CP's Princess Mary - Photos and Discussion

[Curtis]

Princess Mary could return to Powell River
From Powell River Peak

It's full steam ahead for the Powell River Historical Museum and Archives Association in obtaining a significant part of the community's maritime history.

Before ferries provided transportation in and out of the community, Powell River relied on Canadian Pacific ships to connect it with the rest of the world. In 1931 the Princess Mary began a 20-year association with the community, travelling between Powell River and Vancouver three times a week and to Comox once a week.


The Princess Mary became a central part of peoples' lives, sharing in their joys and sorrows. It was an important part of many a wedding day-guests would accompany the bride and groom down to the wharf to see the newlyweds off, and watch the bride toss her bouquet from the deck of the Princess Mary. The Honeymoon Stateroom aboard the ship is fondly remembered by many newlyweds.


The Princess Mary also saw Powell Riverites through less happy times. During the war years it had the sad task of carrying young men away from their families to serve in the war. At the end of the war it brought back those who had survived.

For years to come the ship's whistle would sound on November 11, remembering those who were lost.

The Princess Mary became an integral part of people's lives, and then their memories after she left the run in 1952.

With the age of passenger steamers coming to an end, the bottom half of the Princess Mary was converted into a barge, but the stern end of the upper deck, the ship's smoking room, was saved by the Island Tug and Barge Company and transformed into a coffee shop for its staff. In time, additions extended the original portion of the ship and it saw new life as the Princess Mary Restaurant, one of Victoria's favourite dining places.

Recently, the owner of the restaurant sold the building and the property it sat on to VanCity, developers of the Dockside Green project. The Princess Mary once again faces the wrecker's ball, but the company has agreed to donate the ship to the museum. However, the museum must raise about $80,000 to move it.

"We would like to prevent the remaining part of the ship, which has a special place in Powell River's history, from being scuttled," said Laura Walz, chairwoman of the museum's board of directors. "But it all hinges on raising the money to have the ship barged from Victoria to Powell River."

Directors are also discussing the project with the City of Powell River.
Preliminary plans include preparing a concrete slab at Willingdon Beach on which to place the ship.

"We've decided to approach the project in two parts," said Don Allan, chairman of the museum's Princess Mary committee. "First we are concentrating on getting the ship to Powell River. If we succeed, then we will finalize the details of turning it into a maritime display."

The museum already has the ship's bell and the steamship whistle, which were presented to the community in grand style in the early 1950s.

"Museum staff are excited about this opportunity to save a piece of the community's history," said Teedie Kagume, museum coordinator. "We believe the ship will become an attraction for tourists, revive memories of those who sailed on her and link residents to the community's past."

The ship has to be moved by January 6, 2007, and the board has set a deadline of Wednesday, December 6 to have the funds in place.

Interested readers who would like more information, or who would like to make a donation to the project, can contact Allan at 604.483.6051 or Kagume at 604.485.2222, or send an email to [e-mail].


PIECE OF HISTORY: The Princess Mary was once a central part of life in Powell River. The ship connected the community to the rest of the West Coast for 20 years and will hopefully be returning to the city.

[Deleted]

I have been in the restuarant many times, and it was too bad that it had to close.

[Northern Exploration]

It would be really nice if more historical ships were used for floating restaurants or even bed and breakfasts. Victoria would be a perfect place for it. Even cut up it was kind of neat eating at the Princess Mary.

Btw is the Seven Seas still in North Van/Lonsdale? When I was young that was so fun to eat at.

Toronto has Captain John's restaurant on a ship that was the Jadran. Food is not particularly good but attracts the tourists. There was an original even older Captain John's there but it had a fire or something and sunk at the wharf. I think it was too expensive to refloat and repair. So I guess it just went for scrap.

The Queen Mary in Long Beach is really great to visit but I have never stayed in the hotel there. The setting is not scenic at all.

With all the tourists coming for the Olympics maybe the timing is good for something in Vancouver again.

[D'Elete BC in NJ]

Ya, Philly has the Moshulu, though I haven't eaten there yet. In the summer it looks like a neat place to go, you can look across the river at the USS New Jersey, and watch the RiverLink ferry scuttle back and forth.

[Barnacle]

The Seven Seas was broken up sometime between 2001 and 2003.

[D'Elete BC in NJ]

Has anyone heard anything more about the Princess Mary's fate? I haven't been able to find anything related to this.

[Retrovision]

No news on on her fate, but atleast they've boarded her up to seemingly save her as development rapidly encroaches around her.

