| Port History For 4000 to 9000 years, Native peoples had inhabited the area where the Hudson's Bay Company set up Fort Langley in 1827. Near the mouth of the Fraser River in Northwestern Canada, few Europeans lived there until the 1850s with the establishment of New Westminster near the original fort. Twenty-five thousand miners flooded in during the gold rush of the 1860s. Originally called Granville, Vancouver was a small sawmilling town in the 1870s. Incorporated after the first trans-Canada railroad entered the area, it was renamed after George Vancouver who had surveyed the coast in 1792. The Panama Canal's opening in 1914 helped the city become a prosperous port when it became easier to export grain and lumber to eastern America and Europe. A settlement of about 1000 people in 1881, the Port of Vancouver was home to over 20 thousand by 1900 and 100 thousand by 1911. Even though it's one of British Columbia's youngest cities, the Port of Vancouver was Canada's third largest city and its main Pacific port by the 1930s. After World War II, the Port of Vancouver was the country's major hub for trade with Asia and the Pacific. The city has been popular for East Asian immigration since the end of World War II. Port Commerce The Port of Vancouver is now the industrial, financial, and commercial center of British Columbia, and trade and transportation are vital to the local economy. It's Canada's largest ice-free deep water port with facilities and support for freighters and fishing fleets. In addition to significant cruise ship traffic, cargoes moving through the Port of Vancouver include grain, sulfur, coal, petrochemicals, potash, steel, forest products, and containers. The Vancouver Fraser Port Authority (VFPA) is an amalgam of the Fraser River Port Authority, North Fraser Port Authority, and Vancouver Port Authority. The VFPA operates and develops the port. The Port of Vancouver contains 25 major terminals that offer a range of facilities and services to support international shipping. The Port of Vancouver has 17 bulk terminals that handle grain, coal, sulfur, potash, chemicals, and fuel oil. Bulk cargoes are 75% of annual traffic. The Port of Vancouver has three breakbulk terminals that have much open and covered storage, on-dock rail, and fast service. Deep water berths at low tide are up to 50 feet deep. The Port of Vancouver boasts three recently-expanded container terminals, and they plan to increase container capacity to four million TEUs by 2012. The Centerm terminal handles container and breakbulk cargo for the world's biggest shipping lines, and its intermodal services assure rapid transfers between ship, truck, and rail. With area of 73 acres, Centerm offers five acres of covered storage and over 50 acres of open storage. The container yard has storage capacity for 12 thousand TEUs. The Deltaport Terminal is the Port of Vancouver's biggest container terminal, and it handles the biggest container ships. While containerized cargo is the terminal's main focus, it also handles project cargoes. Total terminal area is 160 acres, and water depths reach up to 52 feet at low tide. The container yard can handle 24 thousand full TEUs. The Vanterm terminal offers modern container-handling equipment and a five-track on-dock intermodal rail yard. The 76-acre terminal handles containerized cargo, project cargo, and bulk oils. Its container yard can handle up to 7 thousand full TEUs. Cruising and Travel The Port of Vancouver sports a British atmosphere with East Asian touches. Its Chinatown is second only to that of San Francisco, and the Gastown area has been restored to its 1880s condition. The northern residential suburbs are framed by 10 thousand foot mountains. The Port of Vancouver celebrated its first 100 years with Expo 86, a world's fair for which Canad |
