THE SEA

 

Freightway to the Pacific

 

A report recounts 160 years of shipping on the Fraser

ost British Columbia school chil-

NM dren would readily identify Van-
couver Harbour, with its pano-

ramic backdrop of mountains and sky-
scrapers, as “the place where the ships
come in.” But they are mainly unfamiliar
with the Fraser Port, a tucked away series
of river harbours studded with ware-
houses and cranes, 15 miles south of Van-
couver, In 1980, eager to
bolster the port's profile, the
Fraser River Harbour Com-
mission enlisted 300 staff and
students from the nearby
Douglas and Kwantlen col-
leges to catalogue the har-
bour’s 160-year history. Last
month the commission re-
leased the resultant 131-page
tome called Fraser
Port: Freightway to
the Pacific ata recep-
tion attended by the
mayors of the nine
municipalities bor-
dering the harbour,
which stretches 135
miles from Maple
Ridge to Delta, B.C.
What the Fraser
Port lacksincontem-
porary popularity, it
makes up for in his-
torical colour. Jac-
queline Gresko, ahis-
tory teacher at Doug-
las and co-editor of
the reportalong with
Richard Howard,
says that until now
“the Fraser Port
commission really
never knew its histo-
ry." Much of the re-
port’s raw material
was supplied by the Fraser River Harbour
Commission’s archives, Additionally, the
college students, directed by editor Gresko
and geographer Elizabeth Peerless, inter-
viewed some 40 seniors who recalled life
along the Fraser. Notes ex-student Janet
Mill, who covered 60 years of the history:
“We worked in trailers pouring over
newspapers and microfilms. [t was like
first-time discovery.” Among the tales re-
countedinthedocumentis that of the great
1898 New Westminster fire (New West-
minster is one of the cities flanking the
port), which caused $2-million dam-

   
   
  
  
  
  
 
 
 
 
 

age and levelled the city. The report tells
how the blaze mysteriously broke out
ashore, spreading quickly to the berthed
steamer Edgar. The fire burned through
the ship’s moorings, setting it adrift,
where the floating inferno set two more
ships ablaze. The report includes a clip-
ping from the September 12, 1898, Van-
couver Daily Province: “‘As the three
floated free together, they
bumped into wharves, which in
turn ignited dockside factories.
At Sinclair’s Cannery, canned
salmon exploded for hours.”
Though editorialists in rival
Vancouver wrote off New West-

Fort Langley, then known as Derby. In
1859 Britain established the Port of
Queensborough, later to be renamed New
Westminster. The administration of the
various harbours along the river’s lower
reaches were merged under the Fraser
Port name in the 1960s. Throughout its
history, local businesses have successfully
pressured senior governments to deepen
the river to allow the passage of large
ocean vessels. But in the 60s and ’70s
environmentalists began warning against
river tampering, arguing it would hurt
salmon migration. The Fraser River Har-
bour Commission has tried to accommo-
date both groups by studying the envi-
ronmental impact of

 

 

a

dhe i

minster as a “‘city of yesterday,” the city
and its port did recover from the fire,
becoming busy enough to sustain a flour-
ishing red light district, One old-timer
told the Fraser Port writers that in 1909 he
delivered newspapers to a “Three Dollar
House” on the marshlands by the river,
and even sometimes paid the light bill for
the ladies of the night, who hesitated to
travel uptown to the local utility office.
Major shipping activity commenced
on the Fraser River in 1827 when George
Simpson, the governor of the Hudson
Bay Company, opened a trading post at

The Fraser Port & Alex Fraser Bridge; (inset) Gresk
Providing a livelihood for 33,000.
lies ace Sarre

any deepenings.

Today some 59
major businesses,
with acombined pay-
roll of $750 million,
lie within the Fraser
Port’s jurisdiction,
says port manager
Richard (Rick)
Pierce. Among them
are many of the giants
of the province's for-
est industry, and the
large Annacis Island
Autoport, which
handles 130,000 cars
annually from 13 in-
ternational manufac-
turers, Among the
other goods routine-
ly handled by the port
are chemicals, ce-
ment, farm machin-
ery, fertilizer and
steel. In all, 33,000
people rely upon the
port for their liveli-
hoods.

For many of those people, last fall’s
opening of the $90-million mile-long
cable-stayed Alex Fraser Bridge symbol-
ized Fraser Port's coming of age; at last
it has a spectacular counterpart to Van-
couver Harbour’s Lions Gate Bridge.
And Christopher Brown, the chairman
of the Fraser Port commission from
1971 to 1984, says the student report
will play an important role in the port's
bright future. ‘To know where we're go-
ing, we have to know where we've come
from,” he concludes,

 

  

O11 SOLOHd TWitay NITIV

David Philip

 

Western Report. February 16, 1987 Co