I captured this last Tuesday while in the area and phtographing the Quadra Queen II, etc., at Point Hope across the street...

flickr.com/photos/bctransit/2839036830

[Deleted]

so what ship is in there?

[Curtis]

Sept 9, 2008 17:11:16 GMT -8 @kieran said:

so what ship is in there?

I don't understand what you mean.

If you mean in the above Picture it's the former CP Steamship Vessel Princess Mary recently turned into a restaurant in recent times and I believe is currently sitting in the location where that photo was taken.

[Retrovision]

lol, well put, Curtis. I was wondering about the question also, and, though it's not the appropriate thread or even category if you were asking about Point Hope Shipyard, our Quadra Queen II and the Navy's Orca (PCT 55) ( flickr.com/photos/bctransit/2838207835 ), though if you're interested in the Princess Mary, check the write-up on my photo page of her ( flickr.com/photos/bctransit/2839036830 )

-

Hmm, I hope my linking to that rarely thorough and quite longstanding authoritiative site on CPR's BCCSS Princess ships didn't inadvertently close it by bringing volume to it and Shaw's realization that it's not necessarily paid-up still All it shows on any page of the website now, vs. it being available just the other day, is "Page Not Found"

[Nick]

Sept 9, 2008 20:40:24 GMT -8 Retrovision said:

lol, well put, Curtis. I was wondering about the question also, and, though it's not the appropriate thread or even category if you were asking about Point Hope Shipyard, our Quadra Queen II and the Navy's HMCS Orca (PCT 55) ( flickr.com/photos/bctransit/2838207835 ), though if you're interested in the Princess Mary, check the write-up on my photo page of her ( flickr.com/photos/bctransit/2839036830 )

I don't mean to nitpick, and this is somewhat off topic. I have noticed this in a few places, so I'm going to point it out here.

the HMCS designation (Her/His Majesty's Canadian Ship) is reserved for commissioned ships. Being training vessels, the Orca class ships are not commissioned and are classified similar to yard tenders etc. The Orca class are primarily intended as the replacements for the Navy's aging 1950's vintage YAG (Yard Auxilliary General) training boats for new officers and crew.

Again, I don't mean this as any disrespect towards anybody. It has been a common mistake here and elsewhere and it has bugged me. As a "retired" sea cadet, I tend to notice this kind of thing.

[Retrovision]

Thanks for that, I just assumed they were all HMCS, I didn't realize that any ship isn't commissioned, other than maybe a dinghy ;D . Correction noted, thanks for the heads-up, I'm always looking to learn, especially such basic stuff that might make me look a fool if I keep repeating it.

[Ferryman]

Here's a photo from today, of the remains of the SS Princess Mary in Victoria. Looks like a large development is about to happen where she sits.

[Northern Exploration]

Mar 15, 2010 20:26:12 GMT -8 Ferryman said:

Here's a photo from today, of the remains of the SS Princess Mary in Victoria. Looks like a large development is about to happen where she sits.

I had heard that the remains of the ship had been sold once again and were going to be relocated. Hopefully that is true. In the current condition though I would be quite surprized that it would make financial sense. Come on White Spot, buy the old girl, rehab it as part of a new location, and sell it to kids as a life size Pirate Pak! It would be sad to see this part of BC heritage just demolished.

[plansea]

I found this story when I was searching for info on the tug "Chelan"

POSTED ON 03/01/07

The end of an era for storied Princess Mary
Ship-turned-eatery steeped in history, TOM HAWTHORN writes -- and also in tasty seafood delights

TOM HAWTHORN

Special to The Globe and Mail

VICTORIA -- It was moving day at the Princess Mary Restaurant, an old ship surrounded by a sea of asphalt.

The clinking of beer bottles echoed in what had once been the stern, more recently a dining room. The happy sound was not one of celebration.

Pallets of booze were being loaded onto a truck, as were salvageable bits from the restaurant's earlier incarnation as a coastal steamer.

Once, this was an elegant Canadian Pacific vessel plying the waters between Vancouver Island and the British Columbia coast.

After retirement in 1951, it was unceremoniously cut into two. The hull became a barge, while the cafeteria and dining room from the superstructure were run aground. It has ever since been parked across Harbour Road from the Point Hope Shipyard facing Victoria's Inner Harbour. It has been landlocked at bearings unchanged for a half century -- latitude 48 degrees 25 minutes 33 seconds, longitude 123 degrees 21 minutes 30 seconds.

The restaurant has been a Victoria landmark for generations, a place of fine seafood dining where families gathered to mark their birthdays and anniversaries. Romances were sparked on the dance floor, proposals made at the tables, marriages celebrated in the banquet hall.

