A.P. Knight (I)

On December 22, 1947 this vessel was destroyed by fire at the Paciific Biological Station wharf at Departure Bay BC Canada. Gord Miller (British Columbia Nautical History Facebook Group 06/03/2017) states that "A P Knight was the ongoing chairman of the Biological Board of Canada (early name of Fisheries Research Board of Canada). Dr. John P. Tully (Nanaimo Historical Society March 17, 1970) stated "The ship was 59 feet 11 inches long. One inch short of the requirement for steam ship inspection. It had a hot surface stationary diesel engine taken out of an old power plant--1904 vintage--and is started up by lighting blow torches on the top. It had a coal furnace, as gasoline engine for generating electricity, and a gas stove. It lasted thirty years before it blew up and burned. In this vessel Dr. A.T. Hutcheson, Professor of Botany, at the University of British Columbia with several students who have since become famous, conducted an oceanographic investigation to learn why the Strait of Georgia was so productive.

He was primarily interested in plant plankton, little floating microscopic life in the sea which lives on sunlight, phosphate and nitrates in the water and is the basic food on which all other marine life depends.

He learned that each year the Fraser [River] creates a brackish surface layer which circulates with the tide and eventually is flushed to sea through the Southern and Northern passages. Also he learned that the phosphate content of the water was greater that any recorded elsewhere in the world.

He concluded correctly that the phosphate came from the Pacific Ocean and not from sewage. Actually there is more than twice as much phosphate in North Pacific waters then in the pollution-ridden Lake Erie's in Ontario. And more than twice as much as there is in the Atlantic. In consequence, these waters produce more plant plankton than any other. The reason we do not have pollution type accumulation of algae here is that there is enough zeo-plankton in Nanaimo to eat it. And, in turn. there are enough fish to keep the zeo-plankton under control by grazing. This super abundance of food and temperatures accounts for the extreme productivity of our waters. The study of productivity lapsed from 1931 to 1958 when it was revived with elaborate modern technology by Dr. Strickland and Dr. Parsons. The later has extended his study across the ocean to Japan proving what Dr. Hutcheson had forecasted."