A salmon cannery is a factory that commercially cans salmon. It is a fish-processing industry that became established on the Pacific coast of North America during the 19th century, and subsequently expanded to other parts of the world that had easy access to salmon.
The "father of canning" is the Frenchman Nicolas Appert. In 1795, he began experimenting with ways to preserve food by placing it in sealed glass jars and then placing the jars in boiling water. [1] During the first years of the Napoleonic Wars, the French government offered a 12,000-franc prize to anyone who could devise a cheap and effective method of preserving large amounts of food. The larger armies of the period required increased and regular supplies of quality food. Appert submitted his invention and won the prize in January 1810. The reason for lack of spoilage was unknown at the time, since Louis Pasteur did not demonstrate the role of microbes in food spoilage for another 50 years. However, glass containers presented challenges for transportation. Shortly after, the British inventor and merchant Peter Durand patented his own method, this time in a tin can, creating the modern-day process of canning foods. [2]
Canning was used in the 1830s in Scotland to keep fish fresh until it could be marketed. By the 1840s, salmon was being canned in Maine and New Brunswick. [3] The commercial salmon canneries had their main origins in California, and in the northwest of the US, particularly on the Columbia River. They were never important on the US Atlantic Coast, but by the 1940s, the principal canneries had shifted to Alaska. [4]
The first salmon cannery in British Columbia began operating on the Fraser River in 1867. [5] Although this first cannery was short lived, many others soon followed. Salmon canneries eventually spread throughout British Columbia, along the Fraser, Skeena, and Nass Rivers, as well as along much of the coast.[ citation needed ]
Long before the appearance of Europeans, Native Americans operated a dried salmon industry from the Columbia River, trading salmon to the Plains tribes. [4] The Native Americans usually captured salmon by manually hauling seine nets (dragnets). The nets were woven with spruce root fibers or wild grass, and used sticks made of cedar as floats and stones as weights. The movement of the sticks during seining helped keep the fish together. The technique was to "sweep nets during ebb tide from upstream to down, with the net anchored at the beach upstream. A boat then carried the net out and around salmon migrating upstream." [6]
Prior to canning, fish were salted to preserve them. Cobb claims that at the start of the 19th century, the Russians marketed salted salmon caught in Alaska in St. Petersburg. [4] [7] Shortly after, the Northwest Fur Company started marketing salted salmon from the Columbia River. It then merged with the Hudson's Bay Company, and the salmon was marketed in Australia, China, Hawaii, Japan, and the eastern United States. Later, some salmon salteries were converted to salmon canneries. [4]
The first industrial-scale salmon cannery in North America was established in 1864 on a barge in the Sacramento River by the four Hume brothers together with their partner Andrew S. Hapgood, the Hapgood-Hume Company. [8] In 1866, the Hume brothers relocated the business to a site 50 miles inland on the Columbia River. [8] The history of North American salmon canneries is exemplified by their history on the Columbia River. Within a few years, each of the Hume brothers had his own cannery. By 1872, Robert Hume was operating a number of canneries, bringing in Chinese people willing to work for low wages to do the cannery work, and having local Native American people do the fishing. By 1883, the salmon canneries had become the major industry on the Columbia River, with 1,700 gillnet boats supplying 39 canneries with 15,000 tonnes of salmon annually, mainly Chinook. [8]
The settlers learned the use of seine nets from Native Americans. By 1895, 84 seines were on the Columbia, and Robert Hume started hauling them with teams of horses. The seines were operated from daybreak to dusk around islands and along beaches. At Puget Sound, salmon were caught by fishing boats using purse seines, which are used to encircle a school of salmon and then trap them by drawing ("pursing") the bottom of the net together, as one would with a string purse. By 1905, the boats used engines for hauling the seine lines. In 1922, use of salmon purse seiners on and around the Columbia was made illegal. In 1948, horse and manual seines were also outlawed. [6]
By 1889, the Chinook runs were declining, and the canneries started processing the less sought-after steelhead and sockeye salmon, followed by coho and chum salmon. The numbers of salmon continued to decline because the canneries intercepted them before they could spawn in the upper river. The decline was accelerated by mining and forestry operations, and the introduction of grazing animals, which resulted in the spawning grounds becoming silted and polluted. Further aggravation resulted from the diversion of water for irrigation. Columbia salmon harvest managers responded to these declines by introducing the hatchery production of fish fry. As a result, production leveled and remained fairly stable for some decades, before going into a further steady decline from 1930. The Columbia's last major cannery closed in 1980. [8]
