Me two downielive I’ll let you in on a little secret there is a cute little ferry that goes from Brentwood bay to millbay and the ferry is a 15-20 minute crossing and on a perfect sunny and calm day you can see the bottom of the ocean it’s pretty cool the Brentwood bay side has a nice cafe and just behind the terminal there is an cream shop where in the summer time or year round I hear they mite make some brownies oops I mean the “Mike some brownies” as a wise man once said while on a train trip “downies like brownies” and not to far from there is the same lad cement factory and the remains of the old dock that the cement factory used to use and the loaded and shipped supplies from that old dock by train 😉
Thanks for explaining the reasons why a bridge doesn't make sense. I completely forgot how windy it can get with the storms and how dangerous that would be to drive in. I grew up riding the ferries and consider them part of BC. Hopefully they can return to the standard they used to have.
I remember as a kid in the 60’s taking the two hour trip from Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo…yes, TWO hours!… The restaurant onboard provided service with waiters wearing tuxedos!
Missing a few zeros at 13:50 😉. I have no idea how've you've managed to find so much relevant footage footage and added a bunch of animation that were great visuals, your production quality has gone through the roof. Awesome work as always!
While taking a seaplane to the island is fun, nothing beats the relaxing time on the boat for me. It is the ONE place left where I can not have to think about my phone, save for to take pictures.
A great history that brings up memories of growing up in Victoria. There was a BC Ferry strike one time when I wanted to come home from UBC in the 1970s and the CPR ferries were still running, so I took the ferry from Downtown Vancouver to Nanaimo and bussed down the island and returned on the Downtown Victoria to Vancouver ferry. As I recall the cost was significantly higher than BC Ferries and the trip from Victoria took 4 hours.
Thank you for taking the time to put together these amazing videos. It’s refreshing to see content that is fact based vs opinions! Keep up the good work.
Great video! I'm currently staying in Brentwood Bay watching the Mill Bay ferry go back and forth. As an avid fan of the ferries since I was a child, I love the nostalgia and look ahead of this video.
I've only had to use the ferries a handful of times, since I live in the Okanagan, but there is nothing like it...I even got to see whales on two of those rides! This was very cool to watch, thank you.
As a little kid in the late sixties/seventies I remember going on the West Wood ferry to Gabriola to visit family and holiday there, by 1985 I was working for them for the next 35 yrs lots of good memories and a few bad.
I just happened upon this video on my homepage. I was expecting this to be a video that's been around for a while but was surprised to see it was posted 14 hours ago! I was just thinking about my trip a decade ago on the Coastal Celebration and more recently where I was unable to take a trip to Victoria due to volume constraints during the pre-labour day holiday rush.
Great video! Even for all the many problems she had I’ll always have a soft spot for the Queen of Nanaimo, built in the 60s and took me from Tsawwassen to Village Bay for years
I never realized it was the 2nd biggest ferry service in the world! Would love to see service to Washington and Alaska one day, and passenger only service.
Technically there is you can take a ferry from Bellingham to Victoria then drive the 8 hours from Victoria to port Hardy and there’s a service that will take you to Prince Rupert then from Prince Rupert you can take another ferry to Alaska
The Washington state ferry system is one of the largest in North America. I believe that the Alaska state ferry system also runs from Bellingham WA to quite a few ports along the Alaskan Panhandle and beyond to Anchorage, etc. 🇨🇦 🍁 🇺🇸 🛳 🔱 ⛵️ 🚢 ⚓️ 🛳 🇺🇸 🍁 🇨🇦
The decision to build those aluminum fast-catamarans was a mistake, but I would argue the decision of the next (right-wing) government to sort-of-privatize BC Ferries and only build vessels overseas, out of ideological spite, was a bigger mistake. BC Ferries has been decaying ever since; having a US CEO made them out of touch with BC, and it showed. Those German Coastal-class vessels have had a lot of problems for ships that are so young. It seems that the quasi-privatized corporate structure goes on, even with an NDP government in power again, which makes no sense to me. Meanwhile BC & Canadian shipbuilding has come back to life building military and coast guard vessels.
There are only 3 shipyards in BC. Two are owned by the american Washington Marine Group. The 3rd shipyard can only build the small vessels. As both yards are owned by the same american corp, there is no competition and the tender process is a sham of deceit and fraud and price fixing.
@@Islandwaterjet'Wouldn't necessarily have worked out this way if that neo-con Faux liberal drunk driving convict premier hadn't scraped the fast ferries and ordered from offshore shipyards! 'Totally sold out the natural environment as well! 🚢 ⚓️ 🛳 🔱 💩 📺 💩 ⚓️ 🛳 🔱 🚢
Amazing footage of the Soviet freighter colliding with the Queen of Victoria. Great video, thank you! I remember crossing Georgia Strait on a BC ferry in the 1960's in a very nasty storm, many people were sick. I don't think they cross in that kind of weather now.
