We're celebrating BC Heritage Week! This year’s theme “Heritage Afloat” is a perfect fit for us here in Britannia so we're taking a break this week from our "Why Visit a Museum or Art Gallery" series to celebrate with other communities across BC.
Located on Howe Sound which feeds directly into the Strait of Georgia, then into the Pacific Ocean, Britannia was a natural deep sea port. In many BC mines ore can only be transported by roads or rail, which often have to be built specifically for the mine. Britannia’s proximity to the water meant that the mine company could skip building this infrastructure and most of the supplies and materials could come and go by boat.
Ore was at one time shipped to Crofton Smelter on Vancouver Island. Later it was shipped to Tacoma, Washington and also Japan. It left from the Concentrate Wharf located just south of the Passenger Wharf. Trucks and trains were never adopted for this use. Remnants of the dock and concentrate shed are still visible today.
Not just for moving cargo and ore, people, light freight and the mail arrived from Vancouver via Steamships at the Customs Wharf which was the hub of the community and a port of entry into Canada until the early 1960’s. After stopping at Britannia Beach, the Union Steamships headed north-west across Howe Sound to stop at Woodfibre. They would then go to Squamish before turning back and reversing the route.
As a company town, Britannia was self-sufficient and most Britannia residents only went “out” to Vancouver two or three times a year. For a resident of the Mount Sheer Townsite, this journey started by boarding the Incline Skip at 7 a.m., arriving in Vancouver by steamship at noon, shopping for four or five hours and then returning to Britannia by steamship and arriving back from the Skip at 11 p.m. It was a long and tiring day!
Water was the only way to access Britannia before the railway was completed in 1956 and the highway from Vancouver was completed shortly after in 1958. Almost overnight, the isolated and tight-knit communities of Britannia Beach and the Mount Sheer Townsite were forever altered.
While over the years many forms of transportation changed, boats continued to be crucial to the Mine’s operation and processed ore was shipped to the smelters on boats and barges until the Mine closed. If you pass through Britannia on the Sea-to-Sky highway, you will still see boats moored along the water today. Britannia’s reliance on waterways is an important part of this community’s history and we are happy to celebrate it as part of BC’s Heritage Week.