Ferry Tales from a Life at Sea

After a full day navigating through the Gulf Islands, he’d walk ashore, beaming from ear to ear, his hat and overfilled briefcase in one hand and his tie and epaulettes in the other.

For 42 years, he helmed ferries along BC’s coast, and I had a permanent visitor’s pass to his ocean-going world. When I travelled and he was working, I’d ride on the bridge or in his office and we’d visit the galley and engine room. Sometimes I’d even get to sound the whistle.

Dave didn’t begin his seaborne life in BC, but this is where he was meant to be. After graduating from marine college in Toronto in 1970 at age 22, he borrowed $51 for a train ticket to Vancouver. Shocked on arrival by how subdued the city was at that time, he says that if he’d had another $51 in his pocket, he would have turned back.

But when he sailed out on the Salish Sea, travelling to Vancouver Island, his outlook was transformed.

“There were just a few radio stations and three or four TV channels. It was a simpler existence. It wasn’t a huge world view. It was about what was going on in the world that you were in.” Ten days later, he began work at BC Ferries.

My mother had also just moved to the coast and to the same apartment building. They met when my father went upstairs to ask her to turn down her music. They were married two years later and moved to Salt Spring Island in the mid ’70s when Dave was assigned to sail out of Long Harbour. Soon after, I arrived.

Being a natural storyteller, my father’s life at sea provided him with ample material, including a tale from the eve of my birth. Entering the hospital emergency department as my mother went into labour, the attending physician there to greet them turned out to be a passenger my father had removed from the ship’s car deck a few weeks earlier for public drunkenness. Luckily, the physician did not remember him.

Back then, with little more than a dozen vessels in the fleet, the BC Ferry Corporation was in relative infancy.

When he retired in 2008, a celebration was held at the Maritime Museum of BC. He was roasted and toasted on the “witness stand,” and the evening culminated with the unveiling of his portrait for the museum’s collection. But the call of the sea was too strong and that initial retirement didn’t last long. After resuming his duties, he finally retired for good in 2012.

In the decade since, a parlour game played in our family—of which my father seems blissfully unaware—involves measuring how swiftly he can steer any conversation to ships. A recent example from the dinner table, when asked if he’d like a serving of lentil curry: “Yes, please! Did you know that I once worked as an apprentice on a cargo ship carrying lentils?” We may secretly roll our eyes, but we love him for his unwavering enthusiasm.

When I travel on the ferries today, there are still folks working the decks who remember him fondly. At the mention of his name, a smile spreads across their faces and, usually, a story is shared about his skill or the feeling of kindness or fairness that he brought to every situation.

“Did you know your dad once backed a ship all the way out of Long Harbour in bad weather? That was unprecedented! I learned a lot from him.” That came from a stranger who struck up a conversation with me at a community rec centre, who turned out to be one of his colleagues.

My father is by no means alone. There are many others like him, folks who love the ferries and the sea and taking us all safely from one port to another.

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This story first appeared in The Education Volume.

A few copies still available.

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