Food on the Fraser
Gillnetting is the most common kind of fishing on the Fraser River. Gillnets are large, up to 200 fathoms (1200') long, with floats at the top, and a heavy rope along the bottom. Gillnets do not reach all the way to river bottom, but float several feet above it. Using a winch on the boat, one end of the net is lowered into the water as the boat is driven across the river in a horseshoe shape (or weir) to intercept fish swimming upstream. Fishermen know there are fish in the net when the floats bob up and down.
Don Carter has fished the Fraser River for 50 years, and is a third generation fisherman on the Fraser. The Fraser River has many species of fish including salmon, eulachons (candlefish), herring, and sturgeon. Don mainly catches salmon. He inherited his grandfather’s net sheds at Sapperton Landing, public land where many fishermen stored their nets since around 1900. When the Millennium Skytrain line was built along the landing, the City of New Westminster and Metro Vancouver worked together to build Sapperton Landing Park. In 2001, the net sheds were removed in order to create the park.
That really hurt us when [Metro Vancouver] tore our net sheds down. Those sheds were used by my grandfather, father and me. Now it's a park.
-DON CARTER, New Westminster fisherman
We had an eulachon festival... we actually had restaurants cook eulachons in different ways. It was very popular while it was there, but you couldn't really plan it because [harvest times] would change... with the moon, with the water level, with the temperature.
-ARCHIE MILLER, local historian and New Westminster resident
Farmers shipped produce to the Broder [Royal City] Cannery for processing. Canning was seasonal work. With help from her cousins, Joanna Zabinsky got a job there in the summer of 1936. Alongside other young women, Joanna worked on the production line for 3 summers. Using hand tools she purchased with her salary, she peeled, cored, and chopped beans, peas, tomatoes, peaches, pears, apricots, and more. Joanna remembers that no one wore gloves for protection, and cutting acidic fruit gave some women a painful condition they called 'fruit poisoning'.
Captain Albert Gibson got regular deliveries of fish and bread from City Market every Friday. In the early 1960s, Captain Gibson sailed the Samson V along the Fraser 'snagpulling', or removing debris from the shipping channel. As captain, he also needed to make sure the crew was fed. Fishermen sold their catch to packing and processing companies on the waterfront, such as Edmunds and Walker, Pacific Coast Terminals, and Gilley Brothers.