Old Salmon Cannery

I like to see how industry works and worked, so I had a visit to a cannery put onto the itinerary. We went to the North Pacific Cannery, just outside of Prince Rupert at Port Edward. It was a lengthy and interesting visit.

On arrival we paid entry and were lucky enough to get escorted around on a tour (I noted that not all visitors did). Our guide was a rough old fellow who introduced himself as "Spider" because "that's what you get called when you fix the holes in the (fishing) nets". He was the most unlikely tour guide, but with my constant questioning he gradually warmed up (at the end he commented that it was good to have someone with so many questions). I think he had worked there, in the cannery, fixing nets, for a good portion of his life.

I don't know a lot about fishing, especially commercial fishing, so when Spider started explaining things I had a lot of questions. Dumb ones apparently, because at one stage he promptly sat down with a look of despair, looked right at me, and said "Well, I must've been going too fast, we'll need to start again, right at the beginning". And then he fully explained the fishing industry, past and present.

At one stage Spider started working a net on showing us how a hole might be fixed. He got kind of engrossed in it, then looked up "oh, I guess I better finish your tour..."

Spider kept commenting about a cat that lives there, that the watchman had brought to live there but had never cared for. He said that lots of tour guides say that the watchman is cruel, the way he didn't feed the cat. Turned out Spider was the watchman.

Housing for the Indians.

It was most interesting to learn about the different ethnic groups that worked in the Cannery. Indians for fishing, Japanese to build and fix nets, Chinese to run the canning machines, White folk running the office side of things.... all living separately but side by side. Some of the old machinery was quite remarkable, and some models are still used in modern canneries.

At the end, we ate at the Cannery Cafe. It was the best Salmon chowder!