Everybody loves a good storyteller and I’m no exception. Last week, I listened to some of the live streaming of the Enbridge hearings from Kitimaat, the First Nations village a few clicks outside the company town of Kitimat in northwest B.C. It was the tail end of the first day and the Haisla’s Chief Councillor, Ellis Ross, was telling...

Monday, Oct. 31, 2011 (see update) By Alison Bate Talks between the maritime employers and dock foremen in British Columbia are deadlocked, the organisation representing employers said Friday (Oct.28) “Nothing’s happening. We’re at an impasse, ” said Greg Vurdela, vice president of marketing for the B.C Maritime Employers...

Oct. 19, 2011 By Alison Bate Seaspan’s Vancouver Shipyards came second to Halifax’s Irving Shipbuilding in the big contract deal announced today. In a nutshell: 1st: Irving Shipbuilding, Halifax, Nova Scotia. $25 billion to build combat vessels. 2nd: Seaspan Marine Corp, British Columbia. $8 billion to build non-combat vessels. Out...

Two articles I wrote shortly after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre have just been reprinted in a 10-year retrospective. The first one, Armada rescues trapped New Yorkers, was based on extensive phone interviews with tugboat owners with Reinauer Transportation and Moran Towing, as well as officials with U.S. Coast Guard Activities...

May 30, 2011 If you like looking at pictures of ships, which for some obscure reason I do, it’s always fun to pop over to some of the photography and ship-tracking websites and see what’s around. I was trying to avoid writing recently, and stumbled across this photo of a ship I sailed on a few years ago. I was asked a ton of...

Just heard that the main dockworkers’ union in Vancouver and other B.C. ports have reached a watershed eight-year deal. The contract between the International Longshore Warehouse Union Canada and maritime employers ran out more than a year ago. But that still leaves seven years on the new contract, an impressive length, when you...

UPDATE (Jan. 11, 2011): View Enbridge’s current marine response plan Better late than never, I’ve been plugging my way through the marine side of Enbridge’s application to bring supertankers into B.C.’s northwestern waters. Last weekend, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I saw Enbridge’s huge advert in The Vancouver...

My article over the battle for the Arctic is now on the web: Global players jockey over Arctic shipping routes (Nov. 2009) A second story about the strong ties between Prince Rupert, B.C. and Memphis, Tennessee has also gone online: Prince Rupert looks towards Memphis (Nov....

By Alison Bate First published in Maritime Magazine, Fall 2009 UPDATE: Eight-year contract approved on Vancouver docks (May 4, 2011): Vancouver longshore worker Karen Crossan (pictured) stood in the ghostly dispatch hall looking vainly for work on tonight’s graveyard shift. “I’m bored and I am broke,” she said, after...

By Alison Bate When a ship gets into trouble off the remote west coast of Vancouver Island, there are very few rescue services around. The province relies on a commercial tug in the area being able to help out. Currently, major seagoing tugs carry electronic tracking devices so they can be located in real-time on computer charts. This...

By Alison Bate I must admit I was a little surprised not to get a straight answer from Transport Canada at first about the number of tug escorts traveling with condensate tankers into Kitimat. I assumed it was clearly set down in the legislation whether tankers carrying this kind of hydrocarbon mixture required tug escorts and, if so, how...

By Alison Bate What would happen if a tanker on its way to Kitimat collided with a tug in the scenic Inside Passage? According to the author of a new report, major flaws would be exposed in the way marine accidents are handled here in British Columbia. “Nobody is essentially watching the store – at least not the whole...