Canfisco's Early Years
On April 30th, 2006, the Canadian Fishing Company (Canfisco) celebrates its 100th anniversary, and this brief look back at the early history of the company has been prepared to mark the occasion. The red and white flag (above) are the company "colours" flown by the Canfisco fishing fleet.
DOWN TO THE SEA IN FISHING SHIPSCatching fish for food is one of mankind's oldest occupations. Wherever people have lived near the ocean or its tributaries, fish and other seafoods have formed an important part of their diet, and skill in fishing has naturally developed.
The early explorers of the North Pacific Coast such as Vancouver, Cook and La Perouse found the natives carrying on a well developed fishery, particularly for salmon and halibut. These fish and other products of the sea were their most important items of food.
Salmon running up the rivers were taken by the natives with spears, dip nets and brush traps or weirs. In salt water, they used crude but very efficient wooden hooks suspended by lines made of woven cedar bark or kelp, and caught not only salmon but large quantities of halibut and other fish.
Since the natives of the Pacific Northwest could not consume their bountiful catch all at once, the necessity of preserving the fish to meet future food shortages resulted in early discoveries in the art of drying and smoking the surplus. These fish, both fresh and cured, were traded or bartered with neighbouring tribes for other commodities and thus began the commercial fishing industry in British Columbia. Later, when the white men settled along the coast, this trade was also carried-on with them. When salmon canning began in the latter part of the 1800's, BC natives worked in the salmon canneries in addition to fishing, and this significant involvement in the industry continues today.
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Photo:
Native cannery workers camped on Vancouver Harbour close to Canfisco's
Home Plant near the foot of Main Street, circa 1910.
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Photo:
Circa 1910 photograph of the Emma H, a halibut schooner
that belonged to the second generation of vessels which superseded the
costly steamers, tied up at The Canadian Fishing Company, Limited
dock in Vancouver, while a lumber ship (background) manoeuvers into
the Hastings Saw Mill.
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The first commercial fishery operations by white men in British Columbia were conducted by the Hudson's Bay Company at its Fort Langley trading post, which as early as 1829 purchased salmon from Indians on the Fraser River and pickled them in barrels. This trade increased, and by about 1835 from 3,000 to 4,000 barrels of salted salmon were being exported, mainly to the Hawaiian Islands and Asia.
The salmon business came of age with the development of canning in the late 1860s. Although salmon was first canned in New York in 1814, it took 50 years for the process to become established on the northwest Pacific coast. The first man in BC to can salmon with reasonable success was James Symes, who in 1867, the year of Canadian confederation, boiled salmon in cans on top of an ordinary kitchen stove and exhibited the results at the New Westminster Agricultural Fair that year. But the first to set-up a salmon cannery in British Columbia and successfully market canned salmon was Alexander Loggie, who had learned the process in his home province of New Brunswick. In 1870 Alexander Ewen, Alexander Loggie, James Wise and David S. Hennessy set-up a primitive cannery at Annieville on the Fraser River, three miles downstream and across the river from New Westminster, but it remained for Mr. Ewen to make a success of the new venture. By the 1870s canning was the most popular form of preserving salmon, and canneries were appearing in increasing numbers along the Fraser River and on the northern and central coast. In 1876 there were only three canneries in BC, but other canneries followed, such as the Gulf of Georgia Cannery in 1894. (See the Gulf of Georgia Cannery Site Plan prepared by the British Columbia Fire Underwriters Association in 1923.) By the turn of the century there were over 90 canneries and the industry was on a sound foundation. The annual salmon pack climbed from less than 100,000 cases of 48 pounds each in the late 1870s to over 2,000,000 cases by the early 1900s, although the figures fluctuated erratically from year to year, as they do today, with the size of the runs. By this time local and foreign markets for canned, smoked and salted salmon had been firmly established, and the industry had become one of the most important in the economy of the young province.
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Photo:
A Pacific pioneer, the S.S. New England, 1897, forerunner
of the campany's halibut fleet.(Canfisco Photo Collection)
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Successful marketing of halibut took place considerably later when the completion of the transcontinental railroads opened the markets of the east to the Pacific Northwest. The first shipment east from British Columbia of halibut packed in ice was made from Vancouver in 1892.