@HistoryOfBritishColumbia That desperate attempted immigration attempt was such a tragic and hateful event! It offers so many lessons for today and therefore I hope that you'll restore it to AV publication on YT very soon! In my experience thus far as a subscriber and former resident (for over three decades) on BC's South Coast, your content has always been beyond factual reproach! Your visuals both modern and historic, your narratives, and your production values are world class. Initially I suspected that these were the AV productions of the Province of British Columbia or the Royal BC Musrum and Archives! SUGGESTED SUBJECT ALERT 😉 Did you know that the government of BC (sometimes in cooperation with the federal goverment) paid its citizenry, during various periods well imto the 1950s and 60s, to kill the following animals under a Provincial Bounty System? Namely Wolves, Cougar, Bears × 2 species; Eagles × 2; Orcas, Basking Sharks × 2; Seals ×2; Sea Lions ×2; Crows, Ravens and probably Magpies too. 'Also several other species I'm sure! 'Wildlife Biologist for 45 years now retired! BC, NU, NWT, ON, but 30 years of professional service with the 'BC Wildlife Branch'! 'A life that I was raised in as well I'd be pleased to contribute BC sources, etc. 🏆 🏆 🌳 🌳 🐺 🐻 🐋 🐳 🦭 🏡 🌳 🏆 🏆 www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/douglas-humphreys-pimlott 🐺 🫎 🦌 🐺 www.algonquinpark.on.ca/news/2021/2021-09-16_newbook_douglas_pimlott.php 🇨🇦 🍁 🇨🇦 ⛰️ 🏔 🌊 🦭 🌊 ⛰️ 🏔 🇨🇦 🍁 🇨🇦
After all the money, time, and man power spent building and operating these ferries one thing has become very clear. Should have built a bridge from Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen a long time ago when it would have been cheaper to construct.
Coho Queen still operates to this day and it's the ferry the Queen of Tsawassen and The Queen of Sidney were based off of. That's older than the Queen of New Westminster which was stretched in the early 70s then raised in the early 90s, 10 years after the other Spaldings that were raised were raised (in the early 80s) yet is aging worse than Coho. B.C. Ferries was best from the mid 60s through the in the mid 90s after the Spirit class vessels were introduced but before the fast ferry fiasco. They've never been as good since.
I remember riding it in 1972 before it was stretched from Departure bay to Horseshoe Bay. it had the stinkiest engine room as it used bunker C back then
You’ve left out a few things. SS Beaver operates like ferry and is subsidized by the British Colonial government. This important because henceforth, people in BC expect the government to subsidize their ferry service. You also left out the important role CP and CN play in coastal ferry service far more than Union. They are the inheritors of the subsidy that the federal government has given and still gives to ferry operators in BC. Also left out is the fact that the Socreds had already started to create the Ministry of Highways saltwater ferry fleet long before BC Ferries came on the scene. That comes about from a combination of reasons amongst them island taxpayers complaining that all the highway building doesn’t benefit them and local private ferry operators threatening the government to shut down service if the subsidy doesn’t increase. The strike merely plays into the hands of the economic policies of the Socreds who, contrary to popular misconception, believe that government intervention is good if it engenders economic activity. I’ve always thought that Peabody of Blackball deliberately set up shop in BC because he bet that the BC government would do exactly what Washington State did and buy him out and create their own ferry system. And they did!
The fast Ferries could be used from Victoria harbour to Port angeles albeit when like 20 or 30 minutes from arrival the reduce speed to a speed were the giant wake is much smaller. Hey it’s an idea but probably won’t be brought into action or black ball ferry line could get a celebration class ferry
One thing I wish BC Ferries would consider would be using ferries that are able to operate in more adverse conditions than is currently the case. This would help with providing a more reliable service since fewer sailings would be cancelled due to windy conditions. For comparison, the Black Ball Ferry's MV Coho sails in weather that forces BC Ferries ships to remain tied up at their berths.
It’s mainly not the ship that is entirely the issue, the terminal in Vancouver is out in the open. It’s almost like threading a needle with a fan blowing. Swartz is more enclosed thanks to the cove / islands. It’s just mainly the Vancouver side.
