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Page 6 WEST VANCOUVER HISTORICAL SOCIETY February 1996 FEATURE PRESENTATION REPORT Canada’s Largest and Busiest Seaport By: Anne Vernon West Vancouver resident, Patrick D. Mclaughlinf Director, Port Development, Vancouver Port Corporation, was our speaker for the November meeting. Before joining the VPC, Patrick spent a large part of his career in real estate, being responsible for several major waterfront redevelopment projects. At the end of his lecture Mr McLaughlin presented the Society with a beautiful book-**The Port ofVancouver: Canada*s Global Gateway”. Vancouver is one of the finest year round natural deep water ports in the world with year-round access which can accommodate many large vessels in its Inner Harbour. Today the port ranks third in importance in North America, dealing mainly with bulk and general cargo, containers and cruise ships. But it was not always thus! Fog banks caused a few hitches over the years and in June 1887 the arrival of the “Abyssinia” (the first steamship to ever enter the harbour) was to be celebrated. It was an important occasion for the whole population so a large reception was platmed. The mayor and council, a brass band and hundreds of people waited at the CPR dock to welcome her but fog rolled in over the water. T he captain anchored off Jericho and no one at the dock knew what had happened. So after a few hours, tired of waiting, they let off all the fireworks and went home! Fog again intervened in 1891 when the Empress of India arrived to dock at the foot of Burrard Street, where her late arrival was greeted by the mayor and council, a band, a large crowd of dignitaries, but no fireworks! Early settlement days were fairly quiet for the Harbour but in 1858 we had the Gold Rush and things began to happen! BC grew. By 1864 there was a lumber mill in North Vancouver and the world was ready to exploit our timber resources. Huge shipments of lumber and fence pickets went to Australia; they had a Gold Rush too! By 1865, Capt. Edward Stamp built a lumber mill on the Vancouver side of the Fu^t Narrows but the swift currents forced him to relocate to the foot of Dunlevy Street. Just imagine if his first venture had been a success - no First Narrows Bridge, no Stanley Park and heavy industry across the water from West Vancouver! Soon the CPR came to Vancouver and changed the Lower Mainland for ever. In July 1886, the first cargo from the Orient (17,000 chests of tea) arrived for shipment on the CPR’s transcontinental train service. Two days later the first special tea train left Port Moody destined for Montreal and all points east. The cargo taken back to China was - what else - BC’s best lumber. Tea from the Orient was followed by silk and the money involved was incredible! A typical silk cargo could be worth $5-6 million and silk trains were given priority over everything else. The CPR knew trade would be lucrative but tea and silk alone did not warrant the purchase of faster, more reliable steam ships - mail contracts would make the difference - but it took CPR three years to negotiate agreements with the British and Canadian governments. To keep services going CPR chartered three older vessels and the first to arrive was the Abyssinia - Patrick McLaughlin, Dir., Port Development remember that foggy day in 1887? The three ships had limited passenger accommodation, with space for a few dozen in first class and up to 200 in steerage, depending upon cargo carried. With no heat or electric light in the cabins, the accommodation was considered adequate but far firom luxurious. To demonstrate the capability of the service the CPR shipped a parcel of tea firom Yokohama to New York in the remarkable time of 29 days. (Today the same trip by container would take 15 days.) Finally on July 15th 1889 mail contracts were signed and the CPR ordered three new steamships. The new Empress liners were sleek in appearance and conveyed an impression of speed and elegance compared to the charter ships. The luxurious finish both inside and out was particularly important because the CPR saw significant passenger trade developing between Vancouver and the Orient. So within a decade of the CPR’s completion Vancouver had grown firom a firontier mill town to a major port and commercial centre. In 1913 government became involved and the Port Authority still deals with administrative responsibilities, controlling and regulating navigation in English Bay, Burrard Inlet, Indian Arm and False Creek as well as Sturgeon Bank and Roberts Bank, also the seabed in Burrard Inlet, Indian Arm and False Creek. That’s the historical side of the story. Patrick told us much more and the details are awesome. Future plans include container expansion, a new waterfront cruise ship terminal (with NO casino involved !)and general refurbishing and updating all round. Roberts Bank will soon have container and grain trains, as well as the present coal trains, running slowly round a loop line, decanting their loads straight into the ships. Each crane on the container dock has cost $8 million and there are four more coming in the future - an incredible capital outlay! The costs of maintaining and extending services run into millions of dollars and further expansion will need to be carefully financed. To sum up I quote Patrick, “Today ports operate a door-to-door global transport system. We must continue to be competitive in order to maintain our role in the world. We feel that we have excellent facilities and services with which to compete - our objective is to be the port of preference on the west coast of North America just as we were in 1864 when the fiurst shipment of lumber left Vancouver destined for Australia.” This is just a taste of one of our excellent meetings. To learn the full Story you have to be one of the audience. Do come and join us for our next meeting, February 22 at 7 pm. {see front page for details.) We can promise you an interesting time.