For more than 35 years, from 1923 to 1958, the Union steamship Cardena sailed the British Columbia Coast, carrying passengers, groceries, dry goods, industrial cargo, mail and sundry other supplies to the 200 or so mining, logging and fishing communities that once dotted the province's coastline during the early years of the 20th century. On her return voyage, at the peak of the summer fishing season, Cardena routinely carried thousands of cases of canned salmon to the railheads at Prince Rupert and Vancouver for shipment across Canada and around the world. And so it went for the better part of half a century; a regular and reliable marine service (with only infrequent interruptions) that made Cardena a coastal institution, remembered with affection and regard by the countless men, women and children who inhabited those tiny outports in a bygone era.
Cardena was modeled on SS Venture, an older Union ship that had proven her worth over many seasons on the same northern run. To the Venture's design was added 50ft (15m) in length, 5ft (1.5m) in beam, a refrigeration compartment, 42 inside cabins, four outside cabins on the boat deck, plus a dining saloon that seated 68. The ship took its name from Cardena Bay on the south shore of Kennedy Island, at the mouth of the Skeena River, which in turn was named after García López de Cárdenas, an early Spanish explorer of the New World.
Following her launch on March 22, 1923, and after completed sea trials, Cardena departed for Vancouver on May 3 under the command of Captain Alfred E. Dickson. The ship arrived in Vancouver on June 11, and headed out on her maiden voyage north a mere nine days later. The Company’s anxious directors were soon relieved to hear from captain and crew alike that their newest addition to the Union fleet, the first of its kind in 12 years, was a complete success in every way. The ship's ease of handling in rough seas was particularly suited to the often perilous crossings of Queen Charlotte Sound, while the maneuverability afforded by her twin screws made Cardena ideal for the delicate piloting required to navigate the treacherous shoals and shifting sandbars guarding the approaches to the Skeena River canneries.
Description
SS Cardena was an all-steel, twin-screw, double bottom passenger and cargo steamship, fitted with direct-acting, triple-expansion engines with an indicated rating of 2,000 indicated horsepower (1,500kW). The ship's length was 226ft (69m) with a 37-foot (11m) beam. She drew18ft (5.5m) of water and had a gross tonnage of 1,559 tons. Cardena cruised at 13 knots (24km/h), just below her maximum speed. She was licensed to carry 250 passengers in 132 cabin berths and on 60 deck settees. Cargo capacity was 350 tons. When fully loaded, the ship was capable of transporting 11,000 cases of canned salmon, in addition to 30 tons of boxed fish in refrigerated storage.
The net effect of these combined attributes was one of the most graceful liners ever to sail the BC coast, and a fine sea-boat as well. With her black hull, white superstructure and twin, out-rigged freight booms, Cardena provided reliable, weekly service to the north coast salmon canneries along the Nass and Skeena Rivers. To the grateful inhabitants of these far-flung settlements, the familiar blasts from the ship's red and black funnel (one long, two short, one long) inevitably heralded Cardena's approach as she steamed her way up the long green channels of the Inside Passage towards her next port-of-call. This scheduled arrival, often late at night, in thick fog or foul weather, was cause for the camp or cannery workers to assemble along the company dock to greet the ship and await the mail, or perhaps to buy chocolate or a magazine from the purser’s on-board news stand. Over the 70-year period that the Union Steamship Co. of BC operated its fleet of 53 vessels (1889–1959), it was no exaggeration to claim that the Union service was the life-line of the coast.
Butedale Cannery, 1947
Ripple Rock
As if in anticipation of the indignities of her later groundings and collisions, Cardena's well-earned moment of glory came in the summer of 1927, when she freed the CNR liner SSPrince Rupert from the clutches of Ripple Rock in Seymour Narrows, a treacherous, three-mile tidal surge lying in Discovery Passage between Vancouver Island and Quadra Island. Ripple Rock, an undersea double pinnacle that sank more than 100 vessels (and cost as many lives) over the years, was obliterated by a man-made explosion on April 5, 1958.