The vessel shown at 5:41 is not a ferry boat, it's a cable ferry, longest in the world of its kind, so it is said. It's official name is the Baynes Sound Connector but is better known to Denman Island residents as "the BS Con," "the Drag Queen" or even "that piece of s ***" during one of its all-too-common breakdowns. It is under-powered and overtaxed for the route it serves (Hornby Island as well as Denman). We had a perfectly good boat taken from our route before this pressed on us a decade ago as an alleged money-saver. It has not been that, maintenance costs are exorbitant, no savings and poorer quality of service. It's another low point in BCF operations. I know this to be true 'cause I live there.
15:04 "All but two of the hundred and one people onboard were rescued, and are assumed to have gone down with the ship." Incorrect. I can verify all those who were rescued made it ashore safely. Not one of those people who were rescued went down with the ship.
So fun fact about the fast cat ferries. Not only did we sell all three for a grand total of 88 million. Leaving me and my kids on the hook for the other several hundred million. Secondly some of the operational issues were from the purpulsion engines sucking in logs and other wood debris from the provinces logging industry and the big asz trees falling into the ocean. We were told that the fast cats were sold to somewhere around the Mediterranean Sea and evidently worked flawlessly over there. Sadly it was yet another government run blunder. And we tax payers were lied to on many many fronts.
Having cars load and unload for every trip is a terribly inefficient way of running ferries and will never scale to meet demand. Ideally we'd have on-foot passenger ferries that docked at downtown Vancouver, downtown Nanaimo, and downtown Victoria which would tackle the growing demand. Tickets could probably be pretty cheap with so many passengers on board.
Soooo....how are the people going to get anywhere else once they get off the ferry??? What you're suggesting is the BC Ferries version of bike lanes. I mean, we don't even have a shuttle to our "international" airport anymore. I'm going to go out on a limb and say most people will want to be driving a vehicle because they are driving to many different areas of our diverse and beautiful province that they can only get to in a vehicle. Throughout my entire life I have travelled BC Ferries thousands of times and, for the most part (except the odd time I transited to my daughter's place in Burnaby after having been driven to Swartz Bay from Langford, where I live, because buses are virtually impossible to deal with on the island), it could not have been done without a vehicle.....good luck.
BC ferries' signage is utterly frustrating, because what they call vouchers everyone else calls tickets. The confusion is one of the reasons I left BC entirely.
I still don’t understand what was wrong with the fast ferries. Why was the wake a problem? Surely catamarans have less wake. Even still, they could go slower to reduce it, no? Why was fuel consumption high? Again, catamarans are famous for having less friction.
Surely it’s worth several times more to build them in BC. Half the money would come back to the government in taxes within a year, and a quarter the following and so on. Buying them abroad sends 100% of the money away.
BC Ferries propaganda!!!!! Why mention a bridge?? That has nothing to do with the "History of BC Ferries". As @realestateimage noted, there is also no mention of the Spirit Class which are the two largest vessels on the Swartz Bay-Tsawwassen run. Jump to 11:35 in the video, quote "while increasing the current major fleet from 11 to 12 vessels"....what does that mean?? ......that there will finally be a vessel to fill in when another vessel is broken down during the summer season between Vancouver/Victoria/Nanaimo??? Note...in the late 90s there was an extra vessel as it was added to a few summer sailings on the 1/2 hour. BC ferries is trying, but failing at playing catch-up. I have also crunched the numbers and the increased capacities with these new vessels on the routes that matter are negligible....the first vessels are to be in service by 2029, then 2031 and two final vessels by 2037......what a joke!!! I've lived in Victoria my entire life. All that's happening is dilapidated vessels are being replaced out of necessity and any small increase in their capacity couldn't handle the current load.
I live in Victoria on Vancouver Island , and I have basically stopped using BC Ferries because it is a horribly run , and expensive .. The general thought on the island is that using BC Ferries and having to go to the main land fills our population with a sense of dread . We believe it should ba a point A to point B , bare bones transportation . We are held hostage here by BC Ferries and its a massive joke , great staff being run by a group of idiots .
the long term effects of bc ferries the BC government and the federal government not focusing on ship building in Vancouver has resulted in a massive lost opportunity in potential revenue and taxes gains that are much needed and could have helped with the subsidization of the ferries that is already done to the tune of millions $ in taxes each year. this lost opportunity only grows with every passing decade additionally it has made Canada as a whole woefully unprepared to be able to convert to a war time economy should there ever be a need for it the shipyards in BC are ill equipped to take on what it takes to make modern civilian vessels let alone military ones.
BC Ferries loses millions or billions every year and is subsidized by taxpayers. Build a fixed link crossing and over time it would pay for itself. Diesel and other fuels are only increasing. It can be built here the US or Chinese would have it done in no time...Do some rough math based on transporting 8,000,000 a year x $125 a car plus trucks commercial vehicles and hazardous charges....
