Old Wood & Rusty Iron – by Mike Creasy
Do you remember the former Canadian National steamer Prince George, which lay for many years at the old Britannia Mines dock in Howe Sound? Well then, did you know about the connection between CN, the port of Prince Rupert and the RMS Titanic?
Long before the CNR was created, BC’s northern rail system was built and operated by the Grand Trunk Railway. The GTR began in 1852 with a line from Montreal to Toronto. It slowly expanded in Eastern Canada and the US, but faced growing competition from the CPR.
CP completed its transcontinental rail system with a railhead in Vancouver in 1886, and the British owners of the Grand Trunk decided they needed their own west coast terminus. They hired a hard driving American, Charles Melville Hays, and he quickly set out to take on the country and the competition.
In 1903, his engineers laid out the route. Through the Yellowhead Pass to Fort George, along the Nechako River and down the Skeena to the new town of Prince Rupert. 500 miles shorter than the rival CPR route, and with lower grades to boot.
The Grand Trunk Pacific started its marine operations in1908, when paddlewheel riverboats were needed along the Skeena to support railway construction. By 1910, GTP was offering service to Vancouver and the Queen Charlottes with the 232 foot Prince Albert and the 185 foot Prince John.
The original Prince Rupert and Prince George were built in 1909/1910, specifically intended to compete with the CPR’s Princess ships. These identical passenger liners were 320 long, with two triple expansion steam engines powered by coal burning boilers.
The new Prince ships went head to head with the CP’s Princess Charlotte and Princess Adelaide in the express passenger business, while the smaller Albert and John continued to service smaller communities and logging camps.
Charles Hays had great plans for the GTP fleet and for Prince Rupert. The services of Francis Rattenbury were retained to design a new grand hotel over the waterfront, to be twice the size of Victoria’s Empress Hotel. GTP was already marketing coastal cruises to the icefields of Alaska ($48 return from Seattle), with the option of a rail tour of the Rockies.
Unfortunately, Hays didn’t live to see his dreams come true. He was in Europe in 1912, talking up his new transcontinental railway and seaport, and raising money for future projects. He was returning to Ottawa for the opening of his new hotel – Chateau Laurier – as a guest of Bruce Ismay on board the brand new RMS Titanic. You already know how that story ends.
By 1919, Grand Trunk Railway was literally running out of steam. It was nationalized, and in 1923 became part of the new Canadian National Railway.
Marine operations on the west coast were continued under the new regime, but Hays’ plans for a new hotel at Prince Rupert were shelved. CN’s new masters preferred Vancouver, and design began on a new hotel near the Vancouver station.
In 1929, CN president Sir Henry Thornton ordered three new ships from Cammell Laird, designed to continue the competition with CPR. Prince Henry, Prince David and Prince Robert were named, not for old country royalty, but for the boss himself and two of his vice–presidents! As if to prove that megalomania is good sport for a senior public servant, Thornton went on to plant his own name on the new hotel.
That may have been the last straw; Thornton was fired and Hotel Thornton was renamed the Hotel Vancouver – the name it still bears today.
The three Princes were not resounding successes. The economy of the 1930’s meant empty seats and declining profits leading to long lay-ups for the new ships. In 1932, the Prince Henry and Prince David were sent to the east coast to try the cruise market there. In 1939, with WW 2 looming large, the trio were purchased by the Canadian government for conversion into Armed Merchant Cruisers while the old Prince Rupert and Prince George soldiered on with west coast duties. The warships never returned to CN’s fleet.
In 1945, the Prince George caught fire and was lost while at Ketchikan.
In 1946, Yarrows of Victoria was awarded a contract to build a new 335 foot coastal liner.
The second Prince George entered service in 1948, and served reliably and without notable incident until April, 1975 when she caught fire while berthed in Vancouver, effectively ending CN’s marine operations on the west coast. The damaged ship was sold, and while all kinds of schemes were hatched, the Prince George lay rotting at the Britannia dock.
How different things might have been without that one iceberg………
Bibliography
Prince Ships of Northern BC, Norman Hacking, Heritage House, 1995
A Thousand Blunders, Frank Leonard, UBC Press, 1996
Royal BC Museum Archives