Thursday, January 22, 2009

Albion Ferry - my last trip?

As a child I took the Albion ferry all the time because my parents had friends with a house just off of 240th ave. Sheila has some old family friends that live in the area so after many years of not using the ferry, it has made sense for me to take it. We took the ferry last weekend and I suspect this is may have been my last time.

The first pictures are of the Kulleet leaving from the Fort Langley side.

There is a move to try and save the ferry, but I suspect it will have no traction. Ultimately the constant waits for the ferries means that in general it makes less and less sense for people to use the ferry as an option. At a three sailing wait or more, it really only makes sense for the people immediately on either side of the river.

The ferries have been operated by Translink but still belong to BC Ferries. It is unclear where the ships will end up after the Golden Ears bridge opens in the fall.

There is a nice history of the ferry here. I had no idea it only started in 1957 but I can still remember my parents having to pay to take the ferry.

The two ferries are the Kulleet and Klatawa. Kulleet is the name of a First Nation from the Island and Klatawa is Chinook for 'to go'.

One of the few times I used the ferry between the 1970s and the last two years was one time when I was driving from Lillooet to Tsawwassen with the boys. I decided to take a different route and kept going west at Agassiz instead of crossing the bridge there. When you travel a route over and over again, you need to try different things.

The later pictures here are of the Klatawa as we loaded on the ship.

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