Ready to go home after a hard day out on the water, back in the 1940s, the crew standing on the deck of the fish traps tender Harriet E was persuaded to pose for a photo. Based at the foot of Maple Avenue, the wharf of Sooke Harbour Fishing and Packing Company was situated alongside the government wharf.
The fellow standing at the doorway to the galley, in white, the cook, was sometimes regarded as the most important member of the crew as he had to keep the fellows well fed with substantial meals, plus desserts, to keep their energy up for the sometimes arduous work. (Note: I think that’s why I learned to make apple tarts, as they were often served by the ships’ cooks.)
Returning from a trip tending to the pile driver as it drove the fish traps pilings into the ocean floor, this crew included at left a pile-driver crewman (sorry the name escapes us) and next to him stood Jimmy Forrest, who was the ship’s engineer. The diesel oil-fired engines had to be kept going, whatever the rough weather they encountered out in the strait.
Jimmy Forrest lived with his wife Olive on West Coast Road, close to the Maple Avenue location. The couple raised three children; the eldest, Pat Forrest, became well known to many in later years as a fisherman and volunteer worker for Sooke Salmon Enhancement Society.
On the far right is “Pop” Michelsen, Norwegian-born skipper of the Harriet E, who with his wife Sarah Poirier, raised a large family. His sons were Dadie, Mandus, Paul, Eric and Rolf, and daughters included Sarah, Lily, Agnes, Christine and Marie, all of them well known in Sooke.
Shore-based workers were well fed as well, as the company’s cookhouse stood just about where the Butler Brothers enterprise is today on the lower west side of Maple Avenue. The largest employer in town from the 1920s into the 1950s, Sooke Harbour Fishing and Packing Company was run by J.H. Todd and Sons.
The last year of the operation of the fish traps was 1958; by that time independent fishermen had taken over the industry.
Elida Peers is the historian with Sooke Region Museum.
