page_title: SeaBus
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: SeaBus / History
context_page_description: The SeaBus is a passenger-only ferry service in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It crosses Burrard Inlet to connect the cities of Vancouver and North Vancouver. Owned by TransLink and operated by the Coast Mountain Bus Company, the SeaBus forms an important part of the region's integrated public transportation system.
context_section_description: The first regular service between the City of North Vancouver and Vancouver began in 1900 with the craft North Vancouver. Three years later, the North Vancouver Ferry and Power Company was created, took over the existing service, and built a new craft called St. George. These two ferries were later renamed North Vancouver Ferry No. 1 and North Vancouver Ferry No. 2. The City of North Vancouver took over the service in 1908 to provide a more reliable ferry connection with Downtown Vancouver. Soon after, another craft, North Vancouver Ferry No. 3, was built. In 1936, the No. 2 was retired and used as a logging camp on the west coast of Vancouver Island until it was destroyed by fire.
  In 1938, the Lions Gate Bridge was completed, which significantly reduced demand for ferry service. However, there was an increase in demand with the onset of World War II because of the shipbuilding boom in North Vancouver. This growth in business spurred the creation of a new ferry, the North Vancouver Ferry No. 5, in 1941. The MV Crosline was also leased from Washington to meet demand. According to Capt. James Barr, 1943 was the busiest year that North Vancouver Ferries had, ferrying over 7 million passengers across the Burrard Inlet.
  North Vancouver No. 5 was built in Coal Harbour by Boeing Shipyards in 1941. She ran faithfully with her Union Diesel until 1958 when she was tied up at the foot of Lonsdale Ave along with North Vancouver Ferry No. 4. Capt. Jesse Oliver Kinnie, a North Vancouver Ferry employee, looked into the possibility of purchasing North Vancouver Ferry No. 4 and running it on the same route as she had run all her life. She had a higher height clearance on the car deck than Ferry No. 5 and was faster. The numbers did not add up and the plan was abandoned. Ferry No. 4 also ran on a Union Diesel.
  The ferries were in major decline by the 1950s. In 1948, the No. 3 was taken off of regular service and was sold in 1953. The cost of operating the ferries was high, and the last sailing by the No. 4 ferry took place on August 30, 1958. The No. 4 was later sold to be used in Prince Rupert. Later, No. 4 returned to Vancouver and was tied up on the Vancouver side of Burrard Inlet. She was in desperate need of a refit and had to be kept afloat with pumps to keep the water out of her hull. When the power failed and the pumps stopped she went to the bottom. The No. 5 was converted into the Seven Seas Restaurant at the foot of Lonsdale in North Vancouver. It remained there until 2002 when the City of North Vancouver and the federal courts had it demolished after a long-standing dispute over who would be responsible if it sank and concern that the hull was in danger of imminent collapse. In dry dock it proved to be quite sound, but at that point the decision had already been made to scrap it.
  There were plans in the 1960s to build a tunnel under Burrard Inlet which would have connected to the proposed freeways on the Vancouver side. After the freeway plans in Vancouver were cancelled, the tunnel proposal was also abandoned, and the money originally slated for that project was instead redirected to re-establishing a passenger ferry service between Vancouver and the North Shore. The ferry proposal was included in a 1975 report by the Greater Vancouver Regional District, and the current SeaBus ferries began operating the Waterfront Station–Lonsdale Quay route on June 17, 1977, initially as part of the Transportation Division of BC Hydro. For the first few years of service, the automated fare machines (the first in Vancouver's transit system) at the two SeaBus terminals printed an impression of the rider's coins onto a cash register-style receipt, which could become very long if fares were paid in small-denomination coins such as pennies.
caption: North Vancouver Ferry No. 2
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2003:06:17 16:53:49", "Image ExifOffset": "156", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3456", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "550", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "331"}