The closure of New Oceanside Cannery in 2015 represented the end of large-scale commercial salmon canning in B.C.
1973-2015
54°19’22.2″N 130°18’32.6″W
In 1972 a fire destroyed the Prince Rupert Fisheries Cannery known as “Old” Oceanside. To employ shoreworkers whose jobs had been lost because of the fire, the Canadian Fishing Co. reopened the recently closed North Pacific Cannery for the remainder of that season. The company then built the “new” Oceanside for 1973 season.
When BC Packers purchased the Canadian Fishing Co.’s northern canneries in 1980, New Oceanside was jointly owned by BC Packers and the Canadian Fishing Co. It was returned to the Canadian Fishing Co. in 1999 when the company bought out BC Packers.
The New Oceanside plant could freeze sixty thousand pounds of fish per day, had a one-million-pound cold storage area, and could can four hundred to five hundred thousand cases of canned salmon per year.
In its final year of operations in 2015, only forty thousand cases of salmon were packed at the plant. It was the last cannery owned by Canfisco on the B.C. coast and the last industrial cannery in British Columbia. The plant continues operations in fresh and frozen products.
The interior of the Oceanside Cannery at Prince Rupert, with six production lines visible. Gulf of Georgia Cannery Society Archives 2011.003.156
Workers on the dock at the Oceanside Cannery. Gulf of Georgia Cannery Collection G2011.003.0120