The number of visitors who crossed into Canada at Fort Frances last month was up six percent from last May—a significant and unexpected increase according to Greg Mercure, chief of operations at Canada Customs here.
“It’s a bit unexpected,” Mercure said. “When you consider all the publicity on SARS, and West Nile virus, and the Iraqi war, and the sluggish U.S. economy, we anticipated that our numbers would be down this spring.
“That pattern is also reflected for April,” he added. “It wasn’t as significant as May, but it was an increase [over the previous April].”
He added the Pigeon River crossing near Thunder Bay is seeing similar increases in visitor traffic.
Mercure said while he does have some preliminary figures for crossings in the first two weeks of June, it’s difficult to compare them to the first two weeks of June, 2002 because of the flooding and resulting damage to area roads.
“That comparison is not meaningful,” Mercure said.
The number of visitors who crossed into Fort Frances last month was 47,688, up from 45,000 the previous May. The number of returning Canadians has stayed about the same.
It’s not unusual for border traffic to fluctuate one or two percent from year to year, but a six percent increase is significant.
Mercure said it’s difficult to pinpoint the reason for the increase.
“Our clients are drawn from a wide area of the midwestern U.S., so there are many factors . . . that might influence when they come on vacation,” he noted.
For example, “if they had a good planting season and they get the crops in, then they can go fishing,” he said.
The waiting times for people crossing into Fort Frances also is down considerably from two years ago—before the new Customs facility was built here.
Waiting times often ran as high as two hours or more prior to the new facility opening in February, 2002. Now, with four lanes operating at peak times instead of two, waiting times generally do not exceed 15 minutes.
“That might play some role in the increase [in visitors],” Mercure said.
(Fort Frances Times)
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
