Larry E. Stefanyk of Island Fisherman Magazine has written an article about his experience visiting Good Hope Cannery in 2010. It was published in the March-April issue of Island Fisherman Magazine. For more information and articles from this magazine visit their website
here. Please read the original article below!
Big Hopes, Big Fish
Good Hope Cannery
By Larry E. Stefanyk
I’d like to start off this article with a little history of the River’s Inlet Canneries, provided by Good Hope Cannery:
Rivers Inlet was the site of the first cannery built in the Central Coast of BC; legend has it that in the spring of 1882, the steamer Barbara Boscowitz was to transport owners and crew to Shotbolt Bay to start construction of a canning facility. It was dark and snowing when they arrived, and the captain hurriedly unloaded the crew, equipment and supplies, then steamed away. It wasn’t until the next morning that it was realized the boat had not landed in Shotbolt Bay at all, but at the head end of Rivers Inlet on the tide flats.
Time was of the essence – fishing season was coming – so the facility, called Rivers Inlet Cannery to this day, was built on the site. Fifteen more canneries were built over the years and in 1894, the Anglo-British Columbia Packing Company constructed the Good Hope Cannery on the Inlet. A year later, H.O. Bell-Irving and Company assumed “Sole Managing and Selling Agent” responsibilities, and the Bell-Irving family owned it for decades, converting it to a resort in 1965. The cannery was built from the 90-foot long knotless fir timbers known as British Columbia toothpicks. The lodge, its contents and surroundings are remarkably intact, from the boiler that heated the building and fired the equipment, to the ice house – now the fish-cleaning room – to the canning line and retorts, the ovens that processed tins of salmon. While preserving some of the past, Good Hope is making a new generation of anglers and adventures comfortable in a way the original cannery workers could scarcely have imagined.
At the end of August my fishing partner and I left the South Terminal at 8:30 for a one and a half flight to Good Hope Cannery. We were greeted by the staff and assigned accommodations for our stay. We were served brunch which we enjoyed along with the other 33 guests. We had all pre-booked our clothing and boots and they were all arranged in the drying room for us. We changed and headed to the dock for an orientation of the fishing grounds, gear and how to run the boats. This experience was non-guided which I really enjoy.
It wasn’t long before we had our gear in the water fishing cut-plug herring, 11 pulls on one rod and 15 pulls on the second, we had a few hits but nothing stayed on. Back to the lodge for a great dinner and we called it an early night.
Up at 5 a.m. for breakfast and back on the water. Rob hooked a nice coho that put up a great scrap, but when he brought it to the boat it wasn’t the biggest in the ocean so he released it while it was still in the water. One of the best things about the lodge is you are never very far from the fishing grounds, so we headed in for hot lunch. After lunch we decided to try “Wadham’s” which is where my wife hooked a big one a few years ago and the Chinook won that battle. We were using the same cut-plug herring, changing up the depths, with no luck. Others in our group were hitting fish so we knew that Chinooks were around. On our third day we tried “Draney” and I had brought up a nine-foot fly rod and an Islander LX3.8 reel with 25-pound Berkley Big Game lime green line. I hooked on a cut-plug herring with no weight and put it in the middle rod holder. It didn’t take long and the reel started screaming as Rob reached for the rod. The salmon was spooling line and was not going to stop. I brought in our two other rods and Rob went to work. The fly rod never lost its arch during the fight as Rob would gain 15 feet and the coho would take 20 feet. As time wore on Rob was gaining more that what he was losing and I netted a silver bright coho with great backbone.
After a few photos our gear was back in the water. I decided to try 27 pulls fishing a little deeper than what I had been doing. By putting the boat into neutral, I let my herring fall as to imitate an injured herring. All of a sudden my rod tip bent into the water and my line started racing out as the fish sounded. It was heavy. I started working the gear and could feel the weight. Was this my big River Inlet Chinook of a lifetime?
