On a recent weekend we took the Seabus over to Lonsdale Quay. The Seabus is both romantic and reliable, a rare enough combination in this world. On the way back, I took a photo of the big container-handling cranes.

Container-handling cranes at Vancouver harbor

I don’t know what proportion of Canada’s import/export business these things wrangle but the numbers are big; this is the busiest port in Canada (and also on the whole West Coast of North America) measured by tonnage.

William Gibson fans: the closing scenes of Spook Country are set right around here.



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From: Derek K. Miller (Oct 20 2008, at 15:10)

Keep in mind that most of Vancouver's port tonnage is bulk commodities: coal, wheat, sulphur, potash, and so on, poured into ships' holds rather than moved by cranes like these.

While we process a lot of containers, our port lags considerably behind others on the West Coast in terms of container tonnage, or the measure they really use, TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units -- one regular container is two TEUs).

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