In 1928, in an attempt to measure the escapement of salmon in Southeast Alaska, the United States Bureau of Fisheries constructed four special weirs designed so the passing salmon could be counted (photo below). Escapement is the proportion of spawning stock that survives fishing pressure during a salmon run. The counting stations were intended to provide harvest managers with data they needed to manage the salmon fisheries, but they missed much of the escapement. Smaller fish passed through the weirs uncounted, the salmon could not be counted during times of flood, and hundreds of other salmon streams in the area were without counting stations. [9]
People of many different nationalities worked in the canneries along the Pacific coast, thus creating an ideal atmosphere for the development of interracial relationships. First Nations people made up the majority of the workforce, though Chinese, Japanese, and Caucasian workers were also present. While at work in the canneries, each of these groups was housed in separate accommodations. The single men generally stayed in racially segregated bunkhouses, while First Nations families lived in small huts or in camps near the canneries. [10] The jobs that these different groups performed at the cannery, as well as the wages that they earned, were generally decided by their race. [11]
While many of the foreign workers employed at canneries were single or married men trying to provide for their families back home, not uncommonly, entire First Nations families were present at the canneries. [12] Men, women, and children lived and worked alongside each other during the fishing season, before returning to their homes for the remainder of the year. First Nations men were valued as excellent fishers, as fishing had been a part of their economy since long before settlers reached the coast. [13] While First Nations workers were valuable assets to the canneries, they were not always reliable in the sense that they did not always return year after year. Most First Nations families had other means to provide for themselves, so they were not dependent on the income that the canneries provided, at least in the beginning. [14] In some cases, though, individuals or families returned to the same cannery year after year.[ citation needed ]
Chinese workers originally performed many jobs inside the canneries. They made tins, butchered fish, and packed them. [13] The Chinese were seen as well suited to these more feminine tasks because many people viewed them as a feminine race. [13] These workers were a source of cheap labor prior to the introduction of the head tax in 1903. [15] Afterwards, many workers were replaced or reallocated with the invention of the iron chink, a butchering machine said to replace up to 30 Chinese workers. [16] The name of this machine demonstrates the inherent racisms present at the time of its creation, and it has since been renamed as the iron butcher. While European workers were generally hired on an individual basis, Chinese men commonly were hired through contractors. [17] These contractors, often called the China-boss, would agree on a set price with the cannery operators, and would then hire workers with that figure in mind. Individual Chinese laborers were then paid by the contractor who hired them, though the contractor generally kept a large portion of the money.[ citation needed ]
Japanese workers were prized for their ability to repair boats, as well as their skills as fishermen. [13] These skills placed them in direct competition with European and First Nations fishers. [18] Due to the nature of the jobs they performed, Japanese men were not seen as feminine, as the Chinese tended to be viewed. Although they were still segregated from other workers, they were paid more, and they were higher on the social scale. The Japanese played an important role in canneries until World War II, when many Japanese men were interned for the duration of the war. At this time, many of their fishing vessels were also confiscated, making returning after the war difficult for them. [19] Despite this treatment, many Japanese men did return to cannery life in the aftermath of the war, though the return was slow, and was not welcomed by all.[ citation needed ]
As mentioned above, many First Nations women came to the canneries with their husbands, fathers, or other male relatives. They were not idle during the canning season, but performed a number of important tasks within the cannery, similar to the tasks performed by the Chinese. [13] Women cleaned fish, packed them into tins, mended nets, and acted as nursemaids to the many children on site. They tended not to act as fishers, though some Native women may have accompanied their fathers on their boats, especially at a young age. Although women were paid for the work that they performed, their wages were among the lowest in the cannery. [20] Within the canneries, as many as 50% of the workers could be women, which suggests that the female labor force was necessary to the operation of many canneries. [20]
Although women of other nationalities were sometimes present at canneries, Native women were the most prolific. Japanese women reportedly worked on the canning with their babies strapped to their backs, [21] and records suggest that white women sometimes worked as cooks or assistant shopkeepers. [20] Aside from actively participating in the canning process, women helped to make the canneries into more than just work sites. With the presence of women and children, canneries became homes away from home for all of the workers on site.[ citation needed ]
Bristol Bay is the easternmost arm of the Bering Sea, at 57° to 59° North 157° to 162° West in Southwest Alaska. Bristol Bay is 400 km (250 mi) long and 290 km (180 mi) wide at its mouth. A number of rivers flow into the bay, including the Cinder, Egegik, Igushik, Kvichak, Meshik, Nushagak, Naknek, Togiak, and Ugashik.