Establishment of the Pacific halibut industry on a sound permanent basis, as well as most of the important developments later in this industry are credited to the New England Fish Company (Nefco), an associate company to The Canadian Fishing Company, Limited. This company was organized in 1868 by eleven of the largest wholesale fish dealers then doing business in Boston, to supply themselves with halibut from the Atlantic Banks. By 1889, the growth in demand for halibut and the limitations of the catch in the Atlantic, made it evident that an increased source of supply was required. Their pressing needs engaged the interest of the Company and arrangements were made for the production and shipping of halibut form British Columbia to Boston over the newly completed Canadian Pacific Railway.
In November, 1893, the company started fishing for halibut in North Pacific waters, using a small freighter, the Capilano, which had been outfitted for halibut fishing and placed under the command of Captain Absalom Freeman, one of the men who later organized The Canadian Fishing Company, Limited.
The fish were iced-down in boxes and shipped east in refrigerator cars attached to passenger trains. These refrigerator cars were built by the railway to Canfisco's specifications. Shipment of halibut East in such cars, as well as many other early proposals of the company for operating in the West, were at first considered by others to be impossible to achieve, but success marked these activities almost from the very start.
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Photo:
The first trainload of frozen halibut was shipped from the Pacific
in October 1909, via an all Canfisco train.(Canfisco Photo
Collection)
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As Pacific Coast halibut fishing progressed, there developed with it a strong buying demand from the Atlantic. To meet this demand, the company pressed into its service several other steamers, which were remodelled to suit the requirements of halibut fishers. In the steamer S.S. New England, the New England Fish Company pioneered a new and distinct type of halibut vessel carrying dories which were fished in the same manner as on the Atlantic Coast.
In 1906, the company conceived the idea of seeking its supply of halibut, particularly for freezing, in Alaska. In 1907, the construction of a cold storage plant at Ketchikan was begun. The company was once more roundly criticized for going so far afield, but this plant, the first of its kind to built in Alaska or on fishing grounds so far removed from rail heads, soon justified its existence.
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Photo:
Halibut unloading crew at Canfisco's Home Plant in Vancouver,
BC, circa 1920.(Canfisco Photo Collection)
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The Canadian Fishing Company, Limited, was organized in 1905 by five Vancouver men to produce halibut which were to be sold to the New England Fish Company and other distributing companies. The weakness of the new company lay in its dependence on others for the distribution of is products. This was corrected in October, 1909, when Mr. A. L. Hager took over active management of The Canadian Fishing Company, Limited. Mr. Hager had arrived in Vancouver the previous year in order to better supervise the large business he had built-up since 1901 of distributing West Coast salmon to Boston and New York dealers.
With the change in management of The Canadian Fishing Company, Limited, the New England Fish Company gradually withdrew from British Columbia and subsequently depended upon The Canadian Fishing Company, Limited, for its supplies of fish from British Columbia. This arrangement continued until 1979 when Nefco went into receivership.
Under Mr. Hager's able direction Canfisco (as the name "The Canadian Fishing Company, Limited" had become contracted for convenience) and associated companies have expanded into the largest producers and distributors of food fish in North America.
Canfisco was soon operating a large fleet of halibut fishing vessels which included the well known Flamingo, Celestial Empire, Pescawha, Emma H, Carlotta G. Cox, Borealis, Imbricaria, Canada and Kingsway. Among this fleet were the first integral combustion engined boats in the halibut fleet.
In 1910, a large freezing, cold storage and ice-making plant was build in Vancouver better to care for the rapidly growing business. Further expansion took place in 1912 when Canfisco purchased Atlin Fisheries Limited, Prince Rupert, British Columbia, a large station for buying and handing fresh halibut and salmon.
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Photos: These are views of the 1917 fire which destroyed a significant part of Canfisco's Home Plant facilities. Above, the fire as seen from the Vancouver Harbour, and below, the fire viewed from the railway tracks. The plant was rebuilt and expanded to include a canning operation in 1918. (City of Vancouver Archives)
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Photos: Circa 1920 photographs of Canfisco's facilities built 1910 in Vancouver, BC, which included the Head Office, Cannery, Freezing, Cold Storage and Ice-making Plant. The photograph below shows a NE view of the facilties with the cannery building to the left. (Canfisco Photo Collection)
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In 1923, another freezing and cold storage plant at Butedale, British Columbia was purchased. In 1934, a modern public cold storage plant was built next to the Atlin Fisheries, Limited, plant in Price Rupert, by the Northern Fishermen's Cold Storage Limited, enabling Canfisco also to carry-on freezing and cold storage operations at this location by using these facilities. In 1945, Canfisco guaranteed itself still greater cold storage and ice-making and storage facilities in Northern British Columbia by purchasing this entire plant. Previously, only part of these extensive facilities were available to Canfisco.
