From the Wheelhouse: Tugboaters Tell Their Own Stories

Gordon Turner is the author of Empress of Britain: Canadian Pacific’s
Greatest Ship and the editor of SeaFare, a quarterly newsletter on sea
travel.

Tugboats have been a familiar sight to the coastal residents of British
Columbia for more than a century and a half. Scurrying about as they
dash from one job to the next, or struggling to maintain a speed of
three knots as they pull a massive barge heaped high with logs bound for
a sawmill, they play an important role in the province’s economy.

Although the tugboats are familiar, the men who operate them are
largely anonymous. Doreen Armitage seeks to remedy that situation. She
has interviewed 16 captains and one engineer who have spent many decades
tugboating and has let them tell their own stories in their own words.
In Armitage’s hands, most of the yarns come vividly to life.

The captains, nearly all retired, are modest about their
accomplishments, but the text makes it evident that their skills and
versatility are of a high order. As one captain says, “Towboating can
go from humdrum to nerve-racking, but all in all it’s a dandy job.”
Their stories cover such matters as rounding up breakaway barges,
rescuing stricken cargo ships, manoeuvring through narrow channels while
trying to avoid a collision with a bridge, dealing with the vagaries of
wind and weather, and—to some, the most scary aspect of their
work—trying to cope with inept weekend yachtsmen and motorboat owners.
Perhaps to relieve the stress of their duties, some captains were noted
practical jokers.

From the Wheelhouse is a good read for anyone with an interest in ships
and the sea. Its many black-and-white illustrations are reproduced to a
high standard, although not all are directly related to the text. The
book is attractively laid out, but it lacks a map of the B.C. coast,
which would have assisted the reader in locating the many places named
in the text.