Yes and no; the larger part of the blame lays at the feet of the shipbuilders themselves. BC shipbuilders were in serious trouble in the 1990's, and a lot of money was piled as campaign donations towards the election campaigns of anyone willing to support them. To be fair, it worked: they got their millions of taxpayer dollars, and they got away from it without taking the blame. They folded shop, laid off their workers, and laughed to the bank about 5 years later than they otherwise would have. Not saying the provincial government was blameless; but this is a common thread in BC: look no further than the corporate takedown of the BC Liberals/BC United last year. Different political party, different industry (housing developers), but still playing the same games.
@FreeManFreeThought Agreed. Company (shipyard) management bullshitted their way to the bank. They did not posess the equipment or experience in building a steel/aluminum hybrid vessel at the time. They convinced the government at the time that they could do it and, of course, completely lied about the budget. But during the build, the public believed we were entering a major shipbuilding revolution. The government and shipbuilders didn't look like idiots until later. The other problem was properly researching the effects a faster lower capacity ship would have on scheduling and the waterways. The glitches in the design were being worked out and the ships has some promise but they were not able to be incorporated properly into the schedule and the wake left by the fast ships was causing damage to shorelines so they couldn't reach full speed until they were in open waters and the projected time savings never materialized. Apparently BC Ferries operations was actually opposed to the idea. They just wanted replacement ships to keep operating. They could have made a couple vessels at local yards and proved viability and we may have kept building here and maintained several thousand jobs. But no, some fat cats wanted to showboat! Pun intended 😂
@FreeManFreeThought if Glen Clark's NDP were smart, they should have built more Spirit class ferries. Instead those dipper dolts wasted money on the fast cats and put BC Ferries in the hole.
Why are there 22 million passengers per year? Took the ferry once and it takes too long for my liking for boring Victoria and I don't think the islanders don't need to come to the mainland unless it's business related 😅
It's incredibly busy even on your average weekday it's smart to pay for a reservation unless you are prepared to wait a sailing. Most traffic is business related during the week and then leisure travel around the weekends. The Island population also boomed because housing is cheaper.
I googled who was the largest ferry operator in the world before watching this video. Can someone tell me how Turkey is the largest and BC ferry the second?
I’m watching this while waiting in line for a BC Ferry! Perfect timing!
Thanks for all the fun history videos this year!
That's awesome! I'm a big fan of your channel. Thanks for watching!
Me two downielive I’ll let you in on a little secret there is a cute little ferry that goes from Brentwood bay to millbay and the ferry is a 15-20 minute crossing and on a perfect sunny and calm day you can see the bottom of the ocean it’s pretty cool the Brentwood bay side has a nice cafe and just behind the terminal there is an cream shop where in the summer time or year round I hear they mite make some brownies oops I mean the “Mike some brownies” as a wise man once said while on a train trip “downies like brownies” and not to far from there is the same lad cement factory and the remains of the old dock that the cement factory used to use and the loaded and shipped supplies from that old dock by train 😉
Another quality video from you guys. Please never stop. These videos should be shown in our schools
This video was uploaded on the same day I took a BC Ferry from Tsawwassen to Galiano. Excellent!
Excellent overview of BC Ferries.
Thank you!
Thanks for explaining the reasons why a bridge doesn't make sense. I completely forgot how windy it can get with the storms and how dangerous that would be to drive in. I grew up riding the ferries and consider them part of BC. Hopefully they can return to the standard they used to have.
I remember as a kid in the 60’s taking the two hour trip from Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo…yes, TWO hours!…
The restaurant onboard provided service with waiters wearing tuxedos!
Would a tunnel be possible?
It does look like it's pretty deep in some places, though~
Ah!
I just needed to watch more on this very question - lol
The history of BC ferries is so fascinating, Thank you!
Missing a few zeros at 13:50 😉. I have no idea how've you've managed to find so much relevant footage footage and added a bunch of animation that were great visuals, your production quality has gone through the roof. Awesome work as always!
Thank you so much!
While taking a seaplane to the island is fun, nothing beats the relaxing time on the boat for me. It is the ONE place left where I can not have to think about my phone, save for to take pictures.
A great history that brings up memories of growing up in Victoria. There was a BC Ferry strike one time when I wanted to come home from UBC in the 1970s and the CPR ferries were still running, so I took the ferry from Downtown Vancouver to Nanaimo and bussed down the island and returned on the Downtown Victoria to Vancouver ferry. As I recall the cost was significantly higher than BC Ferries and the trip from Victoria took 4 hours.
Thank you for taking the time to put together these amazing videos. It’s refreshing to see content that is fact based vs opinions! Keep up the good work.