"In the field of fish refrigeration, Canfisco and associate companies were the first to apply modern "quick freezing" methods and very low storage temperatures to improve the quality of our frozen fish. Further improvements were made during the winter of 1936-37 when Canfisco finished completely modernizing its freezing and cold storage plants at Vancouver and Butedale. New refrigeration equipment was added at both plants, not only to permit more fish to be handled, but what is much more important, to enable fish to be frozen far more rapidly and stored at much lower temperatures. Further insulation was added to each plant to accommodate the lower storage temperatures, and ice production and ice storage were increased. These improvements made Canfisco's facilities second to none for producing superior quality frozen halibut, salmon and other fish.
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Photo: Captain Absalom Freeman, a native of Newfoundland, and a pioneer of British Columbia, was one of the organizers of the original The Canadian Fishing Company, Limited. As master mariner, fisherman and business man, he spent fifty-five of his sixty-three years in the fishing business being active in the industry and the company he helped found until his death in 1930.
At the age of eight he went to sea on his father's fishing schooner and fished cod and herring off the Labrador Coast. He also made several sealing voyages out of St. Johns, Newfoundland. While still in his twenties he migrated to British Columbia where he joined the newly founded Union Steamship Company as mate on their S.S. Coquitlam. When this vessel was chartered to the New England Fish Company he took charge as master. Subsequently, he was master of the steamers New England, Flamingo and Kingsway for over a quarter of a century. During that period he charted many miles of the british Columbia Coastline and off-shore banks. In fact, a good portion of British Columbia charts can be attributed to Captain Freeman's surveys.
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Photo: A. L. Hager
President,
Treasurer and Managing Director,
The Canadian Fishing Company, Limited
President,
Atlin Fisheries Limited
President,
The Doty Fish Company
President
and General Manager,
New England Fish Company
Under Mr. Hager's able direction, Canfisco and its associated companies expanded into the largest producers and distributors of food fish in North America.
Mr. Hager started in the fish business in 1901, distributing Pacific Coast salmon to Boston and New York dealers. In 1903, he organized the Northwestern Fisheries Company to handle this business, and later the same year acquired a half interest in, and incorporated, The Doty Fish Company on the Columbia river, to assure a steady supply of fish for his customers.
In 1908, Mr. Hager settled in Vancouver, BC, better to handle his West Coast operations, and in 1909 he took over the active management of The Canadian Fishing Company, Limited.
After moving to the Pacific Coast in 1908, Mr. Hager also managed the West Coast operations of the New England Fish Company, and in 1931 he was also made President of the company.
Mr. Hager, in addition to the active management of his companies, spent much of his time furthering conservation measures in the halibut and salmon fisheries. He is known as the father of the Halibut Treaty which was consummated between Canada and the United States in 1923. Under this treaty an outstanding success was made in rehabilitating the fishery and was considered a model for future international fisheries conservation. In 1940, A.L. Hager received a letter from Prime Minister McKenzie King acknowledging the beneficial results of co-operation between the governments of Canada and the United States under the Halibut Convention.
Consummation of the International Salmon Treaty between Canada and the United States in 1937 also was due largely to the untiring efforts of Mr. Hager over a long period of years. Recognition of this service was given by his appointment as one of the three original Canadian commissioners under this treaty.
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Photo: James S. Eckman
Vice-President,
and Assistant Managing Director,
The Canadian Fishing Company, Limited
Vice-President,
Atlin Fisheries Limited
Vice-President,
The Doty Fish Company
Vice-President,
Treasurer and Assistant Manager,
New England Fish Company
In 1897, Mr. Eckman entered the fish industry in the distribution of fish from the Great Lakes. This work continued until 1905 when he moved to Port Arthur, Ontario, where he operated a fleet of fishing boats on Lake Superior. In 1908, he moved to Winnipeg where he was also engaged in the production and distribution of lake fish.
He was connected with The Canadian Fishing Company, Limited in the capacities noted above from 1917 until 1937, and assisted in the great expansion of the company during those years.
This pictoral history continues on Page Two
