The early coastal dwellers depended on boats, large or small, for transportation, and were greatly affected by the controlling influence of the weather. Beginning in the 1890s, the Union Steamships and Canadian Pacific ships sailing out of Vancouver, carried freight, mail and passengers to innumerable stops up and down the B.C. coast. For the isolated logging camps, fish canneries, whaling stations, mining operations, villages and float houses of the early 20th century, they were the link to the outside world. The first seaplanes, which appeared in the area in the 1920s, were recreational transportation for the wealthy. At Campbell River, the planes landed in a wide bay that later disappeared, filled in to create more downtown land. As aviation technology developed, the use of seaplanes eventually overtook the slower water transport of freight and passengers along the coast.