Great video! I'm currently staying in Brentwood Bay watching the Mill Bay ferry go back and forth. As an avid fan of the ferries since I was a child, I love the nostalgia and look ahead of this video.
I've only had to use the ferries a handful of times, since I live in the Okanagan, but there is nothing like it...I even got to see whales on two of those rides! This was very cool to watch, thank you.
As a little kid in the late sixties/seventies I remember going on the West Wood ferry to Gabriola to visit family and holiday there, by 1985 I was working for them for the next 35 yrs lots of good memories and a few bad.
Very informative. Thank you
very interesting learned a lot i didn't know thank you
No mention of the Spirit Class ships?
Now this is QUALITY!
Another great video guys!!! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Excellent video series! Love it! Thank you for the clear and educated content. Best wishes for 2025 from Vancouver
This was excellent. Thanks for pitting this together.
I just happened upon this video on my homepage. I was expecting this to be a video that's been around for a while but was surprised to see it was posted 14 hours ago! I was just thinking about my trip a decade ago on the Coastal Celebration and more recently where I was unable to take a trip to Victoria due to volume constraints during the pre-labour day holiday rush.
Wow this is great. Wish I could show it to my Dad.
Great video! Even for all the many problems she had I’ll always have a soft spot for the Queen of Nanaimo, built in the 60s and took me from Tsawwassen to Village Bay for years
This is my favourite channel
Thank you so much!
Great video! Thanks for the history lesson and the awesome footage!
Really great video. Thank you!
Very well made and researched video! Definitely earned my sub !
Thank you and welcome aboard!
Thankyou for this ! merry Christmas !!!
Keep em comin! Great videos.
Because of them. I really enjoyed my holidays.
I never realized it was the 2nd biggest ferry service in the world! Would love to see service to Washington and Alaska one day, and passenger only service.
You might as well go on a cruise if you want to go to Alaska by ship.
Technically there is you can take a ferry from Bellingham to Victoria then drive the 8 hours from Victoria to port Hardy and there’s a service that will take you to Prince Rupert then from Prince Rupert you can take another ferry to Alaska
The Washington state ferry system is one of the largest in North America.
I believe that the Alaska state ferry system also runs from Bellingham WA to quite a few ports along the Alaskan Panhandle and beyond to Anchorage, etc.
🇨🇦 🍁 🇺🇸 🛳 🔱 ⛵️ 🚢 ⚓️ 🛳 🇺🇸 🍁 🇨🇦
@@timr.2257 Alaska State Ferries already operates Bellingham, WA to Alaska and Prince Rupert, BC to Alaska routes! Not as far fetched as you think.
The decision to build those aluminum fast-catamarans was a mistake, but I would argue the decision of the next (right-wing) government to sort-of-privatize BC Ferries and only build vessels overseas, out of ideological spite, was a bigger mistake. BC Ferries has been decaying ever since; having a US CEO made them out of touch with BC, and it showed. Those German Coastal-class vessels have had a lot of problems for ships that are so young. It seems that the quasi-privatized corporate structure goes on, even with an NDP government in power again, which makes no sense to me. Meanwhile BC & Canadian shipbuilding has come back to life building military and coast guard vessels.
There are only 3 shipyards in BC. Two are owned by the american Washington Marine Group. The 3rd shipyard can only build the small vessels. As both yards are owned by the same american corp, there is no competition and the tender process is a sham of deceit and fraud and price fixing.
I was just about to write this comment.
Your opinions aren’t facts, pal.
@@westcoastY2K This is true.
Buuuuuut they're still objectively correct.
@@Islandwaterjet'Wouldn't necessarily have worked out this way if that neo-con Faux liberal drunk driving convict premier hadn't scraped the fast ferries and ordered from offshore shipyards!
'Totally sold out the natural environment as well!
🚢 ⚓️ 🛳 🔱 💩 📺 💩 ⚓️ 🛳 🔱 🚢
Amazing footage of the Soviet freighter colliding with the Queen of Victoria. Great video, thank you! I remember crossing Georgia Strait on a BC ferry in the 1960's in a very nasty storm, many people were sick. I don't think they cross in that kind of weather now.
Thank you for watching!
As much as I enjoyed the BC Ferries over the years (since the mid 1980s), I am so glad I now reside on the mainland.
Very cool. Nanaimo born and raised here!
Well done! Subscribed.
I enjoyed the video. Did you remove the last video? I thought there was one from two to three weeks ago.
Thank you! Yes I did. I made a video on the Komagata Maru incident. I hid it after second guessing my research.
@HistoryOfBritishColumbia That desperate attempted immigration attempt was such a tragic and hateful event! It offers so many lessons for today and therefore I hope that you'll restore it to AV publication on YT very soon!
