Ask any long-term resident of the northwest coast about 'the chowder,' and you will be told that each Friday for almost two decades a diverse waterfront group has gathered each Friday at Sabre Marine in Seal Cove, Prince Rupert.

You will hear that this was a tradition begun by a legendary north coast towboater, the late Captain Charlie Currie, after he sold his tug, the C.R.C.

(And then, when you are speaking to a local, you will hear how Charlie once gave them a ride on the famous C.R.C .– to some church picnic, for a day at Salt Lakes or Tugwell Island.)

The chowder is about friendship and stories. Everybody here has a story. Perry Boyle, the owner of Sabre Marine, first logged with a steam donkey. Randolph Mostad was a respected halibut skipper, and Freddie Letts was the son of Oona River pioneers.

Yet all the yarns revolve around those told by Charlie. His was a respected, senior voice. He was in Prince Rupert before the place became a city, he worked around the boats all his life, and ran the C.R.C. for 50 years. Before his death in 1997, Charlie’s stories had even become a weekly newspaper column, and later a book.

Soon after Charlie died, the people at 'the chowder' began to talk about the C.R.C. It seemed that one day none of the wooden boats would be left. And then, somehow, the idea was hatched that the C.R.C.–working on the Queen Charlotte Islands since Charlie sold her in 1979–should be returned to Prince Rupert as a memorial.

Chowder "regular" Ray Gardiner, waterfront columnist for a local newspaper, transformed this into a public discussion: the C.R.C. would become a reminder of the time when all the chowder stories were born.

The C.R.C. was designed by Charlie and built for him at the Prince Rupert Drydock over the winter of 1928-’29. By 1997 she was in sad shape, her hull worm-eaten and her decks soggy.

But on the evening of May 16, 1998, with the Wainwright Marine tug Cadal running alongside for support, the C.R.C. began her return home with Charlie’s youngest son, Robert (Butch) Currie, at the helm. Early the following morning the C.R.C. tied up at Oona River after a successful crossing of Hecate Strait. After a fresh coat of paint, she entered Prince Rupert harbor at the head of a flotilla of local boats, She launched the annual Seafest celebrations and arrived at Sabre Marine in time for the June 12 chowder.

The C.R.C. restoration might have begun as a project of 'the chowder' group, but the idea was quickly adopted by many other northwest residents.

The idea of "saving" the C.R.C. had been vague – perhaps the group would fix up the boat enough to display it in a park, or something of that nature. But the Museum of Northern British Columbia expressed its interest in accepting the tug into its collections, no matter what direction the group chose to take. And Ken McLean, third generation owner of McLean’s Shipyard in Seal Cove, himself one of the earliest "regulars" for Charlie’s chowder, carried the project into a full-scale restoration. In the autumn of 1998, the C.R.C. was raised at McLean’s Shipyard and her hull was completely refurbished.

With the hull now watertight, the long search began for all of the parts and pieces needed to rebuild the boat, and this process consumed much of the following three years.

An old tow post was found in storage at McLean’s; a steering wheel came from the 1940s seiner Carolina Maria; wooden blocks and hemp rope were scrounged whenever they could be found. At Certified Welding & Machining, Butch Currie manufactured the dozens of necessary fittings. Beginning in 1998, and continuing until the restoration was finished, Tyee Building Supplies cheerfully contributed all of the construction materials. Dozens of other Prince Rupert businesses took up the cause.

When Captain Currie designed the C.R.C. he had anticipated the need to change things below decks, and had made the wheelhouse easily removable. In autumn of 2000, the wheelhouse was taken to the home of Randolph Mostad, who lovingly restored it to its original condition. Today it appears much as it did when the vessel was launched, as elegantly finished as a piece of fine furniture.

In the autumn of 2001, McLean’s again lifted the C.R.C., and that winter Oona River fisherman and boat carpenter Freddie Letts worked at McLean’s to finish the hull. Assisted by retired troller Dick Gilker, retired radio technician Fred Cringan, and other volunteers, Letts rebuilt C.R.C. from the deck beams up. The project took Letts and his crew three months. The vast amount of cedar needed for the job was supplied in part by West Fraser Mills through their local sawmill, North Coast Timber, and then by Group Mills in Oona River.

Group Mills also provided a Caterpillar D-13,000, an industrial model of the same engine that was in the C.R.C. when Charlie won tugboat races with the boat back in the 1940s. In the spring of 2002 the engine was refurbished and converted to marine use by Bytown Diesel Sales.

From the beginning, the future care of the C.R.C. has been the main concern of the chowder group. The idea, or at least an adaptable plan, is that in 2004, the 75th anniversary of the boat’s launch, the C.R.C. will be transferred to the Museum of Northern B.C. for permanent display.

But first, as a way to thank those who have contributed so much to seeing the C.R.C. return to life, Charlie’s friends will operate the C.R.C. Because that’s where this has led.

This is their tribute to the days of the Mosquito Fleet, when wooden boats swarmed the northern coast, and Charlie and the C.R.C. were faithful friends.

To see the tug in period costume, running down the harbor just as she did half a century ago, seems a fitting result to spring from the ideas at Charlie’s chowder.