Gillnetting is a fishing method that uses gillnets: vertical panels of netting that hang from a line with regularly spaced floaters that hold the line on the surface of the water. The floats are sometimes called "corks" and the line with corks is generally referred to as a "cork line." The line along the bottom of the panels is generally weighted. Traditionally this line has been weighted with lead and may be referred to as "lead line." A gillnet is normally set in a straight line. Gillnets can be characterized by mesh size, as well as colour and type of filament from which they are made. Fish may be caught by gillnets in three ways:
For thousands of years the area that is today known as Steveston was home to the Halq’eméylem speaking peoples. Specifically, the area is said to be home to at least two Musqueam villages. One known as qʷeyaʔχʷ was located East of what is today known as Garry Point Park. This community was forced out of their homes due to pressure from the canneries who would replace their homes with fishing camps. The second village, qʷɬeyəm, is believed to have been located North of Moncton Street near Railway Avenue. Today, Musqueam's presence in the history of what is today known as Steveston is heavily underrepresented. As Musqueam Councillor Howard Grant explains, there is "almost nothing with respect to Musqueam people... or First Nations in general." Richmond is currently working to change this as, "recently, city council voted to rebuild the historic First Nations Bunkhouse in Britannia Heritage Shipyards--believed to be the only structure of its kind remaining along B.C.'s coast."
The Alaskeros are Filipino seasonal migrant workers in the United States and their descendants. They worked in salmon canneries in Alaska during the summer, and on farms in Washington, Oregon, and California during the rest of the year. The Alaskeros were instrumental in the formation of the first Filipino-led union in the U.S., the Cannery Workers and Farm Laborers Union, Local 7.
A fish wheel, also known as a salmon wheel, is a device situated in rivers to catch fish which looks and operates like a watermill. However, in addition to paddles, a fish wheel is outfitted with wire baskets designed to catch and carry fish from the water and into a nearby holding tank. The current of the river presses against the submerged paddles and rotates the wheel, passing the baskets through the water where they intercept fish that are swimming or drifting. Naturally, a strong current is most effective in spinning the wheel, so fish wheels are typically situated in shallow rivers with brisk currents, close to rapids, or waterfalls. The baskets are built at an outward-facing slant with an open end so the fish slide out of the opening and into the holding tank where they await collection. Yield is increased if fish swimming upstream are channeled toward the wheel by weirs.
The Gulf of Georgia Cannery is a National Historic Site of Canada located in Steveston village in Richmond, British Columbia.
The Alaska Packers' Association (APA) was a San Francisco-based manufacturer of Alaska canned salmon founded in 1891 and sold in 1982. As the largest salmon packer in Alaska, the member canneries of APA were active in local affairs, and had considerable political influence. The Alaska Packers' Association is best known for operating the "Star Fleet," the last fleet of commercial sailing vessels on the West Coast of North America, as late as 1927.
The Kake Cannery is a historic fish processing facility near Kake, Alaska. Operated by a variety of companies between 1912 and 1977, the cannery was one of many which operated in Southeast Alaska, an area historically rich in salmon. The cannery's surviving buildings are among the best-preserved of the period, and provide a window into the labor practices of the cannery operators, which emphasized production over working conditions, and made significant use of immigrant contract workers. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1997.
The United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union was established in 1945 in British Columbia through the merger of the United Fishermen's Federal Union and the Fish, Cannery and Reduction Plant and Allied Workers Union. It represents fishermen, shoreworkers, and workers in fish processing and transport, and fought for improved wages and working conditions in the industry as well as the imposition of fishing quotas and licensing requirements. The union survived raiding wars with the British Columbia Gillnetters Association in 1952 and the Seafarers' International Union in 1953. Suspected of being under communist influence, it was suspended by the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada in 1953 and refused admittance to the Canadian Labour Congress until 1972. For example, a longtime president of the UFAWU, Homer Stevens, ran as the Communist Party candidate in the Burnaby-Richmond-Delta riding in the 1970s. The union also had a section in Nova Scotia. The UFAWU joined the Canadian Auto Workers in 1996. The UFAWU was an integral part of the working class fight from 1945 to 1967 and brought fishermen, shoreworkers and tendermen together to fight for one cause during this era which made helped make significant progress on equality within the workplace.
