harbour used to host the arrival of the two largest icebreaking ferries in Canada at the time, the and both of which were retired and decommissioned in 2011. In 2009, a larger and more modern vessel, the , was added to the fleet. With a larger carrying capacity and an equivalent ice class to the MV Caribou, the MV Atlantic Vision was introduced as the new flagship for Marine Atlantic. Following the retirement of the MV Caribou and the MV Joseph and Clara Smallwood, two more new ships were acquired on a 5-year charter from Stena Line. These two new ships, the and currently round out the Marine Atlantic fleet. Marine Atlantic announced in May 2015 that it would be purchasing both ships for C$100 Million each. College of the North Atlantic The Port aux Basques campus of the College of the North Atlantic first opened as the District Vocational School in September 1963. The school was constructed by MR Chappell of Nova Scotia because Lundrigans Ltd of Corner Brook who was constructing the other District Vocational Schools in Newfoundland couldn't move their equipment and supplies over the uncompleted road from Corner Brook to Port aux Basques. The Trans-Canada Highway from Corner Brook to Port aux Basques was completed in 1965. Climate Channel-Port aux Basques experiences a maritime-influenced subarctic climate that has the Köppen climate classification code of (Dfc). The location has strong seasonal lag as well as being cold for the latitude. This is since it is being influenced by the Icelandic Low and the Labrador Current, which renders a rare combination of cold and snowy winters along a seacoast at 47°N. In summer the warmup is strongly delayed by the cold waters and westerly winds from the interior of Canada are very cold in winter, further delaying the warming of the water. As a result, August is clearly warmer than July, and even September is more than warmer than June is. Winter precipitation often falls as snow, for a high annual yield, but rainfall even in the coldest of February is still quite common, which lowers the snow cover to average about at its annual peak. Sports Port aux Basques placed second in the top five communities for Kraft Hockeyville 2008, and won $20,000 for its local arena. Its sports arena, Bruce I, burned down in 1995, just prior to the hockey season. It was located on top