Empress of Japan (1890)

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Replica of the Empress of Japan figurehead in Vancouver's Stanley Park.

The Royal Mail Ship Empress of Japan was a trans-Pacific ocean liner, also known as the Queen of the Pacific ^[1], owned and operated by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR).

The original ship was built in England and arrived in Vancouver in 1891 in the service of CPR after it was awarded the trans-Pacific mail delivery contract for the British Empire. It also transported passengers and cargo, notably Japanese tea. The Empress was converted for the war effort during the Great War, and consequently lost the elegant white gleam associated with luxury cruise ships. In 1923, the old war-weary ship was used in a different kind of battle when the CPR used it to house strikebreakers in a Vancouver waterfront strike.^[2]

RMS Empress of Japan in Vancouver Harbour, 1894(?).

It was part of a fleet of Empress ships, but the Empress of Japan stood out in part because she held the speed record for crossing the Pacific for 22 years of its existence. The ship was in active service until 1922, where it remained in Vancouver's harbour until 1926. Over the course of her career, the Empress traversed 4 million kilometres (2.5 million miles).^[3] The CPR finally replaced the old ship with a new one, the RMS Empress of Japan II.

The figurehead was rescued after being discarded from during the salvage of the Empress I by the Vancouver Daily Province newspaper. It was restored and in 1927 was mounted for public display in Vancouver's Stanley Park. That figurehead was itself replaced in 1960 with a fibreglass replica, as the original was beginning to deteriorate. The original figurehead has been once again restored and is now housed at the Vancouver Maritime Museum as part of its permanent collection. Various portions of the ship's lavish interior were also scavenged by local homeowners from Vancouver's wealthiest neighbourhoods and added to their homes and property values.^[4]