Canby Ferry

North Locust Street runs out of Canby to the Willamette River and ends at a ferry landing. Across the water is the Stafford side of Wilsonville. The boat that works between the two banks is the M.J. Lee II. It is a steel-hulled, double-ended passenger and car ferry, 84 feet long with its ramps and 36 feet across the beam. Two 75-horsepower electric Harbormaster Z-drives push it at a service speed of 6.4 miles an hour. It holds six autos or 25 tons. Clackamas County gives its passenger capacity as 43, crew included. The City of Canby’s tourism page gives 49.

There is no timetable. The operators cross as riders arrive, and the trip takes about five minutes. The ferry does not run when the river stands at 70 feet or higher. Under fares effective July 1, 2025, a walker, bicyclist or motorcyclist pays $3 one way, and a car, pickup or trailer up to 22 feet pays $5. Fares are paid at the boat in cash or by check. In 2014 the Lake Oswego Review listed the ferry’s traffic as drivers, cyclists, equestrians and pedestrians. Along with the Wheatland and Buena Vista ferries, it is one of three still crossing the Willamette. In 2019 OPB placed the nearest bridges at Interstate 5 in Wilsonville and Oregon Route 99E in Oregon City, each about 10 miles outside Canby.

A memorial plaque is fixed to the ferry, and an interpretive panel stands at the landing. Both were unveiled on September 17, 2014, the centennial of a crossing that began with a secondhand boat.

A splashboard boat from Newberg

In 1914, according to the Lake Oswego Review, members of the Canby Business Men’s Club wanted a way to move goods across the river and a shorter route to the county fair for people on the west bank. They collected $500 and went to Newberg to buy a ferry being retired there. The county’s historical notes, compiled from information by Canby historian Myra Weston, record the purchase in July 1914 by Canby Mayor W.H. Bair and by Harry B. Evans for the club. The boat had no engine. A splashboard driven by the river current moved it, and a cable held it on course. The Oregonian reports that it first crossed in August 1914, carrying people to and from the Clackamas County Fair. The Review says it ran for the length of the fair and was then tied up until the next year. The first ferryman, Clem Dollar, received $10 a month from the City of Canby.

In May 1916 the city council authorized $250 for a gas-driven ferry. Frank E. Dodge, a Canby builder, finished it in 1917 for $238. It was 44 feet long and 12 feet wide. That same season, 1917–1918, Edward Kilgallen succeeded Dollar, and the wage dropped to $7.50 a month. Kilgallen had lost an arm in childhood. By his own figuring he crossed the river 1,261 times and carried 1,942 passengers. In 1932 he was found dead in the boathouse at the ferry slip.

W.B. Nolen also drew $7.50 a month as ferryman in 1919 and 1920. In 1921 a third ferry went into service. It was 45 feet by 15, with the second boat’s six-horsepower engine and a new propeller. Theodore Neep ran it from 1933 to 1942 and lived with his family in a county-furnished house on the south landing.

Over Willamette Falls

In January 1946 heavy rains flooded the river. The ferry was swept from its moorings, and pieces of it went over Willamette Falls. For the next seven years there was no crossing. In June 1952 the Canby Chamber and the Lions Club presented the Clackamas County Court with 8,000 signatures asking for the ferry back. OPB, citing the county, says the county took the ferry over in 1952. That September the commissioners approved a steel-hulled ferryboat from L.S. Baier of Milwaukie.

The fourth Canby Ferry was launched at Baier’s plant in November 1952. Ora Lee Cattley christened it. She was the daughter of Canby’s first mayor, Heman A. Lee, and granddaughter of Philander and Anna Green Lee. The county dates the Lees’ arrival in the Canby area to 1847, and the Canby Historical Society dates it to 1848. The boat was named the M.J. Lee for Millard Jerome Lee. The county calls him the first child born, in 1872, in the town platted in 1870. The Review calls him the first child born in the incorporated city.

Service resumed on July 3, 1953, with William H. Criteser and Bill Bruck as ferrymen and Chester Weaver as third operator. Some of the men who followed stayed for decades. Miller (Ace) Mays ran the boat from 1956 to 1986, Victor Hodel from 1959 to 1979, and Richard W. Hill from 1960 to 1978. In 1961 the ferry appeared on the cover of Sunset magazine. The crossing was free until 1986, when a one-way toll of $1 was set.

The second M.J. Lee

The boat was renovated and repainted in 1989. That year the Coast Guard declared it would not be recertified. It failed a Coast Guard safety inspection in December 1995, and the county contracted with Art Anderson Associates for a replacement. Severe flooding on the Willamette closed the crossing in February 1996, and it stayed closed while the docks were rebuilt. The first M.J. Lee had carried passengers and vehicles for 43 years, from 1953 to 1996.

Diversified Marine in Portland built the new six-vehicle ferry. Service resumed on June 20, 1997, with a crew of Joe Dietrich, John Lettenmaier, Carl Ellison, Jack Siefert, Mike Pyszka and Bret Proffitt. On July 4 the county commissioners and the town celebrated the reopening. Doris Cattley Martin, a descendant of M.J. Lee, christened the M.J. Lee II, and fares went up. The Review dates the replacement to 1996, and OPB dates the boat’s construction to 1997.

In 2013 the ferry went downriver to Portland for a new propulsion system. The Willamette Falls Locks had been closed, and they were reopened under a special arrangement so the boat could pass through in January and come back in July. The next year state, regional and local officials marked the centennial at the landing with speeches, ferry rides, music and fun facts. Descendants of M.J. Lee attended. Parking at the landing was limited, so visitors left their cars at Molalla River State Park and rode a shuttle bus.

A road fund and a listening session

By 2019 the ferry carried an average of 50,000 riders a year. Mike Bezner, the county’s assistant director of transportation, told OPB that tolls fell short of costs by roughly $300,000 to $400,000 a year, and the county’s road fund made up the difference. A feasibility study put the cost from 2025 to 2049 at more than $16 million, including a replacement boat. About 64 percent of the yearly cost went to operators, mechanics and maintenance workers. Randy Harmon, the county’s transportation operations manager, described the ridership season: “High points of course are when we have the Dahlia Festival or the County Fair. Summer months are much higher. Winter, basically starting in November through March, is the slower time of the year.”

On December 11, 2018, Jon Gustafson, president of the Willamette Falls Heritage Area Coalition, wrote to the commissioners: “It is priceless.” In February 2019 about 70 residents attended a listening session, and about 20 spoke. Some proposed selling advertising space on the ferry, and others proposed a tax district. The county weighed closure, higher tolls and a bridge. The bridge idea was dropped after significant public opposition.

OPB went aboard that March. Valerie Lindon was taking her daughter Shelby across every day to Athey Creek Middle School in Tualatin. “Most people don’t say, ‘Hey, I took the ferry to school,’ you know?” Lindon said. Mike Hurtado rode to work in Tualatin: “it’s pretty peaceful on the way to work and on the way home.” Mallory Gwynn, who runs Gwynn’s Coffeehouse off the street that connects the ferry to downtown, said the ferry traffic “augments” his business.

Rory Quinn, a full-time operator since 2012, opposed shorter hours: “We’re not here to make money; we’re here to provide a service to the community.” Lawrence Welch, another operator, said the best part of the job was talking with riders. He spoke of one regular who had recently died: “I actually saw them on the day that they passed and didn’t know that, and I’m glad I got to have that last interaction.”

The county’s current fare table, effective July 1, 2025, sells a punch pass of 20 crossings for one car at $80.