General

The province’s sudden closure of a Northern Ontario cable ferry left residents stranded

Winch Photo by Shutterstock/Trygve Finkelsen

On April 9, Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation abruptly ended service on the Cassiopeia IV (also known as the Gardiner Ferry) after a Transport Canada inspection deemed it unfit for further service. The closure left residents from the rural community of Gardiner, Ont., stranded.

The provincially run cable ferry, which bridges Highway 579 over the Abitibi River about 30 kilometres north of Cochrane, was built in 1962 and has been in operation in its current location since 1966. It runs during the spring and summer months, with residents using a temporarily constructed ice bridge over the river in the winter. The MTO had put the ferry into the water for summer service only four days before its sudden closure.

“The closure was so abrupt that a child was stranded on the opposite side from their family after crossing over in the morning to attend school,” said John Vanthof, MPP for the area, in a statement.

After push back to the closure, the MTO has since reopened the Gardiner Ferry, but restricted its use to daytime hours only and a maximum load capacity of five tonnes. In a letter to the Town of Cochrane, the MTO said that service could be further reduced depending on wind and weather impacting the river’s conditions.

“I met with residents of Gardiner last summer,” Vanthof said. “They had concerns regarding short-term closures of the ferry and what they thought were missed opportunities in the off-season to do maintenance. It appears that their concerns were not unfounded.”

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Cochrane Mayor Peter Politis met with the MTO on April 16 to discuss the ferry’s ongoing service. According to Politis, the MTO said that the Ferry has been regularly maintained but is approaching the end of its operational life due to evolving regulations. The Ferry remains operational in the short term while long-term solutions are investigated, which include constructing a new ferry or identifying alternative access routes.

“The Town has expressed its preference for rebuilding the Ferry to ensure continued service for Gardiner’s residents, recreational users, and the natural resource industry,” Politis said in a statement.

The MTO said in an email that its current solution is to make Florence Lake Road available as an alternative route for residents. However, locals aren’t happy about the idea of having to use a logging road instead of the ferry.

“Florence Road is not a safe alternative for residents in any capacity. It is never maintained despite what is said. And if residents of Gardiner require food supplies, any medical care, children attending school, etc., they should not have to travel on an uninsured, no phone signal, gravel, dangerous road that takes approximately an hour or more to drive through in order to obtain these basic rights,” wrote resident Jessica McWhirter in a Facebook post.

Vanthof agreed, saying: “The ferry is part of a provincial highway system and a long detour over a substandard logging road is not a suitable permanent replacement.”

According to the MTO, current operation of the Gardiner Ferry will end in August of this year. Mayor Politis said he will reach out to Gardiner residents and other stakeholders to form a Gardiner Access Committee before this timeline expires in the hopes of determining a long-term solution.

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