierre-Miquelon, said on Wednesday
"People are really happy. It's a good feeling and I think people are really relieved and excited to be able to cross the border again."
Ambs said the tourism industry on the Burin Peninsula — the "gateway" to St-Pierre-Miquelon — has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.
"They're very used to having that flow of tourists, and the same thing on St-Pierre-Miquelon. We've been told by our colleagues over there that it's been a pretty difficult time," she said.
"Especially for tourism business operators, it's been very quiet over there. So I think people are eager to kind of start getting back to a new normal."
Family reunions
Marie Matheson of Gander was heading the other way on Wednesday. Matheson was leaving for the French territory off Newfoundland's south coast to visit her daughter, grandchildren and son-in-law for the first time in over a year and a half.
"It's an incredible feeling of connection, reconnection. One of the children was just one year old when we left and now she's 2½," Matheson said.
"So we're seeing a lifetime as our baby is concerned. That's incredibly exciting for both my husband and I, and it means that we're going to be able to make a connection we've never really had."
Matheson's grandson is seven years old, she said, and it's a big deal for him when his grandparents make the voyage.
But it had been a challenge, pandemic aside, leading up to Wednesday's crossing. Matheson said it was difficult to know what to do ahead of setting sail.
"Finding someone we could get answers from, that was really hard. People were very ill-informed," she said.
"I'm not being critical of the people we called, in a sense, because this was so new for them. I don't know if anybody really could know. But it was difficult even finding information about having the testing done, which we found out we had to do."
Matheson said she and her husband drove to St. John's for COVID-19 tests before leaving for Fortune.
She said it was a long process and, with the tests costing $250 each, an expensive one.
"I'm happy to say it's not restrictive for us, but for many others it would be. It will make it restrictive, meanwhile, for us to go as often as we would, because we always went five or six times a year," she said.
With files from Josée Basque