The ice attached to the shores on either side of the strait extends about one mile, leaving seven miles for the ferry, but owing to the run of the tide—about four miles an hour—which carries with it, to and fro, huge masses of ice, often closely packed, the actual distance traversed by the boat is greatly increased. Horses and sleighs await the arrival of the boats at the board-ice on either side, when the passengers and mails are conveyed to the boat-sheds. For about two months every winter this boat service proves the quickest and most reliable means of crossing, and it is likely to remain so.
At the time of Confederation the Dominion Government guaranteed to provide the Island with a steam ferry service. The first effort to carry out the agreement was made by employing an old steamer, the _Albert_, to run between Pictou and Georgetown, but she had not sufficient power to force her way through the ice. In the meantime the _Northern Light_ was being built at Quebec—a vessel of considerable power and extraordinary shape. She drew nineteen feet aft, and it was intended that her keel, forward, should be above the water-line, but owing to a miscalculation as to her displacement, it proved to be some two feet below, and this spoiled her for ice-breaking; but on the Whole she did good service from 1876 to 1888, although she was often “frozen in,” and was for several weeks at a time fast in the ice when full of passengers.
The _Stanley_, which succeeded the _Northern Light_, was built in 1888 at Govan on the Clyde, after the model of similar ice-steamers in Norway and Sweden. She has done excellent service, and her powers of breaking ice and separating large floes must be seen to be understood or believed. That she has not been able to keep up continuous communication does not surprise those who know what the Gulf is at some seasons of the year. She has made passages when it seemed futile to expect it; and while she has been imprisoned in the ice for as much as three weeks at a time, she has made the voyage from Pictou to Georgetown—40 miles—in two hours and a half. During the season 1894-95 the _Stanley_ carried 1,600 passengers. Her earnings were $9,266.92; the cost of her repairs and maintenance was $28,179.32.