1886-1988::The Race of the Christmas Orange Ships to Vancouver Island

Japanese Mandarin Oranges. Every year. Just in time for Christmas!

"1936::Ten Thousand Boxes of Japanese Mandarin Oranges Being Unloaded From the Ss. Empress of Canada on the Rithet Docks of Victoria, British Columbia"

Photo Clip: Victoria Daily Times (1936)

Victoria, British Columbia

1936 was a good year for mandarin oranges. Canada had recently settled a tariff dispute with Japan, which meant lower import prices and a record shipment of oranges on the way. After fifty years of trade, Japan's delectable little fruit had become a holiday tradition on Canada's West Coast, being picked off the trees in October and shipped as fast as possible to Vancouver Island to arrive in the weeks before Christmas.

Before refrigeration, a ship's speediness meant everything. The faster the ship, the less the spoil, and the farther away the oranges could be sold. Every November since 1886, when the newly completed Canadian Pacific Railway connected Canadians from coast to coast, a fleet of ships laden with freshly picked Japanese mandarin oranges raced across the Pacific Ocean, hoping to become the First Orange Ship to pass Race Rocks off the southern tip of Vancouver Island. The First Orange Ship was an honourary title proudly accepted by the winning ship's captain and crew, and it came with perks. Theirs would be the first ship to unload their crates of oranges on Victoria's docks and earn top dollar for their early arrival. More importantly, the arrival of the First Orange Ship kicked off Western Canada's Christmas season and brought holiday cheer to Vancouver Islanders, who, year after year, became the first on the continent to taste the season's mandarin oranges from Japan.

"1858::Oranges Arrive in Victoria for the Fraser River Gold Rush"

Clip: The Province (1938)

Vancouver, British Columbia

In the summer of 1858, tens of thousands of California miners rushed northward to Victoria on Vancouver Island, the gateway to the newly discovered Fraser River gold. This mad rush of unexpected visitors caught Victorians off-guard as they filled up the city's hotel rooms, hired all available transports to the mainland, and bought up whatever food was in the markets. Amid the chaos, a man named Richard Haggerty stood at the corner of Johnson Street and Waddington Alley, selling a basketful of California oranges. When they were all sold out, he replenished his basket and did it again. By the end of summer, the city folk and their guests knew that Waddington Alley was the place to buy a thirst-quenching orange. Haggerty's had become the first oranges sold regularly in Victoria, but they were from somewhere other than California. They were from Tahiti.

"1849::San Francisco Imports Tahitian Oranges for the California Gold Rush Miners"

Clip: The Illustrated London News (1850)

London, England

The story of West Coast oranges dates back to the early 1840s when only a few pioneers knew about or even tasted a mandarin orange. Tahitian oranges occasionally arrived on San Francisco's docks, but a structured trade agreement scarcely existed before the rich discovery of California gold. Oranges growing abundantly on the Society Islands were often picked up by whaling fleets who supplied themselves by the boatload for next to nothing in trade or for free if they could get away with loading them onto their ship unnoticed. However, in 1848, when a substantial gold strike in California was reported in newspapers across North America, the rush to the West was on, and the peopling of the coast affected trade. A price was eventually set on Tahiti's oranges, and within a decade, California had become the Society Islands' biggest customer, importing an average of five million Tahitian oranges per season.

For years, Tahitian oranges were considered the best in the Pacific Ocean, keeping longer and travelling better and farther than any other orange. But in 1851, when a blight appeared among Tahiti's orange trees,

the superstitious Society Islanders blamed the previous season's great California fire, which caused a large shipment of Tahitian oranges to burn on San Francisco's docks. They believed the fire had cursed their orange trees from afar, covering them with a sooty substance as if they had been smoked. The blight damaged their trade by prompting Californians to seek other options.

"1859::Tahitian Packaging"

Clip: Sacramento Bee (1859)

Sacramento, California

Over the next several years, California's Chinese and Japanese merchants made several attempts to import mandarin oranges from their faraway home, but the fruit often arrived spoiled, unable to survive such a long voyage confined in the deep hold of a ship. Orange tree seeds were also imported and successfully planted, but their growth and production were a slow process. Then suddenly, something changed. Japanese exporters had learned that the Tahitian secret to the orange trade was to wrap each orange individually in a green coconut leaf to keep the shipment from spoiling on its long journey to the California market. It was a brilliant idea, but without an abundant supply of coconut leaves, the Japanese merchants had to compromise.

"1862::Japanese Mandarins Arrive on the Coast"

Clip: The Sonoma County Journal (1862)

Petaluma, California

In 1862, the first shipment of Japanese mandarin oranges arrived on the San Francisco market. Each orange had been wrapped in green tissue and placed in a wooden box containing four dozen oranges. The boxes were then shipped in tightly bound bundles of two, another Tahitian trick of the trade that developed even further over the next twenty years through trial and error. However, when a new kind of development arrived further north in British Columbia, the Japanese mandarin trade quickly became one of the most successful in the Pacific.

"1885::The Canadian Pacific Railway Opens the Commonwealth Gateway to the Orient"

Map Clip: Canadian Pacific Railway Promotional Pamphlette (1890)

In 1885, Canada's first transcontinental train rolled into British Columbia from Montreal. The new Canadian Pacific Railway offered safe passage through the Rocky Mountains and easy access to the country's far-off outposts along the Pacific coast, a connection that opened doors to endless trade opportunities in far-off places.

