If it’s not the fries, then it’s the fish!

Submitted by Heritage Interpreter Andrea P.

With Steveston being the largest small craft commercial fishing harbour in Canada, large flocks of gulls are often seen around the docks hoping for an easy meal.

Between November and March, boats pull up to the dock behind the Cannery to unload their huge herring seine nets for storage in Canfisco’s net loft next door. As the net is unrolled from the boat’s drum, a pulley high above the dock is used to neatly stack the net onto a pallet. Any herring caught in the webbing of the net will fall out as the net is raised, and when the timing is right, the gulls move in.

It makes you wonder how they kept the gulls away from the piles of herring back in the days when the Gulf of Georgia Cannery operated as a herring reduction plant!