On December 7th, 2008, this blog featured the Atrevida and its history along with a photo of Gabriola’s first ferry. It inspired me to take a closer look at the history of the Atrevida.

The Atrevida, built in 1928, began its life as the Gabriola ferry in 1931 when the B.C. Government decided to fund a regular ferry service to the Island. Did the Atrevida connect with another island as well? On the Sunshine Coast Museum & Archives web site it states that the ferry also served Newcastle Island. At the same time that the Atrevida went into service on the Gabriola run, the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company purchased Newcastle Island and operated it as a pleasure resort. Perhaps the Atrevida helped transport Nanaimo’s citizens to their Sunday picnics.

It is obvious that Atrevida did not make 16 round trips a day as our current ferry does. It’s successor, the Eena, made 4 or 5, depending on the time of year. It would be interesting to find out how many trips a week the Atrevida made to and from Gabriola.

The Sunshine Coast Museum & Archives site mentioned above provides some information about the life of the Atrevida’s owner in its Gabriola days, Captain William York Higgs, a true West Coast pioneer and entrepreneur.

Accounts of the Atrevida are sparse. The Gabriola Museum web site carries a good summary of our ferry history. SHALE magazine does not have an article on the Atrevida, although in Issue no. 2 there is a very interesting history of the Eena. By far the best account of Gabriola’s ferries can be found in June Harrison’s book, The People of Gabriola, Chapter 28.

How did the Atrevida get its name? What happened to it? We’ll explore that next time.

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