The view from Herring Cove on Campobello Island, N.B. The ongoing U.S. border restrictions have led to renewed calls among the island's 800 residents for a year-round transport link with Canada.Photography by Chris Donovan/The Globe and Mail
The people of Campobello Island, N.B., like potato chips as much as Canadians anywhere else. And every bag they buy costs Mackie Greene money.
Mr. Greene, who owns the island’s only grocery store, has been subsidizing his neighbours’ salty snacks since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, when snack companies began refusing to deliver to Campobello.
“They’re using COVID as an excuse not to come down here any more,” Mr. Greene said. “So for me to get chips to Campobello, it eats the profit right out of it. That’s the cost of getting freight to the island.”
Mackie Greene owns the island's grocery store.
Campobello, a community of about 800 people off the southwestern coast of New Brunswick, is linked to Canada only by a seasonal ferry that normally stops running at the end of September. For most of the year, the island is one of the few places in the country that citizens needs to drive through the U.S. to reach.
The truckers who carry Mr. Greene’s shipments from mainland Canada don’t like waiting for the ferry, and prefer to cross into the U.S. by land. They then have to cross back into Canada at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial Bridge, which links the town of Lubec, Maine with Campobello.
During the pandemic, with border restrictions tighter than usual, that trip has become especially arduous.
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Last week, the U.S. extended restrictions at its land borders with Canada through Oct. 21, despite the fact that Ottawa opened the Canadian border to vaccinated Americans in August.
For people on Campobello, where fishing and tourism are the biggest drivers of employment, the clampdown on international travel has led to widespread economic pain and renewed calls for a year-round transportation link with New Brunswick.
Islanders say the pandemic has exposed the downsides of being reliant on another country for basic things like grocery deliveries, mail, gas and medical services. They say the lack of a year-round ferry is choking off the island from the rest of the country, causing Campobello’s population to dwindle. Over the past 30 years, the number of people living there has decreased by about a third.
“The beauty of the island starts to disappear when you see how we have to live. This ferry issue is killing us. This island is dying,” said Ulysse Robichaud, who has lived on Campobello since the 1970s. “We need a link to our own country. We’re basically trapped here.”
New Brunswick's Deer Island is seen off the deck of the ferry to Campobello. The provincial government has paid the private company running the ferry to extend the service until the border reopens.
Fisherman Cleland Galley is one of the residents fighting for a year-round ferry. Fishing and tourism are the island's two major industries.
The streets of Lubec, Maine, as seen from Campobello. So far, U.S. restrictions on international travel have been extended to Oct. 21.
During the pandemic, island residents have been able to apply for travel permits that allow them to drive through Maine to reach New Brunswick, but most Canadians have been barred from travelling through the U.S. to the island.
Mr. Robichaud is among a group of islanders who have long been pushing for a year-round ferry. They say the province, which has jurisdiction over ferries, has put priorities elsewhere. Senator David Adams Richards, former Prime Minister Jean Chretien and local MP John Williamson have all tried to lobby on residents’ behalf in recent years.
Last year, the government of New Brunswick paid about $400,000 to extend the ferry through the winter months, because many islanders were afraid to travel through the U.S. as a result of spiking COVID-19 cases there.
This year, the province has said it will pay East Coast Ferries, the private company that runs the boat to Campobello from nearby Deer Island, to extend the service until the U.S. border reopens.
But the province won’t commit to a permanent water route, even as residents complain the small ferry isn’t designed for rough weather and is unreliable. New Brunswick’s transportation minister Jill Green said she understands islanders’ frustration, but stressed residents do have a transportation link to their own country, albeit one that runs through another country.
“They actually have a linkage, they have a bridge,” Ms. Green said. “The residents there have been very good at expressing their concerns … But I don’t have enough funds to take care of all things for all New Brunswickers, so I have to make some difficult decisions.”
Daphne Carten is principal of Campobello Island Consolidated School.
Islanders say life on Campobello began getting a lot more difficult after the U.S. tightened its border restrictions in response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Daphne Carten, principal of Campobello Island Consolidated School, recently wrote a letter of support for a year-round ferry. “The lack of access to our own country has had a negative effect on the school for several years, really since 2001,” she said in the letter. “Field trips are next to impossible, because we have to pre-register at the border, and allow for double the travel time in case we have to get searched.”
Her school’s population has shrunk from close to 200 students to about 115 in the past two decades, she said in an interview. Prior to the pandemic, the border situation was already hurting school sports, since many visiting teams didn’t want the hassle of sending students and buses, she said. Since the start of COVID-19 lockdowns, sports have been considered non-essential, and students haven’t been permitted to cross the border at all.
The border issue causes many other problems, according to Mr. Robichaud. The local nursing home has empty beds because families don’t want to place loved ones in a facility they can’t visit, he said. Campobello has also lost its only bank, police detachment and government road maintenance garage, all of which he links to the lack of access to the rest of Canada.
Islanders with criminal records can’t enter the U.S., which means they sometimes have to hire lobster boats to carry them to the mainland. Mail travelling to the island is often opened and inspected by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers. And good luck getting carpenters, contractors or appliance repairmen to come do work on Campobello, Mr. Robichaud said.
He added that residents are subjected to frequent searches at the border for everyday items deemed contraband by the Americans. He was, he said, once turned around by U.S. Customs because he had a load of potatoes in his trunk that he had grown himself. “I’ve even seen them seize a banana,” he said. “We have to deal with this stuff every day.”
A ferry from Campobello arrives on Deer Island.
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