The Rotary Club lunched here, as did the Chamber of Commerce, which was appropriate since the son of the group's first treasurer had been the one to haul the old vessel to its current home. The annual induction dinner of the Greater Victoria Sports Hall of Fame brought the city's greatest athletes to the Princess Mary.

"A lot of famous people have been through here," owner Bill Lang said. "We've had prime ministers and hockey plays -- Jean Chrétien, Joe Clark, Ralph Klein, Frank Mahovlich, Gordie Howe."

He thought for a bit.

"We even had James Bond."

(The owner was asked which Bond. "Connery, Sean Connery," he said, as if there could be any other.)

Mr. Lang, 54, a restaurateur and golf-course consultant, played host to a farewell dinner for 600 patrons on New Year's Eve, returning a few hours later at dawn to begin the back-breaking work of dismantling a working banquet facility.

The restaurant is making way for a large residential project called Dockside Green, the latest in a series of projects transforming a working harbour into the showcase of a city no longer dependent on a maritime economy.

It can be hard to spot the original vessel. Over decades, bits of other crafts have been added, creating a sprawling and jury-rigged building as much a low-ceilinged labyrinth as a dining place.

Part of the restaurant even includes a Venezuelan freighter "named for a high-profile prostitute," Mr. Lang said.

Bits of the Princess Mary's original glory can be found if one looks closely enough. A skylight includes several stunning patterns of coloured glass decorated in an art nouveau style. The trim is mahogany.

Elsewhere, a well-worn door with a brass handle swings open to the galley, as it has done since the ship was built in Scotland in 1910.

One of those who came by yesterday to pay last respects was Robert D. (Bob) Turner, a curator emeritus at the Royal B.C. Museum and author of several books on CP's Princess ships. He cast a learned eye on the remains before pronouncing: "There's some lovely old boat here. There really is."

Mr. Turner has volunteered for more than 20 years helping to restore the S. S. Moyie, an 1898 passenger sternwheeler now berthed at Kaslo in the Kootenays. The village purchased the retired ship for $1 in 1957.

The preservation has cost considerably more.

Mr. Turner has fond memories of dining at the Princess Mary, yet at 59 he is too young to remember it docked a few metres away in the harbour during its working days as a freight and passenger vessel.

"She has had more time as a restaurant than as a steamship. Hard to believe," he said.

The owner marched around the emptied facility to show visitors the outline of the original vessel. He will be consulting with Mr. Turner as to how best to save the original bits of the Mary.

The Powell River Historical Museum failed late last year to raise funds to have the ship barged across Georgia Strait to become a tourist attraction. The museum displays a wooden scale replica of the ship, as well as the original bell and whistle.

The Princess Mary was launched in 1910. Named for a daughter of King George V, it was extended 11½ metres in 1914. Soon after, it saw service as a troop ship during the Great War.

The ship carried 600 passengers. It was not designed to carry automobiles, although Mr. Turner notes it had a capacity for 90 head of cattle. Over the years, it worked a Vancouver-to-Powell River-to-Comox run, with stops at Hornby Island and Union Bay, as well as the Gulf Islands.

Canadian Pacific also offered five-day summer cruises around Vancouver Island with stops at such exotic and isolated ports as Clayoquot and Port Alice. Return fare aboard was $35.50.

In 1939, the Mary carried passengers from Saltspring Island on a special run to see King George VI and Queen Mary, the aunt and uncle of the princess royal for whom the ship was named.

Although built with the finest materials, a ship once known for its luxurious fittings, as well as bridal suites, was described as an "old tub" by the end of the Second World War. It was retired from service in 1951 and sold before being chopped up the next year.

In April of 1954, the Princess Mary's old hull, renamed Bulk Carrier No. 2, was carrying a load of ore concentrates bound for Vancouver from Skagway when heavy seas caused the barge and the tug towing it to founder and sink off the Alaska Panhandle. All 14 Canadian seamen aboard the ocean-going tug Chelan were lost.

The old dining room has had a happier fate. Harold Elworthy of Island Tug and Barge brought the remnants onto this site, where it operated as a coffee shop for his workers. Over time, word spread about a delicious cup of chowder to be had at the old ship. A legendary restaurant was born.

A 1965 menu offered shrimp cocktail (65 cents), fillet of Dover sole ($1.35), smoked Alaska black cod ($1.40), salmon steak ($1.95), grilled swordfish steak ($2.15) and Australian lobster tail thermidor ($3.45).