In my experience thus far as a subscriber and former resident (for over three decades) on BC's South Coast, your content has always been beyond factual reproach!
Your visuals both modern and historic, your narratives, and your production values are world class.
Initially I suspected that these were the AV productions of the Province of British Columbia or the Royal BC Musrum and Archives!
SUGGESTED SUBJECT ALERT 😉
Did you know that the government of BC (sometimes in cooperation with the federal goverment) paid its citizenry, during various periods well imto the 1950s and 60s, to kill the following animals under a Provincial Bounty System?
Namely Wolves, Cougar, Bears × 2 species; Eagles × 2; Orcas, Basking Sharks × 2; Seals ×2; Sea Lions ×2; Crows, Ravens and probably Magpies too. 'Also several other species I'm sure!
'Wildlife Biologist for 45 years now retired! BC, NU, NWT, ON, but 30 years of professional service with the 'BC Wildlife Branch'!
'A life that I was raised in as well
I'd be pleased to contribute BC sources, etc.
🏆 🏆 🌳 🌳 🐺 🐻 🐋 🐳 🦭 🏡 🌳 🏆 🏆
www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/douglas-humphreys-pimlott
🐺 🫎 🦌 🐺
www.algonquinpark.on.ca/news/2021/2021-09-16_newbook_douglas_pimlott.php
🇨🇦 🍁 🇨🇦 ⛰️ 🏔 🌊 🦭 🌊 ⛰️ 🏔 🇨🇦 🍁 🇨🇦
Thank you for the video
I'm glad you enjoyed it
After all the money, time, and man power spent building and operating these ferries one thing has become very clear. Should have built a bridge from Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen a long time ago when it would have been cheaper to construct.
Can you make a video on the 104 avenue centre? It's sat empty for decades and it'd be cool to learn why
I never thought about that one. 23 years ago I lived a block away from it while under construction. I will look into it. Thanks for the suggestion!
Coho Queen still operates to this day and it's the ferry the Queen of Tsawassen and The Queen of Sidney were based off of. That's older than the Queen of New Westminster which was stretched in the early 70s then raised in the early 90s, 10 years after the other Spaldings that were raised were raised (in the early 80s) yet is aging worse than Coho.
B.C. Ferries was best from the mid 60s through the in the mid 90s after the Spirit class vessels were introduced but before the fast ferry fiasco. They've never been as good since.
Couldn't agree more.
Man I miss the Queen of Nanaimo. It felt like she had a soal.
It broke down and was retired unceremoniously.Very sad.....
@@chrisjeffs244 No it was sold to a country in South East Asia. You must be confusing it with another retired B.C. ferry.
I remember riding it in 1972 before it was stretched from Departure bay to Horseshoe Bay. it had the stinkiest engine room as it used bunker C back then
14:30 Shocked to see someone actually filmed this. Like a hot knife into butter. The sound must have been unreal.
thank you
Hi Kyle is there anyway to contact you directly?
You’ve left out a few things. SS Beaver operates like ferry and is subsidized by the British Colonial government. This important because henceforth, people in BC expect the government to subsidize their ferry service. You also left out the important role CP and CN play in coastal ferry service far more than Union. They are the inheritors of the subsidy that the federal government has given and still gives to ferry operators in BC. Also left out is the fact that the Socreds had already started to create the Ministry of Highways saltwater ferry fleet long before BC Ferries came on the scene. That comes about from a combination of reasons amongst them island taxpayers complaining that all the highway building doesn’t benefit them and local private ferry operators threatening the government to shut down service if the subsidy doesn’t increase. The strike merely plays into the hands of the economic policies of the Socreds who, contrary to popular misconception, believe that government intervention is good if it engenders economic activity. I’ve always thought that Peabody of Blackball deliberately set up shop in BC because he bet that the BC government would do exactly what Washington State did and buy him out and create their own ferry system. And they did!
great work! kinds sad that the ships seam to be getting uglier, i mean im all for modernization but there's something charming about the older ships.
The fast Ferries could be used from Victoria harbour to Port angeles albeit when like 20 or 30 minutes from arrival the reduce speed to a speed were the giant wake is much smaller. Hey it’s an idea but probably won’t be brought into action or black ball ferry line could get a celebration class ferry
what about the long rumoured "BC Fairies" ?
How about a train tunnel?
Same problems!
These next batch better have fucking wifi😂😂😂
One thing I wish BC Ferries would consider would be using ferries that are able to operate in more adverse conditions than is currently the case. This would help with providing a more reliable service since fewer sailings would be cancelled due to windy conditions. For comparison, the Black Ball Ferry's MV Coho sails in weather that forces BC Ferries ships to remain tied up at their berths.
