A Closeup Look at The Cannery Cat’s Collection

This weekend, join us for our annual “The Pull of the Net” on Saturday May 4th — a multicultural celebration of the communities involved in building the fishing industry on Canada’s west coast. As an added bonus, visitors joining us for this free event will be able to view our newest exhibit “The Cannery Cat’s Collection”, created in collaboration with our exhibits staff and this year’s Youth Leadership Volunteers. In this blog, Hania, one of the Youth Leaders, describes just one of the artifacts which was carefully selected to be featured in the exhibit. 

One of the artifacts showcased in The Cannery Cat’s Collection exhibit created by the Youth Leadership Team is the “herring gibber”. This machine was used during the Second World War, and it’s definitely the largest item in scale to be featured in this exhibit. It was used to quickly gut herring in preparation for canning. The operators of the machine were usually women, and it was very dangerous because all the gears were exposed – something that would not pass safety standards today!  Get a closer look at this fascinating machine when the exhibit opens on May 4th.