The Galiano Club

Stories about being a young mom working in the fishing industry:
Getting to the cannery up north it was a good two day drive, twenty hours and with four or five children it was a challenge. We would pack all our clothes and everything in the car and in the back seat I would try to pack things so that it would make a great big mattress. The kids would sit there and sleep or whatever. We would do many stops along the way but oh it used to get so hot. It was a challenge travelling with all the children in the car but it was fun and a great experience for them as well as me. We left here on the ferry and spend maybe one night with the grandparents in Ladner. We would head up next day and probably try to hit Prince George in one day. And then head out to the cannery. The cannery was on the Skeena River next to Sunny Side Cannery. That is a great museum right now. All the fishing industry; our whole story of the Wilson side is pretty well in that. It shows you how it was done, all the old machines are still there and thousands of old pictures. Our cannery was down 2 or 3 miles from that. I worked there for seven summers. I would work from early summer till, well I always tried to get home for my birthday, August 30th and I always managed it and I would get the kids ready for school in a couple days.

I started at the bottom which was washing fish. As you get better your floor lady looks at you and thinks that you shouldn’t be doing that anymore; too fast. so I took a great big jump at that time, which not very many girls do. I jumped right from the fish line of washing fish right up to the canning. That is, you got 300 cans a minute going by you and you have to pick off the line anything that doesn’t have a ¼ lb. In or they are not packed tight and believe me your eyes are going whooo .That’s why I wear glasses now! You are watching them all go down the line...and it is amazing, there was three of us picking them off and it was amazing how your eyes can spot a fish can that wasn’t full. We would have to pick them off the line. Sometimes we would stop the machines if everything wasn’t working right because they would just pile up so we would stop the machines, fill them and then they would get the lids on.

I also worked in the freezer room which I did not like; I had a really bad experience there. I would go to work at seven o’clock in the morning. This was taking fish and putting it on a big tray and dipping it in a solution. It was fast freeze, you dipped them three times, they were frozen, you took them out and loaded them on a big cart and they would be taken away. You could only work for three or maybe four hours, then you had to go home for four hours and then come back for four hours. I worked there almost two weeks. I went to my boss and I said I don’t like this. Richard was only two and I would go back to the house and all I could do was fall down and go to sleep and then get up and go to work again - I really didn’t like it. There was a reason we found out later but I still would not stay there even though the pay was extra big, I just wanted to get out of there. One day this lady who worked next to me, she was a great big lady, I looked at her and thought there is something wrong and I said are you alright? And she said noooo and she started falling backwards...all I could do was sort of put my hands behind her and slow her fall. She was rushed to the hospital and we found that there was a propane leak in the forklift that was used to move the great big crates of fish around. That was affecting me, even though I didn’t pass out but I was always tired. I just worked one more day and then I went back into the cannery.