Pacific Salvage Company Limited

Originally known as “British Columbia Salvage” and associated with the Bullen yard (B.C. Marine Railway) in Esquimalt. The company became Pacific Salvage Company Ltd in 1916 after Arthur and Newton Burdick assumed full control. Pacific Salvage and its predecessor were involved in many notable salvage operations, successful and unsuccessful, on the B.C. coast between 1906 and 1942. In the 1920s, the company moved to a location to the West of the Burrard Drydock Company in North Vancouver where, in addition to ongoing salvage jobs, it operated a shipyard that built 11 scows and two patrol vessels between 1929 and 1938. Early in WWII, the shipyard was expanded and commenced business as the Pacific Dry Dock Company. It began construction of 10,000 freighters and was sold to Burrard Dry Dock Company which operated it as North Vancouver Ship Repairs Ltd. Pacific Salvage was sold to Straits Towing in 1948.