The techne of making a ferry: a non-representational approach to passengers’ gathering taskscapes

► Passengers are artful social agents who skilfully negotiate their passages’ multifaceted spatial and temporal features. ► Gathering refers to the activities preceding the principal component of a passage and leading to departure. ► The techne of making a departure is about artful, skilful making: the successful performance of one’s task. ► Skills of orientation, reflexive movement, and adaptation comprise the taskscape of travel. Drawing upon ethnographic data collected in British Columbia’s ferry-dependent island and coastal communities, non-representational theory, and mobility studies literature this article examines the process of making, or catching, a ferry. Making a ferry is conceptualized as a form of gathering, and as a phase of the wider performance of travel by ferry boat. Gathering for a ferry sailing before its scheduled departure—data show—is a complex taskscape. Passengers keen on making a ferry employ reflexive, adaptive, orientation skills, weaving artful journeys to the ferry terminal in order to make a specific sailing. Analysis shows how passengers’ work is a creative performance.