Marine Atlantic was established in 1986 to take over the provision of ferry services in Atlantic Canada which had previously been operated by CN Marine, a subsidiary of Canadian National Railway.
Port aux Basques, Nfld. & Lab; along Newfoundland's remote South Coast serving outports and larger centres such as Burgeo and Ramea to Terrenceville
Lewisporte, Nfld. & Lab;, and St. Anthony, Nfld. & Lab; along the rugged Labrador coast serving outports and larger centres such as Cartwright and Happy Valley-Goose Bay to Nain
In 1997 the Confederation Bridge replaced the Marine Atlantic ferry service to Prince Edward Island. That same year saw the operation of the Saint John-Digby and Yarmouth-Bar Harbor services transferred to the private sector company Bay Ferries Limited, a subsidiary of Northumberland Ferries Limited. Marine Atlantic also removed itself from the provision of coastal ferry services in Newfoundland and Labrador with the transfer of operations to the provincial government in 1997, in exchange for federal funding to extend the Trans-Labrador Highway to service coastal communities. In 1998, the company moved its headquarters from Moncton, New Brunswick to St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, after briefly considering North Sydney, Nova Scotia and Port aux Basques, Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Caribou and the Joseph and Clara Smallwood are the largest icebreaking passenger ferries in the world, and the largest ferry vessels operating in Canada. Classed 100A1 by Lloyd's with an ice classification of Northern Baltic 1A Super, these vessels have similar dimensions as medium-sized cruise ships. They are based on a unique Canadian hull-design called Gulfspan, which permits the ships to slice through sea ice rather than riding up onto and crushing it as conventional icebreakers do. Their dimensions are 27,000 registered tons and 179 metres long, carrying 1,200 passengers, 100 crew, and 370 automobile-equivalent vehicles.
