Set up in 1960 to provide a similar service to that provided by the Black Ball Line and the Canadian Pacific Railway, which were affected by job action at the time, BC Ferries has become the largest passenger ferry line in North America,[2] operating a fleet of 41 vessels with a total passenger and crew capacity of over 27,000, serving 47 locations on the B.C.

The responsibility for their provision rests with the British Columbia Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, which contracts operation to various private sector companies.

At its inception, BC Ferries was a division of the British Columbia Toll Highways and Bridges Authority, a provincial Crown corporation.

In the summer of 1958, a strike by employees of CP Steamships and the Black Ball Line caused the Social Credit government of W. A. C. Bennett to decide that the coastal ferry service in British Columbia needed to be government-owned, and so it set about creating BC Ferries.

Minister of Highways Phil Gaglardi was tasked with overseeing the new Crown corporation and its rapid expansion.

BC Ferries' first route, commissioned in 1960, was between Swartz Bay, north of Sidney on Vancouver Island, and Tsawwassen, an area in Delta, using just two vessels.

Another method of satisfying increasing demand for service was BC Ferries' unique "stretch and lift" program, involving seven vessels being cut in half and extended, and five of those vessels later cut in half again and elevated, to increase their passenger and vehicle-carrying capacities.

This action dramatically increased the size of BC Ferries' fleet and its geographical service area.

A controversy began in July 2004 when BC Ferries, under a new American CEO, announced that the company had disqualified all Canadian bids to build three new Coastal-class ships, and only the proposals from European shipyards were being considered.

The argument for domestic construction of the ferries was that it would employ numerous British Columbia workers, revitalize the sagging B.C.

"[4] On September 17, 2004, BC Ferries awarded[5] the vessel construction contract to Germany's Flensburger shipyard.

All four ferries were designed and built by Remontowa Shipbuilding S.A. in Gdansk, Poland, and are dual-fuel, capable of operating on liquefied natural gas and marine diesel.