North Pacific Cannery

Salmon canning stimulated economic development on this coast, and North Pacific is the oldest West Coast cannery still standing. From here the Bell-Irving family shipped high quality salmon directly to England before 1900. Typical of most canneries in its isolation and operations, North Pacific relied more on native labour than those close to urban centres, was slower to adopt new technology, and had lower production costs. Ethnically-segregated living and work areas divided Chinese, Indian, Japanese and white labour. The main cannery structure, completed in 1895, remains essentially unaltered.

British Columbia