Talk:List of historical ships in British Columbia

Notes on first draft
There may be some duplication here with the List of Royal Navy ships in the Pacific Northwest - certain names like the Ruby, Arthur and Resolution stand out to me, but there may have been, for example, an SS Ruby as well as an HMS Ruby, but I haven't dug into the source texts for details. Spanish ship-designations are given without "SS" although this is customary in English - I seem to recall seeing SS Aranzazu so maybe that's an English-language convention for non-anglophone vessels; if anyone knows it, or knows the proper designations for these vessels, please amend their entries accordingly; similarly I've left off the SS off Russian ships, and tried to disambig stuff like SS Massachusetts (Northwest Coast) because doubtless there are other more, um, notable vessels by that name (also SS Enterprise (Northwest Coast)). Inland routes are partially represented here, but the cut-off date so far is 1871 and only a few after that I just happen to know about; Pethick's other book First Explorations of the Northwest Coast is a treasure-trove here if someone can find it, and I'd imagine Cate Blanchett's Circle of Time has an interesting ship register; as also shipping registers for the Inside Passage and coastal shipping companies. This list is intended to be reformatted with a table a la List of ghost towns in British Columbia giving the vessel's commander, nature of vessel, flag, era, shipwreck y/n and so on. Some mode of organizing these into British/Canadian, American, Austrian, French, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese etc sections might be good; none are numerous enough, except maybe for the Spanish, to warrant a separate list (American ones are so omnipresent in BC history that it's pointless to separate them....).Skookum1 04:10, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Research to do for someone who feels like it
One way to compile/expand this list is to use the BC Archives search page (via the external links) and just search for all records on "ships" and/or "vessels"; it was a bit easier with the Royal Navy ones as I could search for "HMS" and get a lot of direct hits; might work well for "MV" but obviously problematic for "SS". I don't have the patience to go through the archives this time around, though; most additions/entries here are from indexes of history books....Skookum1 04:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Another fun task would to go through the list that's there and find ones that there are articles for, but are redlinked because the article name is different from the ship name (eg, with the year built or (ship) in brackets after the name).Bobanny 04:49, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

German vessels
Other than ones here during the pre-Great War shipping/real estate heyday, when German capital was omnipresent; I'm meaning the offshore wartime scoutings during both World Wars; can't remember which vessels right now but some caused alarms; some their identity was found out later, as with a U-boat, but I can't remember its name.Skookum1 08:36, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Cut-off date or other limits
There's got to be a cut-off date for this list, I guess, as we can't ilst all contemporary vessels, other than those of note (liners, military, famous tugboats and fishboats etc); but we can't list all visiting vessels, military commercial private, obviously. Not sure what time or other limit to impose here. Thoughts?Skookum1 08:36, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Hope
Not sure if the SS Hope is the ship supposed to be on this list. There is also the Hope (ship) that traded around 1790, but I don't know if both ships have ties to BC. Aboutmovies 18:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Draft headings for table format
Please view in edit for comments.

Thoughts on this later, maybe some other info as I know other columns had occurred to me.Skookum1 02:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Just a Question
I was wondering why the BX, Chilco, Charlotte ect are classified here as Motor Vessels. As wood-fired sternwheelers would they not be Paddle Steamers? Also the BX and the BC Express were Royal Mail Steamers for part of their careers, however I won't monkey with it because I've seen all the ones I've mentioned also referred to as SS.CindyBo 07:13, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I think it's a question of legal registry, and I was wary when building this list of "SS'ing" everything, as "SS" is also decidedly a US-ism although it's been adopted by Canadians, who'll often apply the name to a vessel without it being appropriate; in most cases here it's what in the source I got the list from, but depending on the source it may not be correct. I didn't actually realize the MV/motor vessel SS/steamship distinction as I'd always associated "MV" with Canada/British Empire (you don't see it in the States, do you, or not?), though it was "merchant vessel" or something.  As for the BX and the Chilco I haven't seen a source, other than mentions in the bio resources on the Barnards themselves, and I know that some of the "pop histories" have might use SS when they should use MV maybe, or vice versa.  There must be legislation somewhere about what such designations mean, or rather a listing of indidivual ships and their proper registry names/designations.  That the were Royal Mail Steamers seems by default to mean that they should be the RMS BX and the RMS BC Express, which is probably right but weird to see becaues I've always associated it with the Empresses etc.Skookum1 18:51, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd check out the Ship prefix and Cargo ship articles for clarification. I think I've seen MV used by the yanks somewhere. bobanny 20:37, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the entry: Atrevida
Is "a very small car ferry" considered a ship? Cuz if so, I'd like to add Barnston Island Ferry to the list, if not we should remove the entry about the Atrevida ferry. -- &oelig; &trade; 02:15, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Uh, this list should really be "historical ships in British Columbia" but we never evolved past early discussions about how to resolve that as a cut-off date is still needed; roughly World War I; no doubt there was a ferry of sorts to Barnston back then, as on countless small crossings of rivers and lakes in BC; the idea is vessels....hadn't really given though to small ferries before, but that wasn't the intent of this article/list; the companion piece is List of Royal Navy ships in the Pacific Northwest.Skookum1 (talk) 02:51, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Why would you suggest a Spanish exploration ship be removed if the Barnston ferry isn't included??Skookum1 (talk) 02:52, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh.. there's two Atrevida's, I was referring to the one below it.. the Texada Island Ferry, it's listed as "a very small car ferry". -- &oelig; &trade; 13:19, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
 * And if that one can be in the list, then I think the Barnston ferry definitely applies. -- &oelig; &trade; 13:20, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Remove the Atrevida ferry, then. And I think we should consider adding a suitable adjective to this list e,g. List of historical ships in British Columbia.  The intent of this list was not BC Ferries and DoH contractee ferries; if that starts up we'll also see smaller private launches and water taxis and even cruise liners that frequent the coast; that's not the intent at ll.  Maybe proposed cut-off date could be 1939/41 or maybe 1945, allowing for WWII-era ships (though that could be List of Royal Canadian Navy ships in the Pacific.Skookum1 (talk) 15:35, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Utilitarian use
Hello, I have been adding info and ships to this list for a while now. It is fairly long and somewhat messy, but it has been a very useful place for keeping track of the many ships of the early PNW era. I thought I should post here saying I hope no one minds my using this page in this utilitarian, rather messy way. At least I've started using footnotes and references so I can find the sources where various info came from. Pfly (talk) 19:07, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Update: I've continued to add ships here off and on for, well, years I guess. Currently adding info from a book listing American maritime fur trade vessels in detail. In some cases it is unclear/unknown if a ship cruising the NW Coast was actually ever in British Columbia waters, since BC was not then politically distinct and some ships' logs/records/etc have vague or lost. I've left off ships that clearly only visited the southern NW Coast, but included a few that may or may not have stayed south of what's now BC. There's so many maritime fur trade vessels that a separate page listing just those would probably be better than dumping them here. Someday, time permitting, I'll do that. For now though, adding info here.

Also, some of my entries are a bit long, making the table big. Usually I'm only adding key dates and events of note. In many cases little more is known than a few dates and events. I figure if I have the info in front of me I might as well include it. Pfly (talk) 17:47, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

CNSS Prince Ships
Do the CNSS Prince David, Prince Henry and Prince Robert belong on this list?Alberg22 (talk) 00:08, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

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