Tugboats of Canada’s West Coast

Since the mid-19^th century, West Coast tugboats, with their captains and crews, have been providing marine towing services that have been instrumental to the development of the main industries of British Columbia, particularly forestry, mining, and fishing. While British Columbia has historically had an abundance of natural resources to exploit, the heavily indented coastline, tricky waterways between islands, treacherous coastal weather conditions, and mountainous interior made it difficult, if not impossible, to transport materials and products to and from the coast. Coastal towing provides the link in local, regional, national, and transnational shipping and transportation networks.

The first coastal tugboats were large, wooden-hulled structures that served two main functions: towing larger sailing and steam vessels that were unable to reach the ports and harbours on their own, and transporting passengers and freight. Starting in the 1860s, local shipbuilders adapted their designs according to the needs of local industries and small communities that were developing. As tugboats towed log booms and barges full of wood products and minerals for processing and trade, they quickly became essential to the development of the forest, pulp and paper, and mining industries in the province. They were also useful in the construction and operation of the Canadian Pacific and other railways, transporting wood for construction, coal for fuel, and coastal goods for trade across Canada and beyond. With the advent of canneries, tugs even participated in the development of a commercial fishing industry by towing series of small open-sail fishing boats and barge loads of fish to the canneries.

By the turn of the 20^th century, West Coast tugboats, such as SS Master, were evolving into a distinct vessel type especially suited for the unique topography, water and weather conditions along the Pacific Coast. During the tugboat building boom of the 1920s, the typical locally-built tug was 21.3 to 30.5 metres (70 to 100 feet) long, with a 6.1- to 7.6-metre (20- to 25-foot) beam and a triple-expansion steam engine. The design would change little until after the Second World War. The late 1950s to the early 1970s witnessed high levels of tug, barge and towing-gear construction. Steel became the material of choice and diesel replaced steam. Design lessons learned during this period led to the implementation in the 1970s of the first set of regulations and union standards for tugs in Canada.

For over a century and a half, tugboats have towed log booms and barge loads to and from sawmills, pulp and paper mills mines, work camps, canneries, ports and isolated communities. They have assisted large vessels dedicated to international export to navigate through the difficult coastal waters, and supplied railway companies with construction materials and goods for transport across the country and beyond.