Instinctively heading for their spawning rivers, from the Pacific and the Bering Sea, salmon journeyed through the Strait of Juan de Fuca each fall, seeking their home rivers to spawn and finish out their life cycle.
Many circumstances have brought constantly changing regulations by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, as to how fishing for wild Pacific salmon could be done. This photograph of the Gordon trap dates from the early 1940s.
The system of commercial salmon traps held sway in British Columbia and Alaskan waters for half a century. In Sooke in 1904 it was J.H. Todd and Sons who began their industry leadership, and for a brief time, they even operated a salmon cannery on our waterfront. Gradually the smaller companies left the industry and in 1918, J.H. Todd was joined by a salmon group from Port Townsend, Wash. When they amalgamated, Sooke Harbour Fishing & Packing Company was born.
Throughout most of the company’s tenure, there were five traps, Beechey trap, Sooke trap, Otter Point trap, Gordon trap (for Gordons Beach) and Coal Creek trap (now called Kirby Creek). Headquarters for the industry was at the foot of Maple Avenue, with an assembly of wharves, waterfront structures and piledrivers carrying out the company business.
In the spring, the 40 or so company workers would begin, preparing the pilings, tarring the webbing, etc. The Douglas-fir pilings seen here could measure up to 150 feet at the deep end, where the structure curved into a maze called a spiller. As the salmon headed down the strait, and found themselves faced with a wire mesh barrier, they would swim out to sea trying to escape, reaching the webbing and becoming caught in the pot and spiller. The company would send out fishpackers twice a week to carry out the “lift” whereupon the fish would generally be transported to canneries in Esquimalt, Steveston or Vancouver.
A cookhouse was built on the west side of Maple Avenue waterfront, right where Butler Brothers enterprise sits today, and it was there the men were well fed for their arduous work. Even out on the actual fishtraps themselves, where there was a platform with a trap shack, there was always a cook to keep the workers fed.
Each fall, the pilings were withdrawn, transported to Whiffin Spit, piled crisscross fashion for air circulation; and rested over the winter. In the spring they were taken into use again, until 1958, their final year.
Elida Peers is the historian with Sooke Region Museum.
