Port Hardy News

The new ferry between Bella Coola and Port Hardy will be starting up on Saturday, said the British Columbia Ferry Services Inc (BC Ferries)According to a news release , the Northern Sea Wolf will begin service on the Central Coast route on May 18, after finishing sea trials and dock fits during April and May.Built in 2000, the vessel was bought in Greece in 2017 after the province announced it was reviving the route that had been cancelled in 2013.The corporation says the Northern Sea Wolf has finished sea trials and dock fits successfully in April and May in Port Hardy, Bella Bella, Bella Coola, Shearwater and Ocean Falls.On May 3, the Northern Sea Wolf left BC Ferries’ refit facility in Richmond and headed north to conduct dock trials at the ports it will serve (Port Hardy…

BC Ferries explains that due to current world fuel market conditions the company is advising customers that a fuel surcharge will be implemented on the majority of its routes on January 17, 2014. The fuel surcharge will be 3.5 per cent on average on all of its routes with the exception of the Port Hardy - Prince Rupert and Prince Rupert – Haida Gwaii routes which will not be affected. “Market pricing indicates that the price differential will continue throughout the year,” said Mike Corrigan, BC Ferries’ President and CEO.

On Friday January 30, 2009 at approximately 9:00 a.m. a new cruiseferry for FSG`s Canadian customer British Columbia Ferry Services, Inc. (BC Ferries), will leave the Flensburger shipyard and start her voyage from Germany to British Columbia, Canada. The new 498 ft ship will accommodate 600 passengers and 130 vehicles. Among its many features, the Northern Expedition will offer 55 modern cabins for customers and an expanded range of food services and other amenities to delight local residents and tourists alike. The transfer voyage will take about 45 days.

On Friday January 30, 2009 a new cruise ferry from ’s Flensburger Shipyard built for British Columbia Ferry Service is scheduled to leave the yard for its journey to , . The ship, Northern Expedition, is 150 m long, capable of carrying 600 passengers and 130 vehicles. It offer 55 modern cabins for customers and an expanded range of food services and other amenities. The transfer voyage will take about 45 days, and the vessel most likely will stop for refueling in , Canary Islands, Cabo Verde, Curaçao and then transit the Panama Canal and sail up the west coast of North America to .

BC Ferries’ newly acquired vessel to replace the Queen of the North on the Inside Passage between Port Hardy and Prince Rupert officially set sail for her new home in B.C. on Saturday, November 18. The MV Sonia will be re-named when she arrives in B.C. in mid December. The vessel departed from Piraeus, Greece, early Saturday morning for her four-week voyage to Victoria, B.C. Under the command of Senior BC Ferries officers and crew, the vessel will travel via the Canary Islands and the Panama Canal before sailing up the west coast of North America. The 117 metre ship is scheduled to arrive in Victoria on December 18, 2006. BC Ferries acquired the two year old vessel in October and the 9,925 tonne ship will carry up to 600 passengers, 101 vehicles and has 70 cabins.

BC Ferries announced that Victoria Shipyards has been awarded the $9m contract to perform major modification work on the replacement vessel for the Queen of the North. The vessel, currently named MV Sonia, is being painted in Greece and preparations for its transatlantic crossing are well underway, including engine modifications to enable the use of cleaner-burning marine diesel fuel. On November 15, 2006, a crew of BC Ferries’ employees is scheduled to sail the ship from Greece to British Columbia. En route, she will travel through the Panama Canal and is expected to arrive at Victoria Shipyards in mid-December. The vessel will be renamed and reflagged as a Canadian vessel. It will enter service on BC Ferries’ Port Hardy – Prince Rupert – Queen Charlotte Island routes in April 2007.

BC Ferries reportedly received $67.9 million in insurance compensation for the sinking of the Queen of the North earlier this year, www.canada.com reported. The settlement was noted in the company's year-end financial details, in which net earnings increased $14.7 million, or 2.6 per cent, over last year to $49.9 million. The company said $6.6 million of the proceeds from the insurance settlement offset insurable losses, and the balance will be recognized in the first quarter of its 2007 fiscal year. The Queen of the North was traveling from Prince Rupert, B.C., to Port Hardy, B.C., when it rammed at full speed into Gil Island on March 22 and sank 400 m to the ocean's floor. (Source: www.canada.com)

North Island tourism operators are bracing for fallout from the reduced ferry service from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert this summer. According to the Port Hardy Chamber of Commerce, the season will be impacted dramatically because the Queen of Prince Rupert, the ferry replacing the Queen of the North that sunk in March, is much smaller. There are no passenger accommodations on board and with only one vessel for the whole coast the schedule allows for only two trips a week from Port Hardy – about half the trips last year. North Island businesses that cater to tourists are already feeling the pinch- with tours and reservations being cancelled- and the next two weeks will be telling, say business owners.

The ongoing uncertainty over ferry service to B.C.'s North Coast is already having a major economic impact on tourism operators, as some travelers have already canceled their plans. BC Ferries lost one of its two vessels that serve the area when the Queen of the North sank on March 22, with the loss of two lives. The corporation has said it will announce its plans within a week for moving about 10,000 tourists to northern B.C. this summer. Some businesses relying on tourism, however, feel that it is too late. Meanwhile, BC Ferries is still trying to figure out how to cover the north's two busy summer routes with just one ferry. One option being considered for the Queen Charlottes is to use barges and float planes instead of a ferry.

The B.C. government treasury board approved funding for three replacement ferries on its north coast routes on March 22, the same day Premier Gordon Campbell flew up to the site of the first-ever sinking of a BC Ferry. The Queen of the North sank after apparently hitting a rock at 12:43 a.m. Its 99 passengers and crew were safely evacuated to lifeboats and picked up within two hours by a Canadian Coast Guard vessel patrolling in the area. The incident took place in Wright Sound, after an 8 p.m. departure from Prince Rupert on the 274 km trip down the Inside Passage to Port Hardy. (Source: Peninsula News Review)

Two people are now feared dead after an ocean-going ferry sank when it smashed onto a rocky island on Canada's Pacific coast on March 22. Police have begun a missing persons investigation for the couple, whom witnesses reported seeing on shore with the 99 others rescued from the ferry Queen of the North, but who have not been heard from since. According to Reuters, BC Ferries now fears those witness reports were wrong and that the couple from the town of 100 Mile House, British Columbia, went down with the ship. The Queen of the North is believed to have gone off course and struck Gil Island shortly after midnight local time, about 75 miles south of Prince Rupert, on a trip down the Inside Passage on the northwest coast of British Columbia.

On March 22, off B.C.'s north coast, rescuers plucked dozens of people from lifeboats after The Queen of the North, sailing south on a 450-kilometer overnight trip from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy along what's known as B.C.'s Inside Passage, hit a rock just after 12:30 a.m. and sank in choppy seas and high winds. All of the 101 people aboard - 42 crew members and 59 passengers - were rescued and accounted for. Most were taken to a community center in Hartley Bay where the town's residents brought them blankets and coffee. Others were aboard the Coast Guard vessel the Sir Wilfrid Laurier. The 125-meter-long vessel was reported to be completely submerged about 135 kilometers from Prince Rupert after hitting Gil Island in Wright Sound, listing to one side and then sinking.