A cartoon by Jack Wright.
| BRITISH COLUMBIA ARTISTS |
The company's history has been extensively written about in at least two historical works, Whistle Up The Inlet, and Personality Ships of British Columbia, so I will merely note that the company was founded on July 1, 1889, and ceased operations seventy years later on January 14, 1959 when their remaining assets were sold to Northlands Navigation. At that time the Union Steamships, despite reductions in their fleet, still delivered freight to 150 coastal ports - an amazing number of ports that clearly indicates the scope of their work during all those years, and the large number of "outposts" scattered along the thousands of miles of B.C. shoreline.
In 1905 Spencer Perceval Judge, a noted marine artist, painted a series of watercolours of the early Union fleet. The paintings hung on the walls of the company's boardroom and the office of Gerald Rushton for many years, and were donated to Rushton after the company ceased operations.
The Vancouver School of Art traveled to Savary Island for many years for their annual summer camp. The Union Steamship company even advertised in The Paint Box, the art school's Annual, In the June 1929 Vol. 1 No. 4, their advertisement promised "Delightful summer cruises. Leaving Union Dock, Vancouver, EVERY DAY." A one-hour's sail to Bowen Island left every weekday at 9 a.m., Sunday at 10 a.m., for $1.25 return, with a special weekend rate of $1.00 return.
Surprisingly, although many artists traveled on the Union Steamships as they went on sketching and painting expeditions to Phillips River, Desolation Sound, and many other locations, very few of them actually painted the steamships they traveled on. The one prominent exception is E.J. Hughes. Many of his large coastal paintings feature Union steamships and those of other companies going about their business in the 1940s and 1950s. He liked painting them so much, in fact, that he kept painting them into his work for years after the steamships quit plying the Inside Passage. Eventually he began to show the modern, angular B.C. Ferries and deep sea freighters in his paintings, but for a while the magic of the steamship days lived on in his work.
Port Watch - Historical Ships in Vancouver Harbour by Vancouver City Archives
"A Retrospective Look at 100 Years of Ships and Shipping in Vancouver Harbour"
1986 Centennial Project, 60 page cerlox bound, no ISBN
Extensive footnotes, index; illustrated with black and white photographs
Includes information on Union Steamships, photographs of their ships
Whistle Up The Inlet - The Union Steamship Story by Gerald A. Rushton
1974, published by J.J. Douglas Ltd., Vancouver
ISBN 0-88894-057-2; 236 pages, illustrated with black and white photographs
Includes list of officers; Master Mariners; All-time roster of Union ships
"May 19, 1913. Then there was the hard winter. A good many tugs were wrecked,
the Rosine was a total loss, the Cheslakee sank but is in the docks now being
repaired. The Cheslakee was always a little too high for her length but it
wasn't enough to hurt. The way it happened was she was going up on her regular
trip, and just when she was in the middle of the passage between Powel River
and Van Anda she got into such a heavy sea that they put back to Van Anda.
She always tipped a little in making a turn but this was nothing if they
hadn't left the ports open. But the ports had been left open so she heeled
over to port, she couldn't go to starboard her usual direction when listing
on account of the wharf so heeled to port and went down on her beam ends
and sank. My stateroom the last time we went up on the Cheslakee was on the
port side and would be the first to fill. Two girls where drowned in papa's
and mama's. While she was being repaired a great big boat the Chelhosin of the
outer passage was put on. We went up on her at Easter. Shes almost exactly the
same as the Camosun same size and everything she's a beauty. It was kind of
rough going up but you'd never notice it, that boat slid through the waves as
though she didn't know they were there. She looked splendid with her big black
hull and long rows of cabin windows. They kept her clean too with white decks
and shining brass. When she hit Savary Island wharf she broke two or three piles.
Its a monstrous wharf too. If it had been a small one it would have collapsed like
a lot of shavings. We came back on the Cowichan another big boat. On her I
experienced the first and and I hope last experiment of standing against the funnel
of a big steamer when whistling. We have a summer hotel on the Island now also a
post office is to be opened on the Twenty Fourth. Papa's postmaster."
From "The Diary of Maud Rees Sherman 1907 - 1915" (private collection)
"June 4 1913. We go to Savary on the twenty eighth of this month. We are
going on the old Cassiar. It will be nice going on her again. My only objection is
that she is too slow. Mama doesn't want to go on her but papa says it will either
be the Cassiar or Cheakamus (Cheslakee) and mama absolutely refuses to go on a boat
that has once been down to the bottom of the sea. The Cheakamus is safer than the
Cassiar though. The Cassiar is nearly as old as Vancouver, and Vancouver is
twenty-seven years old. Then whenever she gets a fresh hole in her bottom they
fill it up with cement. So by now she is nearly all cement. We have been having
fine hot weather lately. My I wish I was at Savary."
From "The Diary of Maud Rees Sherman 1907 - 1915" (private collection)