1History 4400: Museum Critiques Assignment

By: David LamStudent ID: 100306788

March 28th, 2018Dr. Tracey Kinney

Museum Critiques of the Gulf of Georgia Cannery

The Gulf of Georgia Cannery is located in Richmond, British Columbia in a fishing

village called Steveston. This cannery was built by Oswald Malcolm, Charles Windsor and

George Wilson in 1894 (Figure 1).1 Back then Steveston was one of the largest trading ports

for the fishing industry in Canada. Many ethnic minorities such as the Chinese, Japanese, and

Natives worked in the canneries along with the ethnic majority of the white population.

However, politics and policies have divided this community into a racial discriminatory

content that is evident towards ethnic minorities. To this day, it remains hidden and that only

observant people or those with a history background can identify these issues. As salmon

declined back then due to overfishing, canneries began to shut down leaving many workers to

find new jobs elsewhere. However, the Gulf of Georgia Cannery along with a few historical

buildings around the area remain preserved and restored over time and was purchased by the

Government of Canada, which then turned into a national historic site for visitors to explore

the unique fishing culture similar to how Susan Crane’s article describes it. We also learn our

social codes of behaviour such as the way we should behave, expectations, what to buy, and

how to remember without realizing it.2 For example is the no food policy inside the museum,

the brochures I got to know what is inside the museum, and the gift shop that makes myself

2

1 The Tyee, “As Steveston Japanese Community Shrinks,” accessed March 28, 2018, https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2015/06/20/As-Steveston-Japanese-Community-Shrinks-Its-History-Grows/. 2 Richard H. Kohn, “History and the Culture Wars: The Case of the Smithsonian Institution’s Enola Gay Exhibition,” The Journal of American History 82, no.3 (1995): 1047.

and other people want to buy things after.

Upon stepping into the museum, I was greeted by a tour guide who showed me how

to effectively navigate the site. Like most museums, it follows the structure of getting to

explore the contexts, stimulate viewer interest, educate, and draw viewers in powerful ways,

intellectually and emotionally.3 I can definitely feel this atmosphere inside this museum. I

immediately noticed on my right side was the different types of fish and their information. It

started as more of a background information on the spawning seasons and how these fish can

grow up to certain measurements and many more (Figure 2). As I travelled deeper into the

museum, I was greeted with two paths. One was how the types of machinery worked, while

the other one is how the people do their jobs. And so I went through each station starting

from unloading the salmon, to butchering, cleaning, cutting, can-making, filling, weighing,

patching, closing/sealing, cooking and finally labelling/packing (Figure 3).

During the unloading of the salmon, there was a hands-on experience where you got

to hook the fish into the tubs which then get shipped on a conveyor belt to the sliming station

where they descale the fish, cut off its fins and cleaned the inside of the fish (Figure 4). This

took a group effort of roughly six to ten people (Figure 5). On a side note, there was also a

weighing station and hand signal gestures for the different species of fish (Figure 6 & 7). I

thought it was pretty cool. However, the weighing station really offended some people when I

was there observing. One person even said, “I can’t possibly weigh that much. I think the

scale is broken.” This kind of was an issue in the museum concerning confidentiality of

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3 Duncan Stacey and Susan Stacey, Salmonopolis: the Steveston Story (British Columbia: Harbour Publishing, 1994), 77.

personal information. Next, the salmon then gets transported to the butchering station. This

station was the most controversial one of all. This was because of the “Iron Chink” machine

(Figure 8). They tried to put the description as vague as possible to avoid being too offensive.

