Mitsuo Yesaki is a retired Fisheries biologist interested in Japanese Canadian history. Mr. Yesaki's recent books, Steveston Cannery Row (together with Harold and Kathy Stevens) and Salmon Canning of the Fraser River in the 1890s (together with Sakuya Nishimura), were reviewed by Arnold Ranneris in BC Historical News, Vol. 34, No. 1.

The first salmon canneries on the Fraser River were built at Annieville and Sapperton in 1870. The early canneries were basically large wooden buildings constructed on pilings along the riverbank and with few machines. By the late 1880s, salmon canning had evolved into a manually operated, mass-production process manned by large numbers of Chinese men and Native women. A steam engine provided steam for cooking the cans and cleaning, as well as providing power for the fish elevator. Four-foot lengths of wood were burned in the steam engine. Chinese men powered the gang knife, crimping and soldering machines. Charcoal was used for fuel in the soldering machine to seal the bottoms and tops onto the cans (Fig. 1). Charcoal was also used in portable furnaces (Fig. 2) to heat the irons for soldering the sides of the cans and stopping the vents in the can tops.

Figure 1 - Soldering Machine. Drawing by Duke Yesaki.

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Virgin forests blanketed the west coast of North America, providing abundant supplies of firewood for the salmon canning industry. Cannery managers contracted woodcutters to supply them with firewood. Henry Doyle1 estimates from 10 to 15 cords of wood were required to make 1,000 cases of canned salmon. Woodcutters on the Skeena River in 1895 were paid $3 for each cord of wood.2 Charcoal was probably imported during the initial years, but in the early 1890s, Japanese started making charcoal at various locations on the British Columbia coast. Doyle states 150 bushels of charcoal were needed for every 1,000 cases. He also quotes the price of charcoal ranging from 12 cents per pound in 1901 to 7 cents per pound in 1906. This compares with the price per pound for potatoes of 1.2 cents and rice of 4.8 cents. Fraser River canneries commonly packed 25,000 cases of canned salmon during the dominant sockeye-cycle year. A cannery's operating outlays during a dominant-cycle run would have been between $750 to $1,125 for cord-wood and $5,250 to $9,000 for charcoal, assuming each bushel of charcoal weighed 20 pounds.

Figure 2 - Charcoal Furnace. Drawing by Duke Yesaki.	Photograph by Michael L. Cotton

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By 1888, there were 150 Japanese fishermen primarily on the Fraser River.3 There were few employment opportunities for Japanese at the turn of the twentieth century other than fishing, so there was considerable incentive to make-work for themselves. Most of the Japanese were from Wakayama and familiar with making charcoal, as this was an important industry in this prefecture. As the salmon fishing season extended only through July and August, Japanese started cutting wood and making charcoal during the off-season on the outer Gulf Islands. The 1891 Canada Census shows there were only 11 Japanese in the Gulf Islands. They were living on Saturna Island and involved in the coal-mining project on Tumbo Island. On the other hand, the 1901 census reports a total of 311 Japanese in this area, comprised of 306 men, 4 women and 1 child. The Japanese population of Steveston at this time was 396 men, 46 women and 23 children under 16 years of age. The high proportion of males on the Gulf Islands suggests a population of transient workers. The highest concentration of Japanese was on Mayne (including Saturna), followed by Pender (including Prevost) and Salt Spring islands.

The highest concentration of charcoal kilns has been found on the outer Gulf Islands,4 but they have also been reported from other locations on the British Columbia coast. Wicks5 and Ennyu6 wrote of charcoal kilns operated by Japanese in the Skeena River delta. Charcoal Bay in inner Rivers Inlet is apparently named after its charcoal-making operations. Japanese, having difficulty pronouncing charcoal, refer to this location as Sumi-yaki (charcoal-burning) Bay.7 Charcoal kilns have apparently also been found on Bowen Island, but this has not been confirmed.

An immigration officer visited Mayne and Saturna Islands in 1901 to investigate the prevalence of illegal immigrants.8 He found three camps of Japanese cutting cordwood on Mayne Island for Fraser River salmon canneries. M. Furukawa owned 150 acres and operated the largest camp of 55 woodcutters. He supplied cordwood to Victoria Canning Company canneries and had the use of their boats. Sam Matsunaga owned land to the west of Furukawa and employed 24 woodcutters. S. Suzuki had his camp of 10 woodcutters on Worge's ranch. The immigration officer ascertained their store-bought supplies consisted of rice, flour, and a few groceries. They essentially lived off the plentiful resources of the island, including fish, waterfowl, and deer. Furukawa, Matsunaga, and Suzuki were probably fishing bosses with contacts to cannery managers and the woodcutters most probably fished for them. No mention is made in this report of charcoal making, perhaps overlooked by the immigration officer unfamiliar with this trade.

These Japanese entrepreneurs probably negotiated amount and price for charcoal and cordwood with cannery managers. It's not known how the landless entrepreneur compensated the landowner for his trees. Did he pay a certain amount for each cord of wood or did he agree to clear a plot of land in exchange for the logs? Fishermen and boat pullers were most likely recruited to cut down trees for cordwood to fuel the steam engines and wood for the charcoal furnaces.

Sannosuke Ennyu's diary of his activities in the Skeena River area during 1894-1895 describes his venture with three colleagues into cutting trees for charcoal. In August 1895, they contracted with a charcoal furnace operator to supply 100 cords of wood. They started cutting wood on 29 August and continued to 2 October. During this 35-day period, they worked only 19 days with many days lost because of heavy rains. They laboured for three days loading the cut wood onto a scow and then moved the scow to the site of the charcoal furnace. They resumed logging on 11 October and worked for 16 days until 17 November. They cut 52 cords of wood in 35 days for which they earned $156. Their expenses included $95.35 for food and $69.35 for personal effects for a total of $164.70. The $8.70 shortfall was covered by sale of excess food and the assistance of acquaintances. The four men were engaged for 81 days in the wood cutting venture. Their daily food expense was $1.18 for the group and $0.29 for each person. They augmented their food supply by harvesting shellfish and seaweeds, fishing and hunting waterfowl and game. Ennyu records memorable meals of blue heron eaten with freshly made udon on one occasion and duck eaten with Chinese wine purchased for $1.00 on another occasion.

Charcoal making on the British Columbia coast was an important industry for the Japanese at the turn of the century. This industry flourished for approximately 15 years from the early 1890s to about 1908, when the canneries switched to coal instead of cordwood and charcoal. For the entrepreneurs, charcoal making afforded them an excellent opportunity to accumulate wealth, requiring virtually no capital outlays for material to build the kilns and only labour to dig the pits and to fashion local rocks and clay into kilns. For the loggers, charcoal making gave them employment during the off-fishing season and the possibility of earning a little extra cash. The charcoal industry in the outer Gulf Islands was also important in affording the Japanese an opportunity to observe the bountiful natural resources of the Gulf Islands. In the early Twentieth century, they started a two-boat seine fishery for herring, which was salted for export to Japan and China. With the mechanization of fishing boats in the 1910s, the Japanese developed the live-bait ling-cod fishery in the Gulf of Georgia. They also participated in the fledgling troll fishery in the Gulf of Georgia for springs, cohos, and bluebacks that developed in the late 1910s. They harvested nori (Porphya sp.) from the intertidal zone of the Gulf Islands initially for their own use and later for sale in the Japanese communities of British Columbia.