Description of Historic Place

The Arrandale, Mill Bay and Nass Harbour Canneries are the sites of three former fish canneries located in a cluster in Nass Bay, at the mouth of the Nass River, Range 5 Coast Land District, on British Columbia's north coast. The sites are approximately 100 kilometres northwest of Terrace and 80 kilometres north of Prince Rupert.

Heritage Value

The Arrandale, Mill Bay and Nass Harbour Canneries have significant historical, economic, cultural and social values for being representative of the contributions made to the salmon canning industry by the many Chinese Canadian workers in B.C.'s remote northern canneries. They are important as an illustration of the place of these workers in the social organization and way of life in these canneries, particularly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

These outlying canneries are significant for their remote location and their clustered arrangement at the mouth of the Nass River, one of B.C.'s major salmon producing rivers. This arrangement derived from the need to locate processing facilities for a highly perishable product near the routes of salmon migration. Their remoteness underscores the willingness of Chinese Canadians to work in these isolated locations which contributed to the opening up of industry and settlement in northern B.C.

As processing plants for salmon, one of B.C.'s most important commodities, the Nass River canneries are valued for their history of contributing to the economic growth of the province, and for the unique legacy of Chinese Canadian labour in contributing to that growth. The labour-intensiveness of the industry, the risk of fish spoilage and the possibility of missed salmon catches made the pool of fast, skilled labour provided by Chinese Canadian crews in packing and processing salmon highly valuable. Also important was the Chinese Canadian contract labour system which supported the canning industry through Chinese contractors, who supplied a certain number of men for the canning season in return for a stipulated fee per case of salmon processed.

Chinese Canadian workers were at the forefront of the B.C. salmon canning industry from the beginning, and it is significant that the value of these Chinese Canadian workers as an essential component of the cannery labour force was understood by the northern cannery owners and operators. Some of these owners, including H.O. Bell-Irving, felt it undesirable to impose further restrictions on them.

The Nass River canneries are important because they reflect changes in the industry that directly impacted Chinese Canadian labour. This is seen in the steady reduction of the number of Chinese workers needed in the canneries though mechanization, most notably the introduction in the 1920s of automatic salmon butchering and can-making machines. In 1950, this was the first industry in the province to allow the unionization of Chinese workers, removing the need for the contract labour system.

The layout and living quarters of the Nass River canneries are valuable physical reminders of Chinese Canadian culture and the social history of the northern canneries' multi-cultural population of First Nations, Japanese, Europeans, Canadians and others, in which Chinese Canadians predominated, working mainly as labourers, cooks and fishermen. This is illustrated by the segregation of both labour and living quarters in the canneries, and by the presence of a China House in every camp, built to the specifications of the Chinese contractor, with a Chinese cook, managed by a Chinese foreman.

These northern canneries are valued as a means of recognition for Chinese Canadians who came to work in a remote part of the province, adding to the multi-cultural vibrancy of the cannery camps. Also important are the company and other records that put a human face on the Chinese Canadian salmon cannery work force and provide invaluable information about individuals' occupations, families, wages, place of origin and language.

Source: Province of British Columbia, Heritage Branch

Character-Defining Elements

Not applicable.