# Silverdale - Ferry Graveyard # (19 images)
Photographic tribute to the two ferries of both historic significance and value languishing on the bank of the Fraser River at Silverdale near Mission, B.C. The Queen of Sidney, ex-Sidney, was the first of 2 B.C. ferries operated by the provincial government and built in 1960 for the first B.C. Ferry route between Tsawwassen on the mainland and Swartz Bay, near our provincial capital of Victoria, on Vancouver Island. The Queen of Sidney is where the Flag of British Columbia was first raised in 1960 and her twin sister is still with the fleet and running strong at the same age. The steam ferry San Mateo was built in 1922 at San Francisco for Bay Area service and came north to Puget Sound in 1957, making her last trip for Washington State Ferries in 1960 and ending up in Canada in 1994. Today they sit with little public hope for revival, the San Mateo being particularly vulnerable to cycles of the river and exteme weather due to wooden parts of her superstructure and other factors including her age.
__________________ Quote of the Decade on SSP: "what happens would it be?" - argon007
makes you wonder why they don't sink the ferries and provide habitats for corals and other sea creatures. If we want this province to become strong in the new green economy one would think this would be a good step.
I grew up nearby just in Maple Ridge and have seen those boats there for years and years. First, the old wooden ferry appeared, must have been 15 years ago. It sat upright for a long time. Some friends went on board one night, said it was really scary, and pretty rotten in some places.
I recall driving down the Haney Bypass years later to see a tug boat towing the BC Ferry up the river. It was quite a sight, to see such a large boat so far up the Fraser. I heard a rumour that it was to be converted to a crew boat for coastal logging operations. Though, that appears to not have happened. I wasn't overly surprised to see it a few days later tied up along side the older ferry in Mission.
Sorry to lack any kind of specific dates / reasons.
If one looks at the adjoining landscape, it also looks akin to another littered graveyard. Just a bunch of Junk Collectors, I say.
Here's some further bizarre insight into the Queen of Sidney:
Quote:
At the gangway I met Bill, a friend of the Sidney’s current (and rather secretive) owner. “It’s sad,” said Bill as he unlocked the gate, topped with razor wire. “Initially we had no desire to scrap her, but now we don’t have a choice. Ultimately we’re going to watch this thing disintegrate on the Fraser River.”
But by the late 1990s its engines and generators were leaking oil and exhaust so badly that the ship’s engineers had to wear respirators. The company sold it in 2001 to a buyer who said he’d use it as a floating logging camp. Instead, it sat on the Fraser, and was continually raided by thieves.
“Wiring, copper pipe, tools, they’d take anything and sail away,” said Bill. His friend bought the ship in 2002, and for a while they lived aboard, turning the bridge into a bar and the officers’ cabins into apartments.
There was some interest in the ship: a British company offered to refurbish it and put it on the Sidney waterfront in exchange for the right to operate the town’s port. “We had hundreds of ideas thrown at us,” Bill said. “Fix it for the Olympics, turn it into a floating hotel. But talk is cheap, and as time goes on it costs and costs.” So they started removing its remaining heritage parts – including Bennett’s flagpole – putting some into storage and selling the rest.
A bearded guy darted across the barge and into an old tugboat. Bill said the guy had been squatting on the Sidney until the tugboat owner got drunk and fell overboard and drowned, and now the guy was squatting on the tug.
Ironic to think that the Queen of Sidney, the Queen of Vancouver, and the other of the same scale scale were once the "biggies," the pride of the fleet,
taking over from the MV "Chinook and the MV "Kahloke" (originally the Ashbury Park which ran between Manhattan and Long Island back in the 1920s .......
Now it's the "Queen of Surrey," and the slightly smaller Cowichan and Coquitlam. I wonder what's next................
When the Queen of Sidney was sold from BC Ferries in 2002, she was going to be turned into a high-end floating restaurant. In 2004 (?) the head honcho of the project fell ill and had to drop out, and ever since she's just sat there unused, except for the time when she was filmed in part of a horror/thriller movie. There are currently no plans for the 'Sidney, but as of this morning at 6am (PST) she's still sitting there on the shore. I can post some more photos of her if anyone would like.
