Salmon Canning on the Fraser River in the 1800s (ENG/JPN)

written by Mitsuo Yesaki and Sakuya Nishimura

illustrated by Duke Yesaki

Preserving salmon in vacuum-sealed tin cans developed on the Fraser River from a cottage to a mass production industry in the last decades of the nineteenth century.

The principal sources for this book were the accounts of salmon canning operations on the Skeena and Fraser Rivers before the turn of the century by Ennyu (unpublished report in Japanese) and Ladner (1979). The illustrations of cannery equipment were based on Ennyu's free-hand drawings and on photographs of the interiors of canneries of the day. The job titles of workers used by Ladner were adopted.