Six years after the MV Lady Rose made her final, poignant trip out of the Alberni Harbour and motored toward Tofino’s horizon, the iconic passenger and cargo vessel still evokes soft, pleasant memories for people who have ridden her.
Hundreds of people lined Harbour Quay on the day the Lady Rose left town, destined at the time to become a tourist draw on Tofino’s waterfront. Even now, people spy her replacement the MV Frances Barkley, and can’t help but say “I remember when…”
While memories make the Lady Rose’s history soft and rosy, the past few years have not been kind to the matriarch of Alberni Inlet boating. She has been rusting away for six years at a dock in Tofino, her owner’s dreams of perhaps opening up a floating ‘Lady Rose’ restaurant seeming to have drifted away with the tides.
Port Alberni’s Mike Wright wants to give the Lady Rose her dignity back, and return her to the Alberni Valley’s waterfront as a tourist draw.
Wright broached the idea of forming a fundraising foundation and applying for grant money to complete the refurbishment the vessel will require to even get it onto dry land. He has no illusions about creating any sort of floating restaurant with the Lady Rose, but feels she deserves better than to sit neglected at a private dock.
He stresses that public money should not be sunk into this project, and we have to agree.
Private enterprise has proven it can work on Port Alberni’s waterfront: Daniel Savard and Bouchra Zouhou own Swept Away Inn, a tugboat they purchased and converted into a bed and breakfast, and dinnertime restaurant. With a solid plan, it can be done.
The timing for Wright’s proposal may be six years too late, but we’re willing to reserve judgment: all it takes is one person thinking outside the proverbial box for a project to be successful, and Wright is determined. He could be the one.
Would we like to see the Lady Rose returned to her rightful throne in the Alberni Harbour? Yes, of course. We just don’t want to see public money going into the endeavour.
— Alberni Valley News
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