Today, Sunday, we explored Prince Rupert and then drove to the North Pacific Cannery, a historic sight that is being restored. In the late 1800's, from Sacramento to the Yukon River there were over 1000 salmon canneries almost half were in islolated areas of Northern British Columbia. Today more than 80% are gone. This cannery was built in 1889 and used until the early 1970's. We toured all the buildings. It employed a multicultural work force of fisherman, boatbuilders, cannery workers and their families from April until October.

This is a model of what the cannery used to look like. Each ethnic group was housed in a different area. The Japanese were the fisherman because they were best at netting the salmon, their wives worked in the store and did a lot of the cooking. The Chinese worked in the cannery, as well as tribal members of various First Nations. Before machines everything was done by hand and a worker could fill 70 cans with salmon a minute. in the 1900's canning machines were used. It was fascinating to learn all about this industry.

This machine sliced up the salmon into chunks that fit into each can.

I had salmon for dinner. Very good.