After year of disruptions, new Wolfe Island ferry set to launch this spring

Ontario's Ministry of Transportation has announced a new fully-electric ferry should begin carrying passengers to and from Wolfe Island near Kingston, Ont., sometime this spring — more than a year later than anticipated.

The new Wolfe Islander IV has been docked in Picton, Ont., for more than 450 days, and residents relying on the current ferry have spent the past year dealing with dozens of disruptions.

Some delays have kept them waiting on the dock for hours, causing concern about access to medical care.

Mike Bromley has lived on the island at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River since 2005 and said some residents with cancer have moved to the mainland because they can't depend on the ferry to get them to appointments.

The 63-year-old said he's stopped travelling off-island on weekends because it's so unpredictable. One recent outage left him waiting in Kingston for more than four hours with a car full of groceries, Bromley said, although luckily he'd brought a cooler to keep his ice cream from melting.

"It's not much of a joke when lately, if you decide to go to town, people ask, 'Have you packed an overnight bag?'" he said.

"It seems like it's no longer guaranteed that you're going to be able to get back."

About 3 dozen disruptions in 2022

In a statement to CBC, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) said its goal is to ensure ferries run safely and effectively.

"We understand the impact of service disruptions to the public and are seeking long-term solutions to minimize disruptions as much as possible," the statement said.

A CBC analysis of the Wolfe Islander III's Twitter account shows the aging ferry was taken out of service at least 19 times last year and was running off-schedule 16 times.

Those 35 disruptions don't include emergencies where the ferry had to transport an ambulance. Nearly 63 per cent of the disruptions happened in the last six months of the year.

Just over a month into 2023, the account has already posted about three incidents.

It's not clear if the list of disruptions — the causes of which include staff shortages, mechanical issues and bad weather — is exhaustive. The ministry did not respond CBC's question about whether it's tracking them.

Bromley said in years' past, the only problems he could recall involved the ferry having to transport an ambulance or sheets of ice impacting travel.

Mechanical issues were so rare they could be counted on one hand, he said.

Almost 5 decades of service

The Wolfe Islander III has been ferrying passengers between the island and mainland since 1976. It's scheduled to complete 19 free 20-minute trips a day and can carry up to 55 vehicles.

By now, the Wolfe Islander IV, a larger vessel built in Romania, was supposed to have joined it. But in a September letter to the Township of Frontenac Islands, the MTO said the timeline had been delayed due to ongoing dock work and a shortage of seafarers.

In another letter shared on the township's website Monday, the MTO said it's "currently targeting having the ferry in service in spring 2023."

That's one year later than the spring 2022 target that Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney shared on Twitter in September 2021.

Monday's letter says training on the new ferry is underway, and construction on the Marysville dock on the island is "tracking towards completion in late 2023." Work to modify the dock on the Kingston side isn't expected to be finished until 2025, however.

Mayor hopes for no more delays

While the ministry did not respond to CBC's question about a specific start date for the ferry, Frontenac Islands Mayor Judy Greenwood-Speers said she's pleased to finally have an approximate timeline.

"I would be thrilled if it was running, at least, by the May 24 weekend," she said. "And if they can get it running even quicker, that would be wonderful."

Greenwood-Speers said it's been a hard year for the roughly 1,400 residents of Wolfe Island, calling the ferry "absolutely essential" for both them and the region's tourism industry.

"I would rather see them get it right, than spend this much time, effort and money and get it wrong," she said.

As for Bromley, he's taken to booking a motel room in Kingston when he has to leave the island for appointments.

"When you have a medical issue, all of a sudden, this is really critical," said Bromley. "You don't much care if it's a staffing issue, a mechanical issue, whatever. You just want the thing to run and be consistent."