Nootka Packing Company Ltd.

A fish saltery was opened in the area of Yuquot / Friendly Cove on Nootka Island in the late 1800s.

The cannery was built just about one mile North of this location in 1917 and operated as the Nootka Packing Company Ltd., canning razor clams, pilchard, and herring. Some reports say the cannery employed up to 2000 people at capacity. 

Nootka Island Cannery 1938
BC Archives E-07910

Indigenous workers' houses to the rear of the cannery at Nootka 1930s
BC Archives A-08869

1940
Jewish Museum and Archives of BC Item L.13201

It closed around 1950 when fishermen were no longer able to catch pilchard off the coast at their previous levels of abundance.

Nootka Cannery 1940
BC Archives E-07909

In the 1960s visitors to the canneries were able to find many of the old original labels from the cannery still in the buildings.

Deserted Nootka Cannery, 1964.
UNBC Archives Item 2013.6.36.1.003.016

Today a fishing lodge operates at the location of the old cannery.