Captain Charles Cates, 61, bluff "Mr. Waterfront", ex-North Vancouver mayor and authority on Indian lore, died Saturday, Jul 30, 1960. He lived on the waterfront all his life and watched with personal pride its growth into a major world seaport. His pioneer fleet of tugs helped put it into prominence and he was as familiar in Burrard Inlet as the sea itself. Capt. Cates died beside the sea he loved. He was repairing a motor when he collapsed on his own dock with the fatal heart attack. He was Mayor of North Vancouver from 1953 to 1957, a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, past president of the Tugboat Oners Association, a member of the Provincial Indian Advisory Committee, a member of the Vancouver Board of Trade, and a past president of the B.C. Historical Society. Charles Warren Cates was born on Vancouver's waterfront on Aug 8, 1899 into a seafaring family from Nova Scotia. For all of his 61 years Charlie channelled his superabundant energy in a hundred directions. He was equally at home wielding the gavel as mayor, or poking his way through a pea-soup fog with a boom of logs in tow. He helped run his family's pioneer tugboat firm of C.H. Cates & Sons, the largest harbor towing service on the waterfront. He became an authority on Canada's sea chanties, recording 45 chanties for the National Archives in Ottawa. He spoke Chinook fluently and was formally initiated as an honorary Indian Chief. He wrote a book on the harbor's complex tides. He won the praise of the Duke of Edinburgh for this work. His calculations helped the US aircraft carrier "Coral Sea" enter the harbor. When he became interested in totem poles he and his brothers John and Jim carved a 12-foot model from a cedar log. His political career was peppered with the stormy force that carried him through life. He is survived by his wife Suzanne; 3 daughters; 2 brothers; 4 sisters and 3 grandchildren. Funeral service held in St Edmund's Church, interment in North Vancouver Cemetery.
Source: Vancouver Sun, Aug 1, 1960 "Capt. Cates Dies of Heart of Attack".