Maine’s international ferry is seeing more riders

After facing a series of challenges over several years, the CAT ferry in Bar Harbor has wrapped up a third season of increased ridership and stability.

The ferry service to Canada, which was once the only major marine operation in town before the cruise industry began to grow in the 1990s, saw its usage increase roughly 30 percent over last year. The CAT is operated by Canadian firm Bay Ferries Ltd.

“It represents significant year-over-year growth of the service,” said Mark Wilson, the company’s CEO, about the ferry’s 2024 season.

The Nova Scotian government, which subsidizes the service, said this week it plans to continue providing operating funds for the ferry in 2025 and 2026. Provincial officials said passengers on the ferry contributed more than $20 million in Canadian currency to Nova Scotia’s economy in 2023.

The growth of the ferry’s ridership in recent years reflects record levels of tourism in the region since the COVID-19 pandemic largely brought travel to a standstill in 2020. The increase of tourism in Bar Harbor has led to some pushback from residents who have argued for fewer cruise ships visits and vacation rental properties in town, and who have suggested that hotel development also should be reined in.

The seasonal ferry service ended on Tuesday with 2024 totals of nearly 50,000 passengers and 20,000 vehicles, according to Bay Ferries. That’s roughly 12,000 more passengers and 5,000 more vehicles than it carried last year, and 14,000 more passengers and 5,000 more vehicles than in 2022.

The service did not operate in 2020 or in 2021 due to the COVID pandemic.

International seasonal ferry service between Bar Harbor and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, was a local fixture from 1956 until 2009, when the province abruptly cut off subsidies .

Service between Nova Scotia and Maine was revived from 2014 through 2018 out of Portland as Bay Ferries, and at times other firms, tried to make it economically viable again. But even with renewed provincial subsidies, the operating costs proved too steep .

Bay Ferries sought to reestablish ferry runs between Bar Harbor and Nova Scotia in 2019 , in large part to save on fuel costs because of the shorter distance to and from Canada. But security requirements imposed by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and construction delays interfered with those plans .

Then, after the company set its sights on resuming service from Bar Harbor in 2020 , the pandemic struck. The ferry did not start operating again out of Bar Harbor until 2022, 12 years after it had left.