After years of sitting idle, ships are returning in significant numbers to the container terminal in Saint John, where the port is reclaiming business that was lost decades ago.
Container traffic was up 60 per cent last year, and it continues to rise higher this year.
A turnaround in the U.S. economy is getting much of the credit for the rebound.
Officals say things changed when the Mediterranean Shipping Company arrived to test the market a while ago.
“And they said, okay, we’ll come in every second week and see what happens. It’s been so successful that we now have a weekly service and sometimes we have two MSC ships in here in the same week,” says Port Saint John Harbour Master John McCann.
Despite the revival, the number of people working at the port today is just a fraction of the number working in the 1960s and 1970s.
Still, officials are hopeful the work will mean new jobs in the future.
“We’re very hopeful that we’re going to be in a position to add new people to our workforce. That may well be the case,” says Pat Riley of the International Longshoremen’s Association. “We’re trending that way certainly.”
