Eighty years ago, if you were to look down the shoreline from where Seaspan’s Vancouver Shipyards currently sit, you would have seen a flurry of non-stop activity by shipbuilders on the North Shore who were kept busy throughout the war effort to replenish the Allied fleet of merchant ships — critical for carrying supplies and equipment to the theatres of war in Europe and Asia. Fast forward to today, and supply ships for the Armed Forces are once again being built in North Vancouver at Vancouver Shipyards.
Shipbuilding in North Vancouver
Shipyards on the North Shore produced close to half of Canada’s total output of vessels during wartime and helped elevate the industrial waterfront into one known for its shipbuilding prowess. Today, the maritime influence on the region remains. Where Victory Ships were once being built during WWII, now stands a bustling community of restaurants, retail shops and condos: an area known as “The Shipyards”, where remnants and memorabilia of the wartime shipbuilding boom have been preserved for today’s generations to see and appreciate. Nestled in alongside this new community, is Seaspan’s Vancouver Drydock, where over 200 people perform ship repair and maintenance on a variety of Canadian Coast Guard and commercial vessels.
For a period of time, shipbuilding in British Columbia, and elsewhere across the country, had been forgotten. A country with an abundance of natural resources and industrial capabilities is no stranger to boom & bust cycles – and shipbuilding was no different. Since the 1990s, construction of large vessels in Canada was essentially non-existent. And, just as importantly, gone with it was all of the accompanying knowledge, expertise, and hands-on skills.
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