But when, in the early morning mist of that August day in 1927, Cardena came upon Prince Rupert stuck fast, Ripple Rock was a scant two fathoms below the surface. Cardena's skipper, Andy Johnstone, immediately ordered his ship in close to the stricken vessel, where it became apparent that Prince Rupert was in imminent danger of foundering, or of being forced by the tide against the steep cliffs that overhung the Narrows. Captain Johnstone next ordered that a steel tow line be cast to Prince Rupert's stern. With this in place, Cardena swung alongside the other ship and made fast.
Then, slowly and with great seamanship and care, the smaller Union vessel nudged Prince Rupert off Ripple Rock and began to tow her towards Deep Cove, a mile distant. There, Cardena took on board as many of Prince Rupert's passengers as she could carry before continuing on her way to Vancouver. The remainder were later transferred to the CPR vessel SS Princess Beatrice, which was also in the vicinity at the time. The Union Company eschewed any and all salvage claims for the rescue, preferring to bask in the good will that this gesture garnered from its competitors and the public alike.
Marine mishaps
The early history of steam navigation on the BC coast is one of impressive feats of seamanship accomplished by seasoned captains who expertly guided their small, sturdy ships through narrow, reef-strewn channels in all manner of wind, tide and weather. In the days before the advent of radar and other electronic aids to navigation, coastal captains relied upon detailed notations in the ship’s log to guide their way. These precisely recorded observations of wind, time, tide, bearing and position enabled the captain to follow the correct course on all subsequent passages, so long as the ship’s speed remained the same. To supplement this procedure in conditions of limited visibility, the ship’s whistle was utilized as a rudimentary form of sonar. By recording the time it took for the whistle blast to echo back to the ship from the surrounding terrain, an accurate estimate of the distance from shore could be arrived at.
However, notwithstanding the undisputed skill of Union skippers over long service to the Company, the maritime history of the fog-bound BC coastline is also replete with tales of frequent collisions, groundings, scrapings and founderings, and Cardena was no exception to this unfortunate record.
In Grenville Channel, 1949
The ship's first two mishaps at sea occurred in the fall and winter of 1929, when she twice ran aground near the mouth of the Skeena River. Two years later, the ship sliced a fish packer in half at Namu dock when her telegraph cable broke. Then, in early 1942, during wartime blackout conditions, Cardena was rammed by the tugboatLa Pointe. Two unoccupied staterooms were destroyed in the collision but no serious injuries or loss of life occurred as a result.
Six years later, in the summer of 1948, Cardena ran aground again, this time on a reef near False Bay on Lasqueti Island. All passengers were evacuated but the crew remained on board. Salvage tugs were eventually able to free the ship from the reef and, even though her hull was holed in two places, Cardena was escorted to Vancouver under her own steam. The ship's next two mishaps actually occurred on the same day in the Fall 1950. First, when she grounded in the sand off Savary Island dock, and shortly afterwards, when she drifted onto the shore while attempting a landing at Surge Narrows in a running tide.
In March 1952, Cardena grounded on mud flats under Lions Gate Bridge and, in early 1953, struck a rock in Patrick Channel, near Sullivan Bay in the Broughton Archipelago. Then, in Fall 1953, again under Lions Gate Bridge, the Union ship collided head-on in heavy fog with the CPR liner Princess Elizabeth, leaving a 20-foot (6.1m) gash in Cardena's bow. Following the collision, the two conjoined vessels managed to maneuver into the sheltered waters of English Bay, away from the busy shipping lanes beneath the bridge. All of the passengers had donned life jackets, but they remained aboard for the four hours it took to separate the ships by cutting torch.
Cardena's last recorded incident occurred on November 30, 1956, when she struck a rock shortly after leaving Port Hardy for the trip north to Bella Coola. The few passengers on board were evacuated to waiting boats and the ship was freed, undamaged, by tugs the next morning.
To place the foregoing record in perspective, in the latter 45 years of the Union Company's coastal service, not one passenger life was lost to a marine mishap. This admirable safety record included the years when it was not unusual for the company's fleet to travel upwards of 25,000 miles (40,000km) in a single month.
