Ferries from Cormorant Island (Alert Bay)

This is not a shuttle, it is a triangle. One vessel works Port McNeill, Alert Bay and Sointula in a circuit, which means the boat leaving here may reach your destination first or last depending on where in the loop it is.

Where the ferries go

• Port McNeill on Vancouver Island — about 40 minutes, 7 sailings.
• Sointula on Malcolm Island — about 35 minutes, 7 sailings.

29 active sailings across the terminal, operated by BC Ferries with the Aurora — about 47 vehicles and 142 people. The route is non-bookable; service starts around 06:20.

⚠ Read the circuit, not the clock

A sailing listed as leaving in twenty minutes might go to Sointula first and reach Port McNeill an hour later, or the reverse. Ticket sales and loading close 3 minutes before departure for vehicles and 5 for foot passengers.

There is no parking at the Alert Bay terminal, so anyone leaving a vehicle behind is doing it on the Port McNeill side.

U'mista

Alert Bay is on Cormorant Island, home of the 'Namgis First Nation, and the U'mista Cultural Centre here holds one of the most significant collections of repatriated potlatch regalia in Canada — masks and coppers seized in 1921 under the potlatch ban and returned decades later.

The name means "the return of something important". It is the reason most visitors make this crossing.

The island

Small, walkable, with a boardwalk along the front, the world's tallest totem pole among its landmarks, and a working fishing harbour. Cormorant Island is a short crossing but a long way from anywhere else.

Season

Year round on the same circuit. North Vancouver Island weather cancels sailings; there is no alternative route.