In specific, they wrote a “butchering machine called the “Iron Chink,” this amazing machine

butchered and cleaned salmon at over one per second (Figure 9).” If you are not as observant

or a history student, you may not know the purpose of the Iron Chink. It was a machine

invented in 1905 by E.A. Smith, a Canadian.4 It was a fast and efficient machine dedicated to

replacing a thirty-man Chinese butchering crew. However, as the name reflects is the racial

insensitivity. The word chink was considered an offensive racial slur used to describe the

Asian population. I believe the word amazing should not have been written to glorify this

machine as some Chinese men lost their jobs because of it. Next was the cutting station also

known as, “Feeding the Gang Knives (Figure 10).” This machine is operated mostly by ethnic

minorities because of its wet, slimy, and messy conditions. This machine cuts the salmon into

roughly an inch thick and each salmon produces roughly eight to ten pieces. What I noticed

here is that the salmon used for display were quite disproportionate to the salmon back in the

early periods. Hence, as seen the salmon population has become smaller and smaller in size.

Then there were the can-making machines, you should see the number of cans stored in the

ceiling (Figure 11 & 12). There was a lot of them! Then there was the filling station where a

person ensures the proper amount of salmon is in the can. Then there was the weighing,

patching, sealing, cooking (Figure 13), and finally labelling and packing (Figure 14). Most of

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4 Randolph Starn, “A Historian’s Brief Guide to New Museum Studies,” The American Historical Review 110, no.1 (2005): 70.

these station images displayed women in the workforce, except for the ones that require

heavy lifting. This was most likely due to World War 2 where a shortage of labor was an

issue because most men were on the battlefield sustaining the war efforts. In all, it was

estimated that 178 cans of salmon are produced in one minute (Figure 15). It really showed

the level of speed and accuracy needed to work there. There was also the manager’s room. In

there was a typewriter and one thing I noticed was the lack of first aid equipment (Figure 16).

It really showed how an injury at work can be devastating to an employee, especially when

they are handling with sharp knives and fast machines. I also got to see the herring reduction

facility which was located in the back of the cannery. This was used to make fish meals and

fish oils (Figure 17). What I found interested in this section was how hard it is to work in this

area from dealing with high temperatures of 250-300 degrees to the daily acid bath that

cleans the machinery that really deformed even the concrete floors (Figure 18). On my way

out, there was also a punch card system that showed how employees used to clock in at work,

which was pretty unique as we don’t see this type of stuff anymore (Figure 19).

Although the museum gives a step-by-step information and procedure to each canning

station, there was a lot of bias in the museum. Like Randolph Starn’s article says, museums

are not neutral.5 One thing that really took me by surprise is the lack of ethnic minorities in

the pictures of the museum even though I read lots about ethnic minority involvement in the

cannery through books. There was a huge influx of Chinese and Japanese cannery workers in

Steveston. In fact, Steveston boasts the second largest Japanese community in the province.6

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5 Mitsuo Yesaki, Setebusuton: A Japanese Village on the British Columbia Coast 1st Edition (Vancouver: Peninsula Publisher, 2003), 2. 6 Mitsuo Yesaki, A Historical Guide to the Steveston Waterfront (Vancouver: Peninsula Publisher, 2002), 7.

But the images shown were mostly Caucasians. Even the videos on each station showed

mostly Caucasians. There was a lack of credits given to ethnic minority groups in my opinion

that did most of the dangerous and crucial jobs in the canneries that little to no white man

would do. That would be something I would definitely ask them to improve on. Another

thing is the list of rules that must be followed that was posted on the wall. The second rule of

no spitting felt like it was aimed directly and indirectly towards ethnic minorities due to their

low tier status compared to the white population (Figure 20). The reason I say this is because

of what I saw at the Chinese men’s bunkhouse near the Britannia Shipyard National Historic

Site. The manager’s house compared to the Chinese bunkhouses were absolutely unequal in a

sense that the manager’s house was very clean while the Chinese men’s bunkhouses had

cigarettes lying around, empty beer bottles and poker cards on the table, clothes, and

undergarments openly displayed on a drying clothesline. There was also another issue

regarding the wages that was not posted for each station because apparently everyone had

unequal wages, while some people who slacked off had higher wages. This was noted in one

of Fran Oeser’s experience when working in the cannery in the past (Figure 21). If I didn’t

walk to this little section of the museum, I would have never known about this. This little

attention to details would have given us a better sense of the unequal treatments in the

cannery itself rather than giving us information of how people are happy working there that

are openly displayed throughout. There was also Don Lawrence’s experience working in the

cannery (Figure 22). He noted that he was the only Caucasian in the area working in the Iron

