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The Forestry Vessel Sitka Spruce II
by John MacFarlane 2022
The Sitka Spruce II on the Fraser River. (Photo from the Christopher J. Cole collection.)
The Sitka Spruce II (14K4531) is a shining example of how a vintage vessel is kept in good form long after its original intended professional life has ended. She was a second series "Blimp–design" of the British Columbia Forest Service. She was built in 1952 at the B.C. Forest Service Maintenance Depot in New Westminster BC. 10.5m x 2.7m x 0.9m (35.0’ x 8.5’ x ?) wooden hull 5gt. She is powered by a 3–71 Detroit diesel engine by General Motors Corporation, Detroit MI USA. In 1952–1979 she was owned by the British Columbia Forest Service. In 1979–2016 she was owned by David & Alison Colwell, Garibaldi Highland BC. In 2017-2022 she was owned by Carl Sills, Vancouver BC.
The Sitka Spruce II (Photo from the Carl Sills collection.)
Her current owner, Carl Sills, recently sent me a series of images that show off her best attributes and they also document the love and care he has invested in the preservation of the vessel. Forest Service vessels are charismatic and very popular with enthusiasts of floating heritage. The owners of these vessels maintain a strong social network and participate in floating heritage festivals around the coast.
The Sitka Spruce II in her Forest Service days.(Photo from the Carl Sills collection.)
Over the years the British Columbia Forest Service maintained a large fleet of vessels in support of its operations. Transporting staff to remote locations these vessels were indispensable as most locations served were beyond the provincial road network. Professional foresters carrying out mensuration, scaling, inventories and enforcement needed to get to the tree from their district offices. Professional mariners operated the vessels themselves. There is a at nominal list of these vessels in The Nauticapedia.
The logo of the British Columbia Forest Service. (Photo from the Carl Sills collection.)
The Sitka Spruce II berthed at an A–Frame north of Tofino i n1958. (Photo from the Carl Sills collection.)
Dramatic scenes of logging A–Frames once common on the British Columbia coast have pretty much disappeared.
The Sitka Spruce II On the hard at the Silva Bay Shipyard, Gabriola Island for hull repairs. The pic of Sitka on the ways was at Silva Bay on Gabriola. They removed the Gumwood banding on the starboard side to replace 2 planks that had rotted out. The Gumwood was reinstalled. (Photo from the Carl Sills collection.)
The Sitka Spruce II laid bare for refastening, replanking with air dried, quartersawn, old growth, complete recaulking, and repaint on the ways revealing the hull design and construction in the process of having her hull planks replaced. (Photo from the Carl Sills collection.)
The Sitka Spruce II on the hard replacing planking behind the gumwood ice shield. (Photo from the Carl Sills collection.)
The Sitka Spruce II in slings at Shelter Island where Sills performed the same procedure on the port side. (Photo from the Carl Sills collection.)
Vessel owner Carl Sills (Photo from the Carl Sills collection.)
If you see the Sitka Spruce II berthed, why not introduce yourself to owner Carl Sills. He is immensely proud of his vessel and I know he has lots of stories to share about the history of the vessel and how he came to own it. I'm sure he can also share a lot of technical information on what it takes to preserve a vessel of this kind.
To quote from this article please cite:
MacFarlane, John (2022) The Forestry Vessel Sitka Spruce II. Nauticapedia.ca 2021. http://nauticapedia.ca/Gallery/Sitka_Spruce_II.php
Site News: May 07, 2024
The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 92,798 vessel histories (with 15,646 images and 13,431 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters). The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,616 entries (with 4,013 images).
In 2023 the Nauticapedia celebrated the 50th Anniversary of it’s original inception in 1973 (initially it was on 3" x 5" file cards). It has developed, expanded, digitized and enlarged in those ensuing years to what it is now online. If it was printed out it would fill more than 300,000 pages!
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