The Gulf of Georgia Cannery National Historic Site

Perched atop wooden pilings over the impressive Fraser River in southwest British Columbia, the Gulf of Georgia Cannery is one of the few remaining 19^th century salmon canneries left in B.C. At the zenith of its production, this cannery was the busiest on the west coast of Canada.

Owned by Parks Canada, it has been lovingly preserved as a National Historic Site and is run by the Gulf of Georgia Cannery Society. On this particular day, the story was told by the Society’s Manager, Mark Sakai whose great grandfather came over from Japan to fish the B.C. waters in 1900.

Fishing boats at Steveston, photo by Hamish Jackson

“The end of the 19^th Century was a boom time for Steveston, the fishing village where the cannery is located south of Vancouver. The centerpiece of the Cannery exhibits is the 1950’s era Salmon Canning Line. One side of the Line has the story about the machines while the other tells tales about the people who worked on the machines. Audio stations provide visitors with oral histories from people who actually worked on the canning lines. When this cannery opened in 1894 everything was done by hand because there were no machines. In 1897, the cannery produced 2.5 million one-pound-cans of sockeye salmon. All the cans had to be assembled ahead of time because they didn’t want to stop the line in order to make more cans. When the canning first started, you actually had to make the cans yourself. You had to get sheets of tin and start cutting with snips – that was the winter activity. Before pressure canning came along, the fish were salted and put in barrels.

“In the early 1900’s, the butchering (removing the heads and fins) of the salmon was done by groups of Chinese men. A group of 30 workers could butcher between 15,000 and 20,000 salmon during a 10-hour shift. At the turn of the century, a machine called the Iron Chink which could butcher one fish per second, replaced Chinese workers. Men wearing heavy gloves, hats and rubber boots fed fish after fish to the whining spinning blades. Amid spraying water, fish guts and scales, the butchering machine crew had a messy time and there were lots of accidents. There was a saying that you weren’t really a cannery worker until you lost part of your finger. The name of the machine reflected the racial attitude of the times because jobs in a cannery were basically segregated and depended on the gender and your race. Being a Japanese and male, I would probably have worked in the net loft or I would have been a fisherman or a boat builder. A Caucasian woman, on the other hand, would probably have worked on the monotonous, repetitive job of patching which called for quick skilful fingers to add fish to underweight cans or remove bones and excess fish at speed. Experienced women patchers could tell with a touch when a can was right. Hand filling the cans was done by the older ladies. No young person had that speed. It was hard work standing all day.

“Nearly all the canned salmon at the turn of the last century was sent to England so these early cans carried classic iconic images of Canada, e.g. Mounties, Maple Leaves, Beavers and Indian people. As time went by and the war years came, things became patriotic with names on the tins like ‘Victory’ salmon.

“Declining fortunes during the Great Depression combined with continuing industry consolidation forced the canning lines to halt in 1930. The cannery then became a raw fish depot. The canning lines re-opened to help meet World War Two’s huge demand for inexpensive protein to feed troops overseas, this time canning herring.

“The waste material from the canning process was sent to the reduction plant. Herring reduction meant reducing it to oil and fish meal. The herring was chopped up and loaded into long cookers. After cooking, the herring was separated into solids and liquids. The solids were sent to the dryers, which would produce the smelly cloud characteristic of herring reduction plants, and the liquids would be sent to various processes to separate the oil from the water-borne solubles.

“When I was a kid, I can remember on some summer days my Mom would have laundry out drying on the line. She would catch the first whiff of that cloud wafting across the town and my Mom would yell, ‘Get that laundry in!’ We would run out there and rip the laundry off the line. There would be clothes just flying everywhere but we had to get the laundry in fast because if that smell hit that wet laundry, it would take two more washings to get it out.”

Starting in April 2004, the Cannery is going to have a special exhibit called “Mayday: Saving Lives in BC’s Fishing Industry”, exploring the theme of incidents out on the water, be they weather-related, fires on board, or capsizings, and the rescue response to these incidents.

Travel tips: this is a great place for kids as there are few things behind glass and lots of interactive machines. Wear warm clothes as the waterfront can be a chilly place even on a warm day. There’s a great gift shop with something for every age.

Adjacent Steveston is a delightful village and a great place for fish&chips, shopping, or a beachside picnic.