Endings
The end came for Cardena in 1958, just as the end was looming for the Union Steamship Co. itself. Although the company was ultimately a casualty of the many post-war changes in the province's transportation industry, there were several factors that may have hastened its eventual demise: The expensive conversion of three surplus navy corvettes into highly unsuitable passenger/freight vessels; the loss of SS Chelohsin after grounding off Siwash Rock in the fall of 1949; The supplanting of the company's profitable Howe Sound and Sunshine Coast day excursions by the automobile and car-ferries; The loss of north coast passenger business to improved airline schedules; The questionable business decisions that flowed from a reorganization of the company in 1954, and again in 1956; A bitter eight-week strike by the Seafarers International Union in the summer of 1955, which cost the company the loss of the season, and the settlement of which imposed radical changes to many of its former operating procedures and conditions.
Lastly, the Union Company's failure to obtain a crucial increase in the federal coastal shipping subsidy meant that its annual operating losses were now unsupportable. This dire predicament led to the company's subsequent decision to suspend all subsidized passenger service at the end of 1957, and to its eventual sale to the Northland Navigation Company 13 months later.
As a result of the suspension of passenger service, Cardena, along with SSCatala, was laid up in early 1958 and her dining saloon was converted to a cafeteria. Catala was returned to service in April, but Cardena languished alone and dormant for the next three years, before being sold for scrap to Capital Iron and Metals of Victoria, BC in February 1961. There she was stripped to her hull, which was then towed to Powell River on the Sunshine Coast to form part of a harbour breakwater. The hulk was later towed to Kelsey Bay, on the north-east coast of Vancouver Island, where it can be seen today, still providing a maritime service as one of the remains of five vessels that comprise the local breakwater.
Kelsey Bay, 2007
Coda: A recent approach to several provincial museums to reclaim, restore and exhibit Cardena's intact bow-piece met with no takers.
The Grand Trunk steamship Prince Rupert and her sister ship SS Prince George served the coast of British Columbia and Alaska. Prince Rupert had a 45-year career serving northern ports from Vancouver, British Columbia, from 1910 to 1955. The ship was considered "unlucky" and suffered several incidents during her career, including two significant ones that left large portions of the vessel underwater. The ship was broken up in 1956.
The Skeena River is British Columbia's fastest flowing waterway, often rising as much as 17 feet (5.2 m) in a day and fluctuating as much as sixty feet between high and low water. For the steamboat captains, that wide range made it one of the toughest navigable rivers in British Columbia. Nevertheless, at least sixteen paddlewheel steamboats plied the Skeena River from the coast to Hazelton from 1864 to 1912.
SS Catala was a Canadian coastal passenger and cargo steamship built in Scotland in 1925, for service with the Union Steamship Company of British Columbia. In 1927 the ship became a total loss after stranding on reef, but was recovered and returned to service. Retired in 1958, Catala was later used as a floating hotel until wrecked on the Washington State coast in 1965.
Wales Island is an island on the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada, situated east of the Dixon Entrance at the entrance to Portland Inlet.
The Union Steamship Company of British Columbia was a pioneer firm on coastal British Columbia. It was founded in November 1889 by John Darling, a director of the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, and nine local businessmen. The company began by offering local service on Burrard Inlet near Vancouver and later expanded to servicing the entire British Columbia coast.
Lady Alexandra was a steamship built in 1924 in Montrose, Scotland which served in British Columbia from 1924 to 1952, mostly on Howe Sound.
Cheslakee was a steamship that operated from 1910 to 1913 under the ownership of the Union Steamship Company of British Columbia. In 1913, the ship sank, killing seven people. This was the only accident involving a passenger fatality in the 70-year history (1889-1959) of the Union Steamship Company. Following the sinking Cheslakee was raised, reconstructed, and launched again under a different name.
Cowichan was a steamship which was operated in British Columbia under the ownership of the Union Steamship Company. Cowichan sank in 1925 following a collision with another ship.
Princess Beatrice was a steamship built for and owned by the marine division of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). The ship served from 1903 to 1928 in the coastal waters of British Columbia. The ship also operated on Puget Sound on a route from Victoria, British Columbia to Seattle, Washington. Princess Beatrice was the first ship to operate in the year-round steamship service between Seattle and Victoria that was run by CPR from 1904 to 1959. This ship should not be confused with an earlier Princess Beatrice, built in Scotland in 1874, which served on the Atlantic coast of Canada.
