Bowen Island Ferry
Coordinates: 49°23′05″N 123°18′06″W / 49.3846°N 123.3018°W
The Bowen Island Ferry travels between Snug Cove, at Bowen Island, and Horseshoe Bay, in the District of West Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, a trip of three nautical miles across Howe Sound. A scheduled ferry has been in operation since 1921, when Bowen Island was a popular holiday destination. Prior to that year, transportation to the island was by steamship from Vancouver, with only one trip daily. The Bowen Island ferry used a fleet of small passenger vessels until 1956, when a single car ferry began passenger service, and that ferry began carrying vehicles in 1958. In 2012 the ferry carried in excess of 870,000 passengers plus 360,000 vehicles.
Initially a passenger-only route, the Bowen Island ferry was begun in 1921 by John Hilton Brown, a British shipmaster, under the name Sannie Transportation Company. He began the enterprise using his wife’s yacht Sannie, named after a winning Australian race horse, plus two newly built craft, Sannie II and Sannie lll.
The company grew under the leadership of Thomas David (Tommy) White, who joined in 1921 and soon became president. He enlarged the fleet, adding the Sannie IV, Sannie V, Samina, and Thunderbird II. He expanded the market, developing a regular schedule to Hood Point, at the north end of Bowen Island. White married another ferry operator, Mary Marshall, in 1949, and they worked on the ferries until 1954.
In 1938 demand for Bowen Island ferry service increased with opening of the Lions Gate Bridge between Vancouver and West Vancouver. During 1939-1941 the Union Steamship Company operated two ferries between Bowen Island and Whyte Bay (which is near Horseshoe Bay), in competition with Sannie. In 1945 Union purchased the Sannie Transportation Company and retained Tommy White as ferry manager.
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