Black Ball Ferry Chinook was last word in comfort
A tribute to “the Queen Elizabeth of the inland seas” It’s hard to believe, today, that in 1946-47, Victorians were as interested in Washington’s newest car ferry as the citizens of Seattle. That’s when the M.V. Chinook was said to be the last word in Pacific Northwest commuter comfort and elegance. So proud of their new-born flagship were the directors of Puget Sound Navigation Co., the parent firm of Black Ball Transport, that they touted her as “the Queen Elizabeth of the inland seas”. The launching of the $2.5 million lady at Seattle’s Todd Shipyards, April 22, 1947, was a gala event. Victoria was represented by Mayor Percy George and members of the chamber of commerce along with officials of Ports Angeles and Townsend. Capt. Alex Peabody addressed the assemblage on behalf of the PSNC: “Permit me to say...
Read MoreHMCS Annapolis made waves for Reefs Society
HMCS Annapolis, an honoured name in Canadian naval history, was in the news in 2015. After successive challenges by The Save Halkett Bay Marine Park Society to prevent the sinking of the stripped-down destroyer escort as an artificial reef in Howe Sound, she was in fact sunk off Gambier Island. This is the second Canadian destroyer to bear the name of the river that runs through Nova Scotia’s fabled Annapolis Valley. The first Annapolis began her career as USS Mackenzie and was one of six of 50 WW1-era ‘four-stacker’ destroyers acquired by Great Britain from the U.S. under Lend-Lease then turned over to the Royal Canadian Navy. Commissioned in Halifax in September 1940, newly recommissioned HMCS Annapolis underwent refit (including removal of one of her four funnels) and strengthening after having spent 17 years in mothballs. Initially assigned to...
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