The Grand Trunk Steamship Prince George, and sister ship SS Prince Rupert, provided passenger service along the coasts of British Columbia and Alaska. In service from 1910 until 1945, the vessel saw brief service as a hospital ship for the Royal Canadian Navy during World War I. In 1945 the ship caught fire in the harbour of Ketchikan, Alaska. The burned hulk was beached on Gravina Island where it remained for the next few years until it was towed to Seattle, Washington, and broken up for scrap.
Princess Marguerite, Princess Marguerite II, and Princess Marguerite III was a series of Canadian coastal passenger vessels that operated along the west coast of British Columbia and into Puget Sound in Washington state almost continuously from 1925 to 1999. Known locally as "the Maggie", they saw the longest service of any vessel that carried passengers and freight between Victoria, Vancouver, and Seattle. The vessels were owned and operated by a series of companies, primarily Canadian Pacific Railway Company (CPSS) and British Columbia Steamships Corporation. The first two were part of the CPR "Princess fleet," which was composed of ships having names which began with the title "Princess". These were named after Marguerite Kathleen Shaughnessy, who was not a princess but was the daughter of Baron Thomas Shaughnessy, then chairman of the board of CPSS's parent, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR).
Jennifer Rice is a Canadian politician, who was elected to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia to represent the electoral district of North Coast. She is a member of the BC New Democratic Party. Rice was first elected as a member of legislative assembly (MLA) in the 2013 provincial election and was re-elected in the 2017 election. In the 40th Parliament of British Columbia she acted as the official opposition's critic for northern and rural economic development and deputy critic for children and family development and introduced one private member bill, the Drinking Water Protection Amendment Act regarding regularizing testing of drinking water in schools.
Cheakamus was a steamship built in 1913 in North Vancouver, British Columbia. This ship was originally built as the Cheslakee in Scotland. After Cheslakee capsized in 1913, the hulk was raised, lengthened, and placed back into service as Cheakamus.
Camosun was a steamship built in 1904 in Paisley, Scotland, which served in British Columbia.
Lady Cynthia was a steel-hulled passenger ship converted from a minesweeper,, which served in the coastal waters of British Columbia from 1925 to 1957. Lady Cynthia was a sistership to Lady Cecilia, also a converted minesweeper. The ship was generally referred to as the Cynthia while in service.
Chelosin was a steel-hulled, steam-powered passenger-freighter vessel that served in coastal British Columbia from 1911 to 1949, under the ownership of the Union Steamship Company of British Columbia.
Shushartie is a ghost town on the east shore of Shushartie Bay near the northeastern extremity of Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
SS Prince George was a passenger ship built in 1947 for the Canadian National Steamship Company, to ply the route from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Southeast Alaska.
The steamship General Frisbie was a wooden two-deck passenger ship built in 1900, named after John B. Frisbie. She was designed for use as a ferry between Vallejo and San Francisco. The steamer was successful in that role and was the fastest ship on the route when she began service. Improved roads, bridges, and automobiles reduced demand for ferry service in the Bay Area, and newer ships were optimized for transporting cars, so General Frisbie was retired in the late 1920s.
Several vessels have been named Prince George:
References
Campbell, K. Mack. Cannery Village: Company Town, A History of British Columbia's Outlying Salmon Canneries. Trafford Publishing. Victoria, 2004
Henry, Tom. The Good Company, An Affectionate History Of the Union Steamships. Harbour Publishing. Madeira Park, 1994
Langlois, W. J. (Ed.). Navigating the Coast, A History of the Union Steamship Company. Sound Heritage, Volume VI, No. 2. Aural History, Provincial Archives of British Columbia. Victoria, 1977
Rushton, Gerald A. Whistle Up the Inlet, The Union Steamship Story. J.J. Douglas, Ltd. Vancouver, 1974
Rushton, Gerald A. Echoes of the Whistle, An Illustrated History of the Union Steamship Company, Douglas & McIntyre. Vancouver, 1980
SS Cardena, Ship's Pilot House Logbooks (1933–1947). Provincial Archives of British Columbia. Victoria
Twigg, Arthur M. Union Steamships Remembered, 1920–1958. A. M. Twigg. Campbell River, 1997
Walbran, Captain John T. British Columbia Place Names, Their Origin and History (Facsimile reprint of 1909 ed.). Published for the Vancouver Public Library by J. J. Douglas, Ltd. Vancouver, 1971
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