Chink station. He also labelled the blades on the machine was very dangerous and went pretty

fast. As previously mentioned, these dangerous tasks were given to ethnic minorities such as

the Chinese and without proper first aid equipment when injured. It is no wonder the white

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population does not want to be in this station. Lastly, Don also noted that at the end of the

shift, when the fish was done, the cleanup process was given to the Chinese boys who had to

stay and clean up. This ultimately proves how unequal the mistreatments are working in the

cannery if you are a minority or was part of the crew. Therefore, the history that is being

communicated in this museum is like playing hide and seek. You really need to be observant

or have a decent history background in order to find out its flaws because of the way they try

to hide it from the public view. But as Christopher Cheung’s article suggests is that it is not

just a single ethnic group community that contributed to everything but rather multiple ethnic

groups that contribute to the success of Steveston.7 Overall, even though museums and

history are close kin and have their own ways of gathering and interpreting materials from the

past, the history of the museum has become a thriving method of public history.8 The success

factor really comes from the people who are interested in learning leisurely and the reason for

it being easily accessible and inexpensive as opposed to having to go to school and pay a

substantial amount in order to access scholarly articles. It is also an alternative method than to

be stuck in a library reading books.

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Bibliography

7 Susan A. Crane, “Memory, Distortion, and History in the Museum,” History and Theory 36, no.4 (1997): 46. 8 Randolph Starn, “A Historian’s Brief Guide to New Museum Studies,” The American Historical Review 110, no.1 (2005): 68.

Crane, Susan A. “Memory, Distortion, and History in the Museum.” History and Theory 36,

no.4 (1997): 44-63.

Kohn, Richard H. “History and the Culture Wars: The Case of the Smithsonian Institution’s

Enola Gay Exhibition.” The Journal of American History 82, no.3 (1995): 1036-1063.

Stacey, Duncan, and Susan Stacey. Salmonopolis: the Steveston Story. British Columbia:

Harbour Publishing, 1994.

Starn, Randolph. “A Historian’s Brief Guide to New Museum Studies.” The American

Historical Review 110, no.1 (2005): 68-98.

The Tyee. “As Steveston’s Japanese Community Shrinks, Its History Grows.” Accessed

March 28, 2018. https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2015/06/20/As-Steveston-Japanese-Community-

Shrinks-Its-History-Grows/.

Yesaki, Mitsuo. A Historical Guide to the Steveston Waterfront. Vancouver: Peninsula

Publisher, 2002.

Yesaki, Mitsuo. Sutebusuton: A Japanese Village on the British Columbia Coast. 1st Edition.

Vancouver, Peninsula Publisher, 2003.

Figure 1 - Entrance to Gulf of Georgia Cannery

Figure 2 - Information about Salmon

Figure 3 - Canning Line Stations

Figure 4 - Unloading the Salmon

Figure 5 - Sliming Station

Figure 6 - Controversial Weight Scale

Figure 7 - Sign Language of Different Species of Fish

Figure 8 - Iron Chink

Figure 9 - Description of the Iron Chink

Figure 10 - Gang Knives

Figure 11 - Can-Making Station

Figure 12 - Can Storage

Figure 13 - Cooking Process to ensure Bacteria Removed

Figure 14 - Packing and Shipping

Figure 15 - Speed of Packing

Figure 16 - Manager’s Office + First Aid Equipment

Figure 17 - Herring Reduction facility

Figure 18 - Acid Bath!

Figure 19 - Clocking In Machine

Figure 20 - Workplace Rules

Figure 21 - Fran Oeser’s Experience at the Cannery

Figure 22 - Don Lawrence Experience at the Cannery