Digby Ferry

Bay Ferries

Type	Private Company
Industry	Transportation
Founded	Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (1997)
Headquarters	Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada
Key people	Mark MacDonald, President & CEO
Products	Ferry service
Revenue	N/A CAN
Number of employees	N/A (2006)
Website	www.ferries.ca

Bay Ferries Limited, referred to simply as Bay Ferries, is a ferry company operating in eastern Canada and is headquartered in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. It is a subsidiary of Northumberland Ferries Limited (NFL) and a sister company to the defunct Bay Ferries Great Lakes Limited.

Bay Ferries began operations in 1997 upon being awarded the operating licenses for ferry routes in the Bay of Fundy and Gulf of Maine which were being discontinued by federal Crown corporation Marine Atlantic as part of cost-cutting measures.

Bay Ferries operates the ferry service across the Bay of Fundy between Saint John, New Brunswick, and Digby, Nova Scotia, using the vessel MV Fundy Rose.

This ferry service is a continuation of steamship service dating to the 19th century, expanded upon by the Dominion Atlantic Railway in the early 20th century and subsequently the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). The service originally operated from dockside rail facilities at Long Wharf in Saint John and the current public wharf in Digby.

The current terminals in Saint John and Digby were constructed in 1969 by the federal government under an agreement with Canadian Pacific (CP) and the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. CP was to build a new ferry, the MV Princess of Acadia (built in 1971), the federal government would construct and own the new ferry terminals, and the provincial governments would construct new roads to link the terminals with the respective highway networks. If CP ever encountered an operating loss, it was agreed that the federal government would take over responsibility for the service.

The service became unprofitable for CP in 1974 and the federal government stepped in, providing an operating subsidy to maintain the service. In 1976, the service (and the vessel Princess of Acadia) were transferred to Canadian National Railway and in 1977 was grouped under a separate subsidiary CN Marine. In 1986 this subsidiary was made a separate Crown corporation, Marine Atlantic.