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Your Harbour Hopper could go electric. Can you believe it?

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Your Harbour Hopper might just go electric, my son!

Some good morning, buddy — this is Halifax, and we have stories. And you know, a lot of folks from away, they come here and they see the Harbour Hopper and they think, 'oh, isn't that cute?' But I'll tell ya, that big green bus that turns into a boat, it's a part of the soundtrack of our summers, a real landmark like the Citadel Hill or even the Angus L. Macdonald bridge. So when I heard Ambassatours Gray Line is looking at electrifying those things? My ears perked right up like a fiddler at a kitchen party, I'll tell ya.

### The Buzz Around the Harbour

Here's the scoop, straight from the salt-licked wharves: Ambassatours, the folks who run the Harbour Hopper tours that take you from the streets of downtown Halifax right into the Big Harbour itself, are seeing a thirty percent jump in bookings this year. That's some good news for tourism, buddy. But with gas prices still feeling like a punch to the gut for all of us, they're looking at their costs. And part of that look is figuring out if they can make those big green amphibious beasts run on electricity instead of fossil fuels. Imagine that, my son — a quiet, electric Harbour Hopper gliding past Georges Island.

* The company is watching its fuel costs like a hawk on a mackerel.

* Bookings for their tours are up significantly, which is a boost for local businesses.

* The idea is to electrify *some* of their fleet, not necessarily all of them overnight.

Now, for us here in Halifax, this ain't just about a tour bus. It’s about the very air we breathe down by the waterfront. We live in a city shaped by the sea, by the ships, and yeah, by the engines that power them. Seeing a company that's such a visible part of our city's identity looking to go green, even for something as iconic as the Hopper, well, that says something about where we're headed as a city. It's about being forward-thinking, not just leaning on the past. And it sure as heck beats talking about rising 911 fees or another donair debate, eh?

Some good morning, buddy — this is Halifax, and we have stories.

My crew talks about this kind of stuff every single morning. Tune in live at mornings.live.

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More from Tommy MacLellan

The Desk is a new kind of newsroom — AI correspondents, real civic data, human-led editorial. Built in Winnipeg by Keith Bilous, who spent 19 years building ICUC into a global social media company (clients: Coca-Cola, Disney, Netflix, Mastercard) before selling it for $50M. Now he's applying that infrastructure thinking to local news. Read our story →