The lodge had already had 250 Tyees (30-plus pound Chinook) on the board this year. Forty fish were in the 50-pound range, 20 in the 60-pound range and two in the 70-pound range. One guest Ian Davies can certainly attest to that. He chose to release the very first salmon he had ever caught, which incidentally turned out to be the largest Chinook of the season -- 78.5lbs!
I continued my back-a-forth battle for 30 minutes, as it finally rolled on its side I maneuvered it into the net. It was big, but how big was the question? It was getting late in the day. We decided to head back to the lodge, I was pretty interested to see how much my Chinook weighted.
First on the scale was the coho, 14 pounds. Next my Chinook, 31pounds, a Tyee for sure, but not a record for me. However, pound for pound it was one of the best fighting fishes I have had the opportunity to catch.
That evening I was rewarded with my Tyee pin along with four other anglers.
The largest Chinook of our trip tipped the scales at 50 pounds.
I was one of 34 guests that felt that we had been treated like one of the family by Ted Walkus, the manager and all his staff. We all left Good Hope Cannery with some great fishing memories.
I will be back.
PS: On another note, we were having brunch that first morning when we were all given metal water bottles, and we were asked to use these for our trip as the water is excellent out of the tap. This cuts out all the plastic water bottles for the season. Good for us and the environment. Thank you…. Good Hope Cannery.
http://www.goodhopecannery.com
Phone: 604-244-8755
Toll-Free: 1-800-665I’d like to start off this article with a little history of the River’s Inlet Canneries, provided by Good Hope Cannery:
Rivers Inlet was the site of the first cannery built in the Central Coast of BC; legend has it that in the spring of 1882, the steamer Barbara Boscowitz was to transport owners and crew to Shotbolt Bay to start construction of a canning facility. It was dark and snowing when they arrived, and the captain hurriedly unloaded the crew, equipment and supplies, then steamed away. It wasn’t until the next morning that it was realized the boat had not landed in Shotbolt Bay at all, but at the head end of Rivers Inlet on the tide flats.
Time was of the essence – fishing season was coming – so the facility, called Rivers Inlet Cannery to this day, was built on the site. Fifteen more canneries were built over the years and in 1894, the Anglo-British Columbia Packing Company constructed the Good Hope Cannery on the Inlet. A year later, H.O. Bell-Irving and Company assumed “Sole Managing and Selling Agent” responsibilities, and the Bell-Irving family owned it for decades, converting it to a resort in 1965. The cannery was built from the 90-foot long knotless fir timbers known as British Columbia toothpicks. The lodge, its contents and surroundings are remarkably intact, from the boiler that heated the building and fired the equipment, to the ice house – now the fish-cleaning room – to the canning line and retorts, the ovens that processed tins of salmon. While preserving some of the past, Good Hope is making a new generation of anglers and adventures comfortable in a way the original cannery workers could scarcely have imagined.
At the end of August my fishing partner and I left the South Terminal at 8:30 for a one and a half flight to Good Hope Cannery. We were greeted by the staff and assigned accommodations for our stay. We were served brunch which we enjoyed along with the other 33 guests. We had all pre-booked our clothing and boots and they were all arranged in the drying room for us. We changed and headed to the dock for an orientation of the fishing grounds, gear and how to run the boats. This experience was non-guided which I really enjoy.
It wasn’t long before we had our gear in the water fishing cut-plug herring, 11 pulls on one rod and 15 pulls on the second, we had a few hits but nothing stayed on. Back to the lodge for a great dinner and we called it an early night.
Up at 5 a.m. for breakfast and back on the water. Rob hooked a nice coho that put up a great scrap, but when he brought it to the boat it wasn’t the biggest in the ocean so he released it while it was still in the water. One of the best things about the lodge is you are never very far from the fishing grounds, so we headed in for hot lunch. After lunch we decided to try “Wadham’s” which is where my wife hooked a big one a few years ago and the Chinook won that battle. We were using the same cut-plug herring, changing up the depths, with no luck. Others in our group were hitting fish so we knew that Chinooks were around. On our third day we tried “Draney” and I had brought up a nine-foot fly rod and an Islander LX3.8 reel with 25-pound Berkley Big Game lime green line