When it was launched a century ago, the Mill Bay-Brentwood Bay ferry service promised “easy access to up-Island points for local automobile traffic and an alternative route for motorists during the tourist season,” according to a story in the Victoria Daily Times.
The S.S. Cascade, a remodelled 22-year-old coastal tramp steamer, began making round trips across Saanich Inlet in the fall of 1924, with the ability to carry an average of a dozen cars.
The route launched in October, after wharves were constructed in Brentwood Bay and Mill Bay — despite opposition from the Malahat First Nation, which argued that part of their reserve was being used without permission, depriving them of a productive clam bed, according to the Daily Colonist.
The service went ahead, but just before Christmas, the S.S. Cascade sank in the icy waters of Brentwood Bay after shell ice that had formed on top of the water opened the seams in the vessel’s wooden hull.
The vessel was salvaged, however, and went back into service, providing seven round trips a day by 1926. The S.S. Cascade, later renamed the S.S. Brentwood, would continue to work Route #12 for almost 35 years, initially under operator Cascade Freighting and Towing Company.
That December 1924 sinking and recovery was an early sign of the resilience of the little ferry service, whose more recent challenges include the sharpened pencils of B.C. Ferries cost-cutters.
In 1945, Coast Ferries Ltd. bought Cascade Freighting and took over the ferry run. The S.S. Cascade was repowered with a diesel engine and renamed the S.S. Brentwood.
To handle additional traffic during reconstruction and paving of the Malahat, the S.S. Brentwood was joined in 1956 by the new MV Mill Bay, built at the Victoria Machinery Depot, and the two ships ran the route together for two years, before the Brentwood was retired.
The MV Mill Bay ended up running continuously for 55 years, although B.C. Ferries took over the vessel and route in 1969.
Twenty years later, the MV Mill Bay had its most notable incident when it ran up onto a private beach south of its usual docking point in Mill Bay, although no one was hurt.
A B.C. Ferries spokesman said at the time that the captain, who wasn’t even conscious when the incident happened, would be demoted two ranks and suspended for a month. The captain had been racing the weekend prior to the accident in the Cape Flattery race in the annual Swiftsure sailing competition, according to a Times Colonist story.
In recent years, the Brentwood-Mill Bay ferry service has faced challenges that are more existential that physical.
The viability and value of the route have been challenged repeatedly, prompted by concerns over low passenger numbers and the expense of infrastructure — despite its role as a relief valve when the Malahat is blocked by a crash, washout or other problem.
Ideas floated through the years included scrapping the route entirely, relocating terminals for a new run between Cowichan Bay and Swartz Bay or contracting out the service to the private sector.
A 1997 suggestion to replace the ferry with a bridge between the Saanich Peninsula and Mill Bay was dismissed by Murray Coell, former MLA for Saanich North and the Islands, as “the most ridiculous idea I have seen in 13 years.”
After B.C. Ferries suggested closing the route due to poor financial performance in an August 2000 report, ferry supporters fired up a months-long campaign to save it.
The Save Our Ferries Coalition, representing residents and businesses, collected 19,000 signatures in support of keeping the ferry in service.
They were rewarded at the end of January 2001, when Joy McPhail, then minister responsible for B.C. Ferries, announced the decision to retain the route. The ferry corporation even promised to invest $3.8 million to upgrade the ferry and docks.
Today, the 156-foot-long Klitsa, built in 1972, is the sole ferry on the run. It can carry up to 19 cars and 150 passengers and crew on the 25-minute journey, and makes about nine round trips a day. A ferry ride costs $7.55 per adult passenger. Take a vehicle and the price is $24.95.
The Brentwood Bay-Mill Bay ferry route has repeatedly been a transportation lifeline — when a major accident shuts down the Malahat, drivers turn to the ferry, sometimes waiting for hours for the chance to get across the inlet.
The ferry made more than 3,000 round trips last year, carrying almost 190,000 passengers — up from 184,000 riders the previous year, according to B.C. Ferries’ annual report for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024.
Central Saanich Mayor Ryan Windsor said people seek the ferry out for a different experience than driving over the Malahat.
When passengers arrive on the Saanich Peninsula from the Mill Bay side, “They may come through our town and stop in at one of the coffee shops, for example,” Windsor said.
“If nothing else, it just provides an avenue for exposure that probably otherwise wouldn’t be there, given we’re on a peninsula.”
Senior Capt. Martin Nielsen said many passengers commute back and forth for work. “They really form relationships because they are seeing each other all the time,” said Nielsen, who also works on the large ferries out of Swartz Bay.
Passengers also get to know the four-person crew — a captain, a mate, a deckhand and an engineer. Its two regular crews work four days on and four days off, on 12-hour shifts.
The views are a perk. Nielsen points to “beautiful Brentwood Bay with the marinas on either side [and] the beautiful view down the Saanich Inlet.”
Tourists beef up numbers during the busy summer season, when cyclists pour onto the ferry to ride across the Inlet.
Klitsa deckhand Hardeep Parmar, well-known among travellers for his helpful and friendly manner and quick wit, was recently honoured with a hospitality award from Destination Greater Victoria.
Crew members are known to slip cookies to favourite dogs on board.
Capt. Aaron Hook said the route “means a lot to the community,” with some businesses relying on the ferry to serve customers on both sides of the inlet. “People are really attached to it.”
Hook said ferry riders get a bonus in the chance to see marine life like whales and jumping salmon.
“We’ve got all the fish running upstream right now. If you look overboard right now you’ll see they’re jumping all over the place. They’re all coming up to Goldstream.
“This is part of our B.C. coast. Not everybody gets to see this stuff.”
On a recent crossing, Pauline Prince, 92, was dropped at the Brentwood Bay terminal by her grandson and met by her son on the Bill Bay side, with Parmar assisting her off the ferry. He didn’t need to be asked — he keeps an eye out for passengers who may need help.
Prince made the trip to meet up with her four siblings in Maple Bay who hadn’t been all together for more than a year, she said. “I haven’t driven since COVID so [riding the ferry] is the perfect way to do it.”
Originally from Saskatchewan, Prince said she has ridden the ferry for decades to visit family on the Mill Bay side.
Another couple who caught the ferry in Mill Bay and walked on to meet friends for lunch in Brentwood Bay praised the ferry’s convenience, saying it’s consistently on time and more relaxing than driving the Malahat.
“It’s just the friendliest that we’ve experienced. The crew is just great every time. They’re friendly, funny.”
Arlene Piluke of Mill Bay said she rides the ferry to meet her twin sister in Brentwood Bay.
“The only thing the ferry is missing is fishing poles,” she joked. “I would like to put a line out and catch something.”
Piluke said she’s been riding the ferry frequently for many years, and “never had a bad experience.”
Its future may have been in question many times in the past century, but for its regular passengers, the oldest continuous service ferry service in B.C. continues to live up to its promise as the “Island’s most beautiful shortcut.”