It’s mainly not the ship that is entirely the issue, the terminal in Vancouver is out in the open. It’s almost like threading a needle with a fan blowing. Swartz is more enclosed thanks to the cove / islands. It’s just mainly the Vancouver side.
@@sheldonschonert5198 Ah, thanks for the clarification.
What does the Floating Bridge have to do with BC Ferries history?
The vessel shown at 5:41 is not a ferry boat, it's a cable ferry, longest in the world of its kind, so it is said. It's official name is the Baynes Sound Connector but is better known to Denman Island residents as "the BS Con," "the Drag Queen" or even "that piece of s ***" during one of its all-too-common breakdowns. It is under-powered and overtaxed for the route it serves (Hornby Island as well as Denman). We had a perfectly good boat taken from our route before this pressed on us a decade ago as an alleged money-saver. It has not been that, maintenance costs are exorbitant, no savings and poorer quality of service. It's another low point in BCF operations. I know this to be true 'cause I live there.
I can't wait to pay more next year for the same thing!!
do you post sources anywhere?
We need a bridge.
How is labour less expensive in Germany?
It's not just passenger vessels, but all registered commercial vessels are required to drydock every 5 years, fyi.
15:04 "All but two of the hundred and one people onboard were rescued, and are assumed to have gone down with the ship."
Incorrect. I can verify all those who were rescued made it ashore safely. Not one of those people who were rescued went down with the ship.
I played that bit over a few times because I didn't get it. Strangely worded for sure.
So fun fact about the fast cat ferries. Not only did we sell all three for a grand total of 88 million. Leaving me and my kids on the hook for the other several hundred million.
Secondly some of the operational issues were from the purpulsion engines sucking in logs and other wood debris from the provinces logging industry and the big asz trees falling into the ocean. We were told that the fast cats were sold to somewhere around the Mediterranean Sea and evidently worked flawlessly over there.
Sadly it was yet another government run blunder.
And we tax payers were lied to on many many fronts.
Having cars load and unload for every trip is a terribly inefficient way of running ferries and will never scale to meet demand. Ideally we'd have on-foot passenger ferries that docked at downtown Vancouver, downtown Nanaimo, and downtown Victoria which would tackle the growing demand. Tickets could probably be pretty cheap with so many passengers on board.
I didn’t mention it in the video but there is Hulu running catamarans from Downtown Vancouver to Nanaimo. Also Helijet and Harbour Air
Seair and Gulf Island seaplanes also offer service from downtown Vancouver and from YVR as well.
Soooo....how are the people going to get anywhere else once they get off the ferry??? What you're suggesting is the BC Ferries version of bike lanes. I mean, we don't even have a shuttle to our "international" airport anymore. I'm going to go out on a limb and say most people will want to be driving a vehicle because they are driving to many different areas of our diverse and beautiful province that they can only get to in a vehicle. Throughout my entire life I have travelled BC Ferries thousands of times and, for the most part (except the odd time I transited to my daughter's place in Burnaby after having been driven to Swartz Bay from Langford, where I live, because buses are virtually impossible to deal with on the island), it could not have been done without a vehicle.....good luck.
BC ferries' signage is utterly frustrating, because what they call vouchers everyone else calls tickets. The confusion is one of the reasons I left BC entirely.
You left the province because tickets are called vouchers on BCF???
Sad we cant build them in Canada
I still don’t understand what was wrong with the fast ferries. Why was the wake a problem? Surely catamarans have less wake. Even still, they could go slower to reduce it, no? Why was fuel consumption high? Again, catamarans are famous for having less friction.
ok now we need translink history....pls : )
Definitely coming in the near future
Where in the h*ll do you find all this footage?!? Are you raiding old library film books?
Haha something like that
Surely it’s worth several times more to build them in BC. Half the money would come back to the government in taxes within a year, and a quarter the following and so on. Buying them abroad sends 100% of the money away.
You should make mini history shorts
Thanks for the suggestion. I will look into doing these in the new year.
BC Ferries propaganda!!!!! Why mention a bridge?? That has nothing to do with the "History of BC Ferries". As @realestateimage noted, there is also no mention of the Spirit Class which are the two largest vessels on the Swartz Bay-Tsawwassen run. Jump to 11:35 in the video, quote "while increasing the current major fleet from 11 to 12 vessels"....what does that mean?? ......that there will finally be a vessel to fill in when another vessel is broken down during the summer season between Vancouver/Victoria/Nanaimo??? Note...in the late 90s there was an extra vessel as it was added to a few summer sailings on the 1/2 hour. BC ferries is trying, but failing at playing catch-up. I have also crunched the numbers and the increased capacities with these new vessels on the routes that matter are negligible....the first vessels are to be in service by 2029, then 2031 and two final vessels by 2037......what a joke!!! I've lived in Victoria my entire life. All that's happening is dilapidated vessels are being replaced out of necessity and any small increase in their capacity couldn't handle the current load.
