When Plato wrote "necessity is the mother of invention" nearly 2,400 years ago, he surely couldn't have known that a twist on this philosophy would be applied to 21st century Western Hemisphere ports. Indeed, when the Greek philosopher wrote The Republic in 380 B.C., there wasn't so much as a thought of the Western Hemisphere's existence.
Yet this thinking - now viewed as "necessity is the mother of re-invention" - is seen as the saving grace for seaports facing today's historic economic crisis.
"We are having to re-invent ourselves," said Bernie A. Dumas, a 30-year transportation industry veteran who in January took on the task of president and chief executive officer of the Nanaimo Port Authority, succeeding Bill Mills, who served the British Columbia seaport for 22 years.
Now, not only is Mr. Mills gone, but so, to a great extent, are the jobs in mills that once annually produced millions of board-feet of 2-by-4s and other lumber that were exported across Nanaimo docks.
Before Mr. Mills retired, he set in motion efforts to boost the cruise industry at Nanaimo's port, a move paralleling tourism initiatives of the municipality of Nanaimo, a city of some 85,000 people situated on Vancouver Island, just off Canada's mainland.
Both the port and the city - like others on Canada's West Coast and in the U.S. Pacific Northwest - have struggled with the global decline in demand for their wood products.
"We all have to re-invent ourselves because the forest products industry is facing hard times," Mr. Dumas said.
This isn't the first time the port and city of Nanaimo have gone through a stage of re-invention. In the 19th century, the city and its seaport developed around the coal industry, which, upon its decline in the mid-1900s, was supplanted by forest products as the core business activity.
Now, the Nanaimo Port Authority is proceeding with an $18.5 million program to develop state-of-the-industry cruise facilities. Funding partners include the port authority, the Island Community Trust, the province of British Columbia and the Canadian federal government.
Engineering and environmental work are moving forward on the cruise project, with plans to convert some former forest product terminal facilities into cruise berthing and terminal space on target for shovel-readiness in the fall and projected completion in summer 2010.
Even without the modern cruise facilities, Nanaimo has begun to attract cruise activity, having hosted its first such seasonal call in 2005. In 2009, 10 large cruise ships are slated to call the port, as well as a half-dozen smaller "pocket" vessels, combining to bring in a record 22,000 passengers.
But the current port infrastructure does not support a cruise ship coming into the port itself, so the ships must anchor offshore, with passengers shuttled into port via tender vessels - an arrangement disfavored by cruise line executives.
The re-invention of Nanaimo's port isn't limited to the cruise arena. Mr. Dumas said efforts also are afoot to expand a portoperated marina, to enhance a seaplane operation that is under the port's aegis and to further develop waterfront plaza property that is adjacent to where the cruise terminal is to be built.
Nanaimo Port Authority officials are even redoing the port logo and the authority's Web page - www.npa.ca - is being reconstructed. Plato would be proud.