"1885::The Gateway to the Orient"

Clip: The Victoria Daily Times (1885) Victoria, British Columbia

Canada's new coast-to-coast rail line opened up Vancouver's telegraphic communication with the world and brought the Pacific Ocean within fourteen days of Great Britain, a journey that previously took two to three months. But something else happened. Great Britain realized that such a fast journey to the Pacific also meant 24 days from London to Japan and a speedy trade opportunity with the Orient that was never thought possible.

"1891::Canadian Pacific Railway's New Empress Line Steamers"

Clip: Canadian Pacific Railway Advertisement (1891)

The British government immediately arranged a regular Royal Mail delivery line to the Orient via the Canadian Pacific Railway, granting the company nearly 100,000 dollars monthly to make it happen. In addition to this grant, they agreed to help them build large steamships to transport their mail, goods and passengers across the Pacific Ocean. Within a few short years, the Canadian Pacific Railway's Empress Line of steamships arrived on the coast, kicking off extensive trade agreements overseas. Rice, tea, silk, and opium were considered big-ticket items, but so were Japanese mandarin oranges, and they were on their way to Vancouver Island.

"1890::Victoria's Geographical and Commercial Position for Canada's New Highway to the Orient"

Map Clip: The Victoria Daily Times (1890)

Victoria, British Columbia

Victoria played a major role in the early mandarin orange story. It was the shortest distance across the water from Japan and, for a time, the destination port of all orange ships. Victorians consumed many of the first shipments of oranges, having purchased them before they even arrived. Californians, concerned about how mandarins brought diseases to the flourishing orange crops they had worked so hard to develop, banned mandarin orange imports altogether, leaving them to become a mostly British Columbian product.

"1915::Oranges Arrive Sold in Vancouver"

Clip: The Daily News-Advertiser (1915) Victoria, British Columbia

After Victorians claimed what was theirs from the orange ships, a speedy new steamer called the SS Islander, built to service the island and lower mainland, redistributed the rest of the oranges to Vancouver and other island ports.

"1913::The Orange Ships and World War I"

Clip: Victoria Daily Times (1924)

Victoria, British Columbia

By the turn of the 20th century, transporting mandarin oranges had become a quick way for a ship's company to make a lot of money. However, the outbreak of war slowed the demand for trade, and many orange ships were recruited for strategic military use. When the Great War ended, the orange trade resumed stronger than ever.

"1924::The Gift of Japanese Mandarins"

Clip: Carstairs News (1924)

Carstairs, Alberta

After the Great War, Mandarin oranges became a wildly popular Christmas gift when the Canadian Pacific Railway offered West Coasters a chance to send a box of mandarins to loved ones across Canada. Using their new refrigerated rail cars, the railway had arranged low-cost mandarin orange express delivery services with other rail companies in exchange for inserting a West Coast promotional pamphlet inside each box. Their idea was a huge success. By 1926, eleven million Japanese mandarin oranges had been being rushed across the country to the East Coast, packed in 109 refrigerated cars in four special trains. By 1928, Canada was importing 4.26 Japanese mandarin oranges per person for each of the nine million people in Canada.

"1946::The Orange Ships and World War II"

Clip: The Province (1946)

Vancouver, British Columbia

The mandarin orange trade slowed again at the onset of World War II. However, in 1941, after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, political sentiment caused the trade to cease altogether. Tangerines from Florida and Texas were imported as replacements but weren't quite the same. When the war ended, Western Canada was the only area outside the Orient that resumed importing Japanese oranges.

"1950::20,000 Post-War Japanese Oranges Arrive at Ogden Point in Victoria, British Columbia"

Photo Clip: Victoria Daily Times (1950)

Victoria, British Columbia

After WWII, the Japanese mandarin orange trade was slow to recover. But in 1949, a whopping 50 million oranges funnelled through Victoria and Vancouver, once again kicking off the Christmas season and causing parents to hide their orange boxes from their offspring, who had little trouble going through them in a day or two.

The race of the orange ships resumed, and the arrival of the First Orange Ship to pass Race Rocks became a bigger deal. The First Orange Ship was now greeted on the dock with a welcoming ceremony, and the captain given gifts as a token of appreciation for his company's speedy transport.

"1960::560,000 Post-War Japanese Oranges Arrive in Vancouver, British Columbia"

Photo Clip: The Vancouver Sun (1960)

Vancouver, British Columbia

In 1962, 100 years after the first Japanese mandarin oranges were sold in San Francisco, California opened its door to the Japanese mandarin trade. This event marked the beginning of the end for the Orange Ships and their traditional race across the Pacific. In 1965, Japanese fleets with refrigerated systems took over the trade and eliminated the need to race.

"1988::100 Years of Orange Ships"

Clip: The Advance Christmas Catalogue (1988)

Langley, British Columbia

Despite changing the packaging from traditional wooden boxes to colourful cardboard boxes, British Columbians celebrated the First Orange Ship for many more years. Japanese mandarin oranges remain a West Coast Christmas holiday tradition today.