Gas video
I live in Victoria on Vancouver Island , and I have basically stopped using BC Ferries because it is a horribly run , and expensive .. The general thought on the island is that using BC Ferries and having to go to the main land fills our population with a sense of dread . We believe it should ba a point A to point B , bare bones transportation . We are held hostage here by BC Ferries and its a massive joke , great staff being run by a group of idiots .
Research the history of the Malahat Drive between Victoria and Mill Bay on the Island. I'm sure it would make for a fascinating video.
I will look into that. Thanks for the suggestion!
''PLEASE CONSIDER..."
...perhaps you meant!🙏
It's the Ameri-Canadian Way! 😉
'Please' and 'thank you' is best, even online!
🇨🇦 🍁 🇨🇦 😊 🙏 😊 🙏 😊 🙏 😊 🇨🇦 🍁 🇨🇦
the long term effects of bc ferries the BC government and the federal government not focusing on ship building in Vancouver has resulted in a massive lost opportunity in potential revenue and taxes gains that are much needed and could have helped with the subsidization of the ferries that is already done to the tune of millions $ in taxes each year.
this lost opportunity only grows with every passing decade additionally it has made Canada as a whole woefully unprepared to be able to convert to a war time economy should there ever be a need for it the shipyards in BC are ill equipped to take on what it takes to make modern civilian vessels let alone military ones.
You forgot to mention that they treat their clients like sh¡t.
The T is Silent in "Tsawwassen"
I grew up in T-Town and we almost all pronounce the T.
We recognize and we say thank you to our Western European ancestors who built this country. Thank you.
BC ferries making air Canada seem like professionals
BC Ferries loses millions or billions every year and is subsidized by taxpayers. Build a fixed link crossing and over time it would pay for itself. Diesel and other fuels are only increasing. It can be built here the US or Chinese would have it done in no time...Do some rough math based on transporting 8,000,000 a year x $125 a car plus trucks commercial vehicles and hazardous charges....
The fast cats, the NDP at it's best!
Yes and no; the larger part of the blame lays at the feet of the shipbuilders themselves. BC shipbuilders were in serious trouble in the 1990's, and a lot of money was piled as campaign donations towards the election campaigns of anyone willing to support them. To be fair, it worked: they got their millions of taxpayer dollars, and they got away from it without taking the blame. They folded shop, laid off their workers, and laughed to the bank about 5 years later than they otherwise would have. Not saying the provincial government was blameless; but this is a common thread in BC: look no further than the corporate takedown of the BC Liberals/BC United last year. Different political party, different industry (housing developers), but still playing the same games.
@FreeManFreeThought Agreed. Company (shipyard) management bullshitted their way to the bank. They did not posess the equipment or experience in building a steel/aluminum hybrid vessel at the time. They convinced the government at the time that they could do it and, of course, completely lied about the budget. But during the build, the public believed we were entering a major shipbuilding revolution. The government and shipbuilders didn't look like idiots until later. The other problem was properly researching the effects a faster lower capacity ship would have on scheduling and the waterways. The glitches in the design were being worked out and the ships has some promise but they were not able to be incorporated properly into the schedule and the wake left by the fast ships was causing damage to shorelines so they couldn't reach full speed until they were in open waters and the projected time savings never materialized.
Apparently BC Ferries operations was actually opposed to the idea. They just wanted replacement ships to keep operating. They could have made a couple vessels at local yards and proved viability and we may have kept building here and maintained several thousand jobs. But no, some fat cats wanted to showboat! Pun intended 😂
@FreeManFreeThought if Glen Clark's NDP were smart, they should have built more Spirit class ferries. Instead those dipper dolts wasted money on the fast cats and put BC Ferries in the hole.
WOW! It's been 25 years. Get a grip.
Why are there 22 million passengers per year? Took the ferry once and it takes too long for my liking for boring Victoria and I don't think the islanders don't need to come to the mainland unless it's business related 😅
It's incredibly busy even on your average weekday it's smart to pay for a reservation unless you are prepared to wait a sailing. Most traffic is business related during the week and then leisure travel around the weekends. The Island population also boomed because housing is cheaper.
I would rather live in Langley with faster commute times and the amount of drug use on the island.
Lol. Because people have places to go? They're not doing it because they like paying ferry fares.
I googled who was the largest ferry operator in the world before watching this video. Can someone tell me how Turkey is the largest and BC ferry the second?
Build a bridge.