By Joseph Gough, Friars Bay Development Association
A nearly-completed project in southwest New Brunswick could help solve the province’s biggest tourism problem: the shortage of American visitors.
Tourists are practically overrunning neighboring Maine. Just by itself, Acadia National Park gets 4 million visitors – more than all New Brunswick attracts from everywhere outside the province.
Visitors flock to Maine’s coastal areas, and that beautiful geography continues along our Fundy coast. But the tourist migration mostly stalls at the Canadian border. Why?
It’s not distance. Our province gets many more visitors from far-off Ontario than from tourist-rich Maine next door to us.
So what’s discouraging the Americans? Let’s take a closer look at the border.
From the U.S. eastern seaboard, Canada’s closest entry port is Campobello Island – nearer to Bar Harbor/Acadia National Park than Moncton is to Fredericton.
In fact, the Roosevelt Campobello International Park already attracts more than 260,000 visitors – mostly American. That’s a big number, second only to Fundy National Park and Hopewell Rocks, mostly Canadian.
The Campobello visitors from the U.S. could bring millions more dollars to our mainland. But those potential spenders mostly cross right back over the border bridge and disappear into Maine. You can imagine what’s on their minds if you picture the map.
From Campobello, to get back to scenic salt water at St. Andrews, N.B., they’d need to circle Passamaquoddy Bay for an hour and a half, too often through drab woods, while going through Customs twice.
Instead, most treat Campobello as a dead end, and head back into expensive and often overcrowded Maine. The island and the province lose potential revenue.
Looking again at our mental map, we see that Campobello Island reaches partway across the mouth of Passamaquoddy Bay. Now let’s imagine a good-sized car ferry running from the island to the N.B. mainland.
Thousands more Americans could linger longer on Campobello and then take a scenic car-ferry sail, past whale-rippled waters and famed Head Harbour lighthouse, to St. Andrews, Black’s Harbour, or another mainland port. From there they’d fan out to shops, restaurants, and galleries in St. Stephen and Saint John, or maybe the delights of blueberry pie at Pennfield. We have good things all over.
The water shortcut would shrink distances. Campobello to St. Andrews is about 73 miles by road, but only 14 by boat. To Blacks Harbour, it’s 12-13 by boat compared with roughly 9o by car.
A mainland ferry could multiply tourist spending. And Campobello islanders would gain a secure connection to their own country, rather than having to drive 50 miles through the U.S. to reach St. Stephen and another 50 going back, while clearing Customs four times.
That’s the vehicle picture. What about boats and vessels?
Maine makes fortunes from marine tourism. That’s obvious when you visit towns like Camden, Rockland, and Bar Harbor. And there’s a big new cruise-ship destination – Eastport, Maine, just a nautical mile across from Campobello.
Down East visits are spiking because of the natural appeal, the overcrowding at other Maine destinations including Bar Harbor, and the growing popularity of small-ship adventure tourism supplementing the big-vessel trade.
In this case, Southwest New Brunswick is almost ready to cash in.
That’s because a volunteer organization on Campobello has nearly completed a project – Welshpool Landing – that can make the island a destination and a gateway for cruise-ship, windjammer, and private-boat tourism. It just needs the finishing push.
A decade back, the local Friars Bay Development Association saw the regional possibilities for marine tourism. What was needed was a welcoming port right on the border. And lo and behold, the basic infrastructure already existed on Campobello. So did the tourist appeal.