Crescent Porter Hale (1872–1937) was an American industrialist who was involved in the canned salmon industry in Bristol Bay, Alaska throughout his adult life.
The coastline of the Russian Federation is the fourth longest in the world after the coastlines of Canada, Greenland, and Indonesia. The Russian fishing industry has an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 7.6 million km2 including access to twelve seas in three oceans, together with the landlocked Caspian Sea and more than two million rivers.
Robert Deniston Hume was a cannery owner, pioneer hatchery operator, politician, author, and self-described "pygmy monopolist" who controlled salmon fishing for 32 years on the lower Rogue River in U.S. state of Oregon. Born in Augusta, Maine, and reared by foster parents on a farm, Hume moved at age 18 to San Francisco to join a salmon-canning business started by two of his brothers. They later re-located to Astoria on the Columbia River, where they prospered. After the death of his first wife and their two young children, Hume moved again and started anew in Gold Beach, at the mouth of the Rogue.
The Workers' Compensation Board of British Columbia, operating as WorkSafeBC, is a statutory agency that was made in 1917, after the provincial legislature put into force legislation passed in 1902. This legislation is known as the Workers Compensation Act.
Canned or tinned fish are food fish which have been processed, sealed in an airtight container such as a sealed tin can, and subjected to heat. Canning is a method of preserving food, and provides a typical shelf life ranging from one to five years. They are usually opened via a can opener, but sometimes have a pull-tab so that they can be opened by hand. In the past it was common for many cans to have a key that would be turned to peel the lid of the tin off; most predominately sardines, among others.
Puget Sound fishermen's strike of 1949 was a labor strike by fishermen in the Pacific Northwest.
The Coast Salish people of the Canadian Pacific coast depend on salmon as a staple food source, as they have done for thousands of years. Salmon has also served as a source of wealth and trade and is deeply embedded in their culture, identity, and existence as First Nations people of Canada. Traditional fishing is deeply tied to Coast Salish culture and salmon were seen "as gift-bearing relatives, and were treated with great respect" since all living things were once people according to traditional Coast Salish beliefs. Salmon are seen by the Coast Salish peoples are beings similar to people but spiritually superior.
Pacific Packing and Navigation Company is a defunct salmon-canning company which operated in the U.S. state of Alaska. Incorporated under the laws of New Jersey and backed by eastern capitalists, it was formed during the spring of 1901, the idea of Roland B. Onnfroy. It consolidate into one corporation the properties and privileges of other Alaska companies and firms. It proposed to capitalize the new corporation as follows: 6 per cent debentures, $7,000,000; 7 per cent cumulative preferred stock, $12,500,000; common stock, $12,500,000.
Sacramento, California, United States, has been an important location in the history of canning thanks to its situation on the intersection of major transportation routes and proximity to large fertile growing areas. Sacramento’s canning industry has prepared a large variety of agricultural products, but is best known for canned tomatoes, earning Sacramento the nickname, "The Big Tomato."
Nikola Bezmalinovic, known as Nick Bez was founder of fishing, canning, and shipping companies in Juneau, Alaska. Nick Bez operated the largest fishing ship at the time the 423-foot, Pacific Explorer. Nick Bez also owned and operated the Nornek cannery, two gold mines, Alaska Southern Packing Company, Peter Pan Seafoods, Alaska Southern Airways, Pacific Exploration Company and the Intercoastal Packing Company as well as West Coast Airlines which became part of Air West. Nick Bez became known as a rags to riches entrepreneur. In 1919 Nikola Bezmalinovic changed his name to Nick Bez. Nick Bez died in 1969.
Hapgood-Hume Company was a Salmon cannery and now a historical site in West Sacramento, California in Yolo County. The site of the former Hapgood-Hume Company is a California Historical Landmark No. 1040 listed on April 1, 2009. The Hapgood-Hume Company was the First Pacific Coast Salmon Cannery founded on April 1, 1864, on the Sacramento River, closed in 1873 in Washington state. The site of the Hapgood-Hume Company was a National Register of Historic Places, #66000938, from April 6, 1964, to July 14, 2004. The Hapgood-Hume Company was formed by Robert Deniston Hume, William Hume, John Hume, and George Hume, with a friend Andrew Hapgood. All of founders of the company came from Maine. Hapgood had been a tinsmith and a fisherman in Maine, arriving in California in 1864.
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