Cannery Row | British Columbia, Canada

Cannery Row, Canadian Style - A West Coast adventure near Vancouver, BC

When advised to allow at least an hour to go through the Gulf of Georgia Cannery: museum at Steveston, near Vancouver BC, I was skeptical. My information sheet said it was built in 1894 and that after it closed its doors in the ‘70s, it was designated a National Historic Site. It now operates under the umbrella of the federally administered Canadian Parks Service and - under the auspices of the Gulf of Georgia Cannery Society - it’s been open to the public since 1994.

Notwithstanding all that, in my book a cannery was a place with assembly lines and machinery, a few photos, and dry facts and statistics on charts displayed alongside a collection of old artifacts. Worth about 15 to 20 minutes at most. That was what I thought until I stepped inside. And found myself drawn into a dynamic, multi-media experience that was sheer entertainment.

Where else can you step onto a huge weighing scale and find out what your value would be if you were a salmon? Or walk through a model fishing trawler, take a look at the crew’s living quarters, and snicker at one of the occupants? Won’t tell you any more...you’ll have to find out ‘why’ for yourself.) Or stick your hand in a bucket of bloodied fish entrails (okay, I didn’t go quite that far.) which isn’t real, but you’d never know the difference, except that it doesn’t smell?

Smell, in fact, is one of the few sensory experiences you won’t have when walking through the Cannery. But even that isn’t hard to imagine, when you visualize the boats disgorging their cargo at the wide entrance of the cannery (back in the 1920s), and you hear that the entire area was waist high in fish.

The sights and sounds of the fishing industry are evoked vividly on audio-visual screens, and as you walk along the canning line, sensors trigger sound effects-the clank of machinery, noise and confusion of everyday working conditions. In the butchering hall, thirty Chinese workers would skin and gut 16,000 to 20,000 fish a day, sometimes working round the clock (no refrigeration in those days) when the catch was large. The Chinese crews worked on contract and were paid one cent per 1000 cans off the production line, earning between $35 and $50 a month. Not a bad seasonal wage in those days.

In 1946, manual fish butchering was replaced with a mechanical gadget, then known unabashedly as “The Iron Chink”. It is still in use today, relatively unchanged except for the name. It’s now more properly called “The Iron Butcher” and is capable of cleaning, de-gutting and skinning sixty fish a minute.

During the dark days of World War II when the Japanese fishermen were interned, the Company brought in men and women from the Prairies to take their place. Women sitting on both sides of the canning tables, were expected to scoop out over-filled cans and pass the excess to women seated opposite so they could top up cans that were partly empty. With cans whizzing by them at the rate of 2 cans per second, it was small wonder that newcomers turned dizzy and fainted after the first hour or two.

Sealed cans stacked on trays were cooked within a huge iron oven-like retort. It is said that the retort at the Gulf of Georgia Cannery had another use too. On pay-day, the party scene among the workers sometimes tended to become a bit too rambunctious and law enforcement officers would have to be called in. If the cells at the local prison were full, the hot-heads were dumped inside the retort (its door bolted to six inches ajar) where they were left to cool off till the following morning.

The Cannery offers something for all ages: small hands can open drawers and peek at artifacts, push buttons to watch audio visual shows, turn cranks and pull aside flaps to reveal secrets of the ocean. Adults will marvel at the human drama and shared camaraderie of the people who lived, loved, worked and died here. A charming 20 minute film, “A Journey through Time” is an old fisherman’s tale as told to his young grand-daughter, and plays in the surround-sound Boiler House Theatre within the museum building.

Getting There to Cannery Row in Richmond:

The Gulf of Georgia Cannery is at 12138 Fourth Avenue in Steveston Village, Richmond, BC, Canada.

Guided Tours of the Cannery:

20-30 minute presentations, every hour on the hour.

Film Showings at the Cannery:

Journey Through Time presented every half hour.

For further information on special events, hours of operation, guided tours for seniors and admission charges call (604)664-9009.

Author: Margaret Deefholts