It’s the end of an era: the Albion Ferry sailed for the last time today, bringing more than 50 years of service to a close.

The ferry has been connecting Langley to Maple Ridge since June 7, 1957, and its two vessels, the MV Klatawa and MV Kulleet took their last public trips at noon. I hopped on the Kulleet at the Maple Ridge side for its last round trip!

The walk-on passengers and drivers honked horns and cheered for the public leg of the trip to Langley, led by the amazing, super-nice Albion Ferry staff. And hat’s the Albion Ferry staff cheering above as the Kulleet made its last trip back over to Maple Ridge, solely with Albion Ferry, CMBC, and TransLink staff.

(A transition program has been in place for two years to help them find new positions — many are going to SeaBus, some chose to retire, and some chose to try other opportunities.)

We’re so glad to see the service was so cherished—thank you to everyone at Albion Ferry for all your work, and thanks to everyone who rode the ferry over the years.

For more, check out my set of photos over at Flickr, plus several videos at the Buzzer’s YouTube account (here’s a full playlist of just the Albion videos).

Edit: Chris Cassidy has a Flickr set of photos too. I see you got to wear a captain’s hat on the last sailing — nice work Chris!

Edit 2: CJ Stebbing also has a photo gallery at Facebook. I even got into one of the pictures there! And CJ really is super tall.