Ironic to think that the Queen of Sidney, the Queen of Vancouver, and the other of the same scale scale were once the "biggies," the pride of the fleet,
taking over from the MV "Chinook and the MV "Kahloke" (originally the Ashbury Park which ran between Manhattan and Long Island back in the 1920s .......
Now it's the "Queen of Surrey," and the slightly smaller Cowichan and Coquitlam. I wonder what's next................
Actually, the Spirit class are the largest right now.
When the Queen of Sidney was sold from BC Ferries in 2002, she was going to be turned into a high-end floating restaurant. In 2004 (?) the head honcho of the project fell ill and had to drop out, and ever since she's just sat there unused, except for the time when she was filmed in part of a horror/thriller movie. There are currently no plans for the 'Sidney, but as of this morning at 6am (PST) she's still sitting there on the shore. I can post some more photos of her if anyone would like.
why hello! and welcome to the forum! sure a few more photos would be AWESOME!
thanks for the info too! I wonder what the environmental impact of the ships rotting there is?
__________________ Quote of the Decade on SSP: "what happens would it be?" - argon007
The SS San Mateo is pretty much all wood, so the impact wouldn't be too bad, at least on the pollutant side of the picture, unless there's still some fuel in it.
The 'Sidney is made of metal (steel?) so any rust falling into the river wouldn't be very good for the fish in the Fraser River.
Here are some more pics:
I'm going to get down there for some more pictures in a few weeks.
__________________
You can find me on the West Coast Ferries Forum as user "I Like Onions" (formerly "Canadian Viking"), or on Flickr as Lmtengs and Luke's Ferries, and on Youtube as Lmtengs123.
Last edited by lmtengs; Apr 9, 2010 at 9:45 PM.
Reason: Adding pictures.
As promised in my last post, here are some more photos that I took about a month ago...
The SS San mateo, the smaller ferry beside the Sidney. As you can see, her roof is starting to collapse.
Notice the keep off sign:
The access door:
The modified BC Flag on the side:
I spoke to the owner over the phone a few weeks ago, and he told me that the San Mateo is going to be taken apart on the spot in the near future, and the Queen of Sidney is still structurally sound, and it gets maintained regularly, and it's primary purpose is to be used as a movie prop.
__________________
You can find me on the West Coast Ferries Forum as user "I Like Onions" (formerly "Canadian Viking"), or on Flickr as Lmtengs and Luke's Ferries, and on Youtube as Lmtengs123.
Fraser River boat graveyard is paradise for movie productions, horror show for locals
MISSION — If you think the graveyard of vessels on the Fraser River here looks like a movie set, you’d be pretty close.
Producers pay up to $2,500 a day to film here, including for the Flash Gordon TV series and an action flick starring ex-wrestler Steve Austin.
For some, however, this place is more of a reality horror show.
“You want it?” asks Mike Younie, manager of environmental services for the District of Mission. “It’s quite a scene, no kidding. We’d like to get rid of them, that’s the bottom line.”
The 102-metre Queen of Sidney — one of the first BC Ferries in 1960, retired in 2000 — is among the half-dozen commercial vessels at the site, along with a barge, a derelict fishboat and two tugs.
Also notable is the 70-metre steam ferry San Mateo, which had a venerable career in Washington state between 1947 and 1969. It sits on its side, partly flooded, its wooden parts rotting.
The principal keepers of this graveyard are packrats Gerald Tapp, 73, and his brother, Bob, 71, ex-loggers from Aldergrove who say they are the victims of government harassment.
“Mission told me to move this and I told them where to go,” said the unrepentant Gerald Tapp. “The municipality doesn’t have jurisdiction.”
The graveyard is located just off the Lougheed Highway behind no-trespassing signs at the foot of Cooper Avenue in the rural Silverdale neighbourhood — the same area where Billy Miner committed Canada’s first railway robbery in 1904.
The Tapp brothers have gradually accumulated the vessels since buying the four-hectare property in 1996, taking possession of some after the owners walked away.
I'm not impressed with these wrecks. If they wanted to keep some as movie props, well... put them on drydocks or on land please... and don't let them rust on our waterways like that! The BC government must also have some sort of river right-of-way jurisdiction that they could invoke that can force them to move out.
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