The Gulf of Georgia Cannery in Steveston is one of 72 that used to exist around BC, taking the daily catch, squidging it into small tins, and sending it out to the world. There are only two left in operation (I don't think they use children anymore) so now this one's a museum.
If I had any romantic notions of what it is to be a fisherman - the ever-shifting ocean, the huge skies, the breathtaking sunsets - it quickly disappeared as I sat in a tiny replica galley hearing recorded reminiscences of seasickness and the cramped, close proximity you have with your colleagues. It's bad enough sharing my house with Hannah and Pete.
Surely working onshore in the cannery is more attractive? Well, the place is built on stilts in the river, to take advantage of the 'natural refrigeration'. And it was brass monkeys today, I can tell you. The immigrant women who did the nasty jobs (always women, of course) used to stand in buckets of hot water. They kept their babies strapped to them, until the kids were old enough to go upstairs and feed cans into the machine for 10c per eight-hour shift (enough to buy one tin of what the cannery produced). A lot of the museum is, unsurprisingly, dedicated to the story of how unions were formed and quickly improved things. Pete didn't seem to mind, dressing up as a fisherman and then jumping on a mini truck used (in the cannery's latter days) to push fish about. All his preferred careers currently involve trucks or diggers.
The porpoise of our visit was to enjoy Family Day and fillet with new experiences, and I don't think we could have done any batter! We had a hull of a good time, although the cold gave me aching mussels and a splitting haddock. Perhaps it was shellfish but we decided to take the little buoy home, and even then it was hard to drag him away from the plaice!
The preferred outfit of the Canadian fisherman. Maybe.
Oi, mate. Where do you want these fish?
(And...er...sorry for all those cod awful puns at the end there).