The chef's suggestion was "a brochette of oysters consisting of fresh Sooke oysters wrapped in bacon, put on a skewer with select mushrooms, dipped in butter, then broiled and served with our own tartar sauce" for $1.65.

Not only prices have changed in the past decades.

Yesterday, the movers strained under the weight of brass fittings and round porthole frames. These were being saved for later delivery to museums.

Seeing the movers struggle, the owner invited them to help themselves to a dozen beers at the end of the day.

[Northern Exploration]

Preservation is becoming an increasingly difficult thing. The costs have become a huge barrier.

I have many memories of the Princess Mary as I have mentioned before. It was a safe restaurant that my family would often take my grandparents when we were visiting the Island. It wasn't too expensive for my grandfather who usually looked at the prices before choosing what too eat, there were "nice" fish dishes for my grandmother, and the setting was unique. Both the last time we were able to take my grandfather to Victoria and the last time we ate at the restaurant, the food wasn't quite the same, but it still made him happy.

It would be great if the saved artifacts could be incorporated into another restaurant but I think that "concept" would be looked at as dated.

[mrdot]

back to memories of the Princess Mary restaurant in old Victoria, I remember when Harold Elworthy of Island Tug, took the old restaurant block off the hull of the old P. Mary, which they were stripping down to a barge. They used the restaurant section as a lunch room for Island Tug staff, and later it was established as a fine restaurant. It really wasn't a whole ship preservation, only a peice of the old Mary! I remember my dad taking me down to the old CPR docks when the old Mary had a for sale sign hanging over her bows, that would have been as long ago as 1952/3, when I was a little kid! It probably is too uneconomic to look at preserving whole vessels of any size any more. However the old Lady Rose might work!, mrdot.

[Northern Exploration]

One of the Museum's (won't name publically which one right now) was looking at doing exactly the same thing. Taking a historic ship, cutting it into manageable pieces, barging and then assembling it onsite. It would have both been a display and housed a cafe, and a fine dining restaurant that would have also been open outside of the museum hours. However, with the economic slowdown and other issues one of the main benefactors things had to be put back on the dreaming burner. Keeping the current collection preserved is a huge undertaking.

I would love to see something similar to what was done with the Segwun, on the coast. The story etc. is here for anyone who is interested. segwun.com

The restored ship has been joined by a modern vessel that is sympathetic to the time period, and a section of the waterfront has become a historical area in partnership with the town. Kind of like Lady Rose bumped up a notch. To be sustainable it would need to be located in a larger population centre with steady visitors.

[Ferryman]

Perhaps one last good look at the remains of the Princess Mary before its hauled off? Photo taken just this morning.

[mrdot]

something to bear in mind when you look at this forlorn picture of the old boarded up Princess Mary restaurant is that most of these trappings on the old site were not original fittings from the namesake but were add ons by the old Island tug and later additions by the old restaurant, as only the antique lunch room block was actually the only authentic piece of the old Mary! I have some of the old memorabillia and some is in wettcoast's hands.mrdot.

[Low Light Mike]

Oct 7, 2010 21:01:01 GMT -8 Ferryman said:

Perhaps one last good look at the remains of the Princess Mary before its hauled off? Photo taken just this morning.

In comparing Chris' photo from 5 weeks ago to mine from Today, I notice that the ship-name label has been peeled off, revealing a different label (with different font) underneath.

[mrdot]

:)fugl's pic. of the remains of Princess Mary restaurant, while not as forlorn as the Queen of Sidney gravesite, contains very little genuine artufacts, save the hidden deckhouse interior works behind the corregated clapboard material that didn't make the capital iron junkpile. At least the Sidney gravesite contains the real mcCoy! That being said, I am looking at a real menu I scrounged while doing some fine dineing there a few to many years ago. mrdot.

[Low Light Mike]

When I was visiting Powell River this weekend, I noticed this mural on the back of a building on Willingdon Avenue.




Upon closer inspection of the detail on the ship on the right-side, she's the CP Princess Mary.



Artists are:
- D.S. Mitchell, Janet Blair and W. La-Fortune.

[Ferryman]

Just for the sake of acknowledgement, the Princess Mary is no longer on Harbour Road in Victoria anymore. It actually appears to be demolished, according to the following photo found on Flickr.

www.flickr.com/photos/45379817@N08/5638149205/in/photostream

[lmtengs]

A nice old photo of the Princess Mary at Esquimalt:
www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca/cgi-bin/www2i/.visual/img_med/dir_118/d_01039.gif