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...

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...

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...