Ferry Tales

Imagine being dependent on a ferry boat. Picture having to surrender your freedom of movement to the vagaries of marine weather, fare rises, to ferries’ timetables, and to the unpredictable fluctuations of traffic. Visualize having to travel up to 36 hours to reach the nearest grocery store. How would your life change? What would time mean? And how would you feel about the place you call home?

Based on three years of fieldwork, 250 ferry trips, 400 interviews in three dozen island and coastal communities throughout the British Columbia coast this book and website tell stories of mobility, sense of place and time, recounting the rituals of everyday life lived along BC Ferries routes.

Ferry Tales, part of the Routledge Innovative Ethnographies series can be purchased online. The audio documentaries accompanying the book can be accessed by clicking on the left navigation tab. Also available here are photos, maps, location essays, as well as five bonus essays:
Wishes and acknowledgment
One sailing wait (book introduction)
The Art of Disembarking
The Ghosts of Sailings Past
Non-Representational Theory and Ethnographic Research

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Alert Bay

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The village of Alert Bay represents in many ways a perfect microcosm of the coastal dispositions towards mobility. Alert Bay lies on Cormorant Island, in the Broughton Archipelago off the north eastern corner of Vancouver Island. Alert Bay is a small village of about 600 people who are members of the Namgis aboriginal First Nation. Another 600 people or so leave off the reserve land, in the houses south of the village. Aside from very limited commercial fishing there is no sizeable economic production of any kind on the island. As the cultural epicentre of the Kwakwaka’wakw linguistic territory, Alert Bay has long been attracting many people to the island. From neighbouring tribes travelling back and forth to the island for Potlaches, and from the waves of anthropologists who followed the Potlaches, to the raids of Indian agents sent to ban potlatches, confiscate artefacts, and arrest band leaders, and to the more recent waves of cultural tourists, Cormorant Island has experienced multiple and radically different constellations of mobilities. Even the Namgis themselves do not consider themselves rooted here in any inalienable way, since their oral history reminds them that they came from the Nimpkish Lake area of Vancouver Island.

Bowen Island

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Cozily tucked away in majestic Howe Sound, Bowen Island stands as an obvious reminder of why ferries matter. While it would be no more than ten minutes away from the urban culture of West Vancouver at car speed, Bowen Island is years away at ferry speed. Yet Bowen is no remote, forgotten island. Its proximity to the mainland allows easy commuting for hundreds of workers and high school students. Bowen also feels the development pressures surging from the greater Vancouver area, as home prices surge and homelessness rises. But Bowen is also the home of a few ferry culture gems: from the most complex line-ups to some of the most dedicated performers of the art of commuting, not to mention the annualcompetitive run for the ferry.

Central Coast

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For tourists, this is the "Discovery Coast:" a remote wilderness area of unsurpassable beauty where you can get close enough to BC’s wildlife and ancient First Nation cultures to see them, without getting in danger or feeling inconvenienced. Well, that’s what the BC Ferries brochures claim in their words. For locals this is simply the "central coast;" it’s Bella Bella, Shearwater, Klemtu, Ocean Falls, and Bella Coola. In one word, it is home; a home serviced by an expensive, slow, unreliable ferry service marred by poor scheduling and profound lack of concern with local access needs and the consequent social problems.

Cortes Island

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Like a few other locations on the BC Ferries map, Cortes Island is the end of the line. You need a ferry from Vancouver to get to Vancouver Island, then a ferry from there to Quadra Island, and finally a ferry from Quadra to Cortes. You don't find this place by accident, you have to seek it out. And when you do, it's hard to leave it. Not only because there are very few ferries departing from here, not only because the boats are tiny, and not only because the waters they cross are often feisty, but also because Cortes is a true gem of an island. You can find self-proclaimed kings here, delicate oysters, nudist beaches, and other great pleasures of life--such as a spot on the first ferry of the morning.

Denman Island

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As I write these words Denman Islanders reflect on the future of their mobility, weighing alternatives that may end up deeply shaping their community. As ferry fares continue to rise Denman residents know they cannot cope with increasing costs forever. So, given their proximity to Vancouver Island they have begun to examine the possibility of replacing their current ferry with a cable ferry, in order to reduce their dependence on carbon fuels and the carbon economy. Somewhere else in the world islanders might go for a causeway, but not here. A fixed link is a threat to island life.

Gabriola Island

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Gabriola Island is ground zero of this project. The research began here five years ago, spurred by curiosity and animated by the vibrancy of the regional culture. And some five years later it is on Gabriola that it ended, after the island had become my new home. Throughout that time Gabriola was also the site of an interesting survey administered by Vancouver Island University and initiated by BC Ferries. When polled about their transportation options Gabriola voted strongly against the idea of a bridge to Nanaimo. Self-styled "the Island of the Arts" Gabriola epitomizes (southern) Gulf Island living, with a feisty but tight community, a strong environmental ethic, and a proud island identity.

Galiano Island

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"Scratch the dirt off of a Galiano Islander," I was told on my first visit to Galiano, "and you'll find a PhD." With so many full-time, part-time, and retired academics it's no wonder that Galiano Island is so full of opinions. Known throughout the region for its intense politics, Galiano has been the battleground of many legal and social conflicts between developers and conservationists over the last decade--though neither development nor conservation ever seemed to be black or white realities here. Galiano is equally pulled left and right by the ferries, at it lies precisely halfway between Vancouver and Vancouver Island.

Hornby Island

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Come to Hornby the day summer tourist season ends, and you might find yourself right in the middle of a unique ferry ritual. For years, on every Labor Day night, Hornby Islanders organize an improvised festival called "wave off." They gather by the pub adjacent the ferry terminal, drink beer, and set off fireworks as the last ferry of the evening carries away the last tourists of the season. Some revelers even streak on their boats, and the ferry captain sometimes even celebrates by "doing a donut" in the water with the boat. Young men dressed in drag moon the Queen of Capilano as she sails away from Bowen Island on Labour Day. Summer crowds last three months, and islanders can’t last one day longer with them on their roads.

Mayne Island

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"Worry Hill" is not the name of a psycho-horror movie, but rather the nickname of the ferry terminal at Village Bay, on Mayne Island. Here your mind easily becomes preoccupied with the coming and going of four different ferries: the Queen of Cumberland, the Queen of Nanaimo, the Mayne Queen, and at times the Bowen Queen. You gotta keep your wits about you if you're on Worry Hill. You could be going to Saturna and find yourself headed to Galiano. You might want to Vancouver and find yourself headed instead for Pender Island or Vancouver Island. Because Mayne is the hub of the Souther Gulf Island ferry routes, this is where you transfer. You need to know where you're going, and often you need to do it quickly. And don't let the loud echos of the ferries cruising by Active Pass distract you.

Mill Bay - Brentwood Bay

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The M/V Mill Bay is the smallest ferry in the fleet, at a car capacity of only 16. Despite her small size and old age the Mill Bay does what no other ferry in the BC Ferries system does: compete with a highway. On this coast ferries generally replace fixed links, but not this one. The Mill Bay-Brentwood Bay ferry route is the only one that can be entirely circumvented by driving, and thus the passage across Vancouver Island’s Saanich inlet is an actual alternative, not just a replacement. And to everyone’s amazement, it still works.

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