The Quyon Ferry is back on the water as the service opened Wednesday for another season.
The ferry service crossing the Ottawa River from Quyon, Que. has been operating in one form or another for roughly 140 years.
The ferry opened in early March last year, thanks to a milder winter. Co-owner Ed McColgan says anticipation has been high as travelers waited to board.
“The agriculture, they depend on it for their traffic to haul their cash crops. We have sand going over every day to create the concrete used to build everything around the Ottawa area,” he said.
“Cottagers and tourists, once the weather increases, they go to Gatineau Park this way.”
McColgan says the Quyon Ferry is the largest ferry operating on the Ottawa River.
The boat is an electric cable ferry, capable of carrying 21 cars at a time. It crosses the river shore to shore every 10 minutes.
While helping spur on the economy, the Quyon Ferry returning to service also reconnects two communities that are separated by the water.
“A lot of people choose to live on the Quebec side, even though they work in Ottawa because the housing is cheaper over here on the Quebec side,” he said. “So they’ll use us to commute and still save money.”
Trevor Fraser, owner of Pontiac Ice, says the ferry is crucial for his business, delivering ice from Shawville into the city of Ottawa multiple times per week.
“Every week with my business, I’m crossing I would say about 10 to 15 times a week,” Fraser tells CTV News.
“To commute into the city, bypassing the bridges, it’s a lot faster and it’s the best way to go.”
“It’s all time and fuel savings,” said McColgan on why commuters choose to take the ferry over driving.
“If you’re coming from Quyon or Shawville, for example, if you’re going to Kanata, once you get on the ferry, it’s 25 minutes when you get off. If you have to go around by Portage or Renfrew area, it’s 55 minutes to an hour.”
A trip on the ferry is $10.50 per car.
In Quyon, the start of the ferry’s season signals go time for many of the local businesses who prepare for an influx of customers this time each year.
“It is good business for us,” said Lauren Cain at Gavan’s Hotel and Pub in Quyon.
“We’re looking forward to the traffic coming into the cottages and the areas around that have been closed down for the winter. We get to have a relationship again with our Ontario customers who we’ve missed, other than the sledders that came over during the wintertime. So it’s a big day for us.”
More information on the Quyon Ferry’s schedule can be found at quyonferry.com.
