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With the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885, regular transport of goods and people between the interior and the coast was assured. However, travel north and south along the coast from the Fraser River to the Alaska border continued to be difficult. Small logging camps, canneries, and fishing villages remained isolated from urban centres, linked only by ships that followed erratic schedules. New Zealander John Darling established the Union Steamship Company in 1889, opening up the coast to logging, mining, and fishing industries and providing the province with an economic lifeline that lasted until 1958. The 1889 maiden voyage of the Union Steamship Comox began a regular passenger and freight service to Gibson’s Landing, Sechelt, Manson’s Landing, Read Island, Stuart Island, and isolated camps and canneries to the north. Within two years the increase in traffic resulted in a twice-weekly schedule, and passengers sailing through Welcome Pass on the Comox could enjoy watching the sun as it set
in a wealth of colour over the north end of Texada Island ... All about these waters, it should be said, the gentle angler can find captives to his spear or spoon-bait. Salmon teem round the shores, and big trout are sporting in the inland streams.Sadly, mismanagement and changing times combined to end the Union Steamship Company’s virtual monopoly of coastal transport and the last two vessels were sold in 1959. Today the Lady Rose, the only Union Steamship still in active service, carries both passengers and freight between Port Alberni and the fishing villages of Barkley Sound. |
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