Can't fault'em for trying

Wonders will never cease! Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador has finally broken its long public silence about Labrador marine transportation services. As Rosie Gillingham reports in Wednesday's running of The Telegram:

Ferry changes lacking: HNL president

The schedule for the Sir Robert Bond ferry has been released much earlier than usual, but don't expect to make bookings any sooner.

[...]

... Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador (HNL) president Nick McGrath doesn't think it goes far enough.

He is concerned that while people can see the schedule, they cannot yet make reservations.

"People can make travel plans, but they can't move forward with those plans," McGrath said.

"If they're going to put the schedule out, it's important to have the infrastructure in place that you can act upon that and that's not the case here."

So far, so good. But wot's this now?

[McGrath] believes there should be more frequent runs between Happy Valley-Goose Bay and Cartwright and that the ferry times should change from night runs to day runs.

[...]

"The entry points or departing points at Happy Valley-Goose Bay are losing out. Businesses there are not reaping the benefits.

"Plus, people are missing out on all the natural beauty of the Labrador Straits because they're travelling it in the dark."

Yeek!

The Happy Valley-Goose Bay to Cartwright segment of the Sir Robert Bond's route passes through Hamilton Inlet and Sandwich Bay. Natural beauty? In spades and then some: the Mealy Mountains, Mokami, Highlands, the Narrows, the islands of Groswater and outer Sandwich Bays, puffins, grampuses, whales, George's Island caribou.

The Labrador Straits, however, is several hours' drive, and 150-ish miles, as the crow flies, south of Cartwright. The closest the Bond gets to the Labrador Straits is as it passes to seaward of Belle Isle on her way to and from Lewisporte.

Here, for HNL's benefit and that of the general blog-reading public, is an explicatory map (click on it to enlarge) with the Goose-Cartwright ferry route highlighted in red: