On a sunny July day in 1953, playing on the sandy beach at Departure Bay, I saw an odd-shaped vessel out towards Brechin Point. It looked like a long-house trailer with a funnel on top. I thought it might be the Black Ball ferry that everybody had been talking about. It was to service the newly created run between Departure Bay and Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver.

About 10 minutes later, the vessel left the dock. I could clearly see her profile as she headed out around Newcastle Island. The hull and superstructure did not have the classic lines of the CPR Princess ships that I had become so accustomed to. Little did I know at the time that this ship actually predated the “old” Princess Elaine by about 25 years. It was the Kahloke.

Years later, I was to learn about the history of the vessel. Built in Philadelphia in 1903, she was originally named the Ashbury Park and powered by steam. In 1919, the Ashbury Park was acquired by a company in San Francisco that brought her through the Panama Canal to San Francisco Bay. The Ashbury Park was then converted from steam to diesel and renamed the City of Sacramento. In 1944, the City of Sacramento was purchased by the Puget Sound Navigation Company (which became the Black Ball Line) and relocated to Seattle. She first plied the waters of Puget Sound between Seattle and Bremerton. After 10 years of service, she was renamed the Kahloke and assigned as the first vessel on the Departure Bay - Horseshoe Bay run.

The Kahloke became very much a part of my early years growing up in Nanaimo. I would often see her sailing by when I was fishing around Five Fingers Island with my Dad in his old wooden sailboat. During the summer, my friend and I would launch a dinghy at the Nanaimo Yacht Club and venture down Newcastle Channel to a beach at the north end of Newcastle Island. We would wait for the Kahloke to pass and then swim in the wake that would wash ashore in the form of large, crashing waves.

In 1954, the Kahloke was joined on the Departure Bay - Horseshoe Bay service by the MV Chinook 2, a ferry that was built in 1947 and originally designed for the Port Angeles to Victoria ferry run.

Together, the Kahloke and Chinook 2 provided service to Horseshoe every two hours.

I sailed aboard the Kahloke a number of times, usually taking the bus. What I remember most was the long and rainy trip from Horseshoe Bay into downtown Vancouver. An upper levels highway didn’t exist at the time, so winding around rural West Vancouver seemed to take forever.

I left Nanaimo in 1957, and did not see much of the Kahloke during the next few years.

In 1963, she joined the fledgling fleet of ferries run by the government-owned B.C. Ferry Corporation. She was then transferred to the Langdale - Horseshoe Bay run and renamed the Langdale Queen.

In 1976, the Langdale Queen was decommissioned and removed from service. I saw her for the last time several years later, moored and partially submerged in Coal Harbour. It was like seeing an old friend on her deathbed.

In 1988, the Queen of Langdale experienced a fate similar to the one that the legendary CPR ship Princess Victoria suffered nearly 40 years earlier: her superstructure was removed and the remaining hull made into a barge.

The Kahloke under several names was in operation for about 70 years. Now, when I pass by the cove on the north end of Newcastle Island aboard the Coastal Renaissance, I fondly remember the Kahloke and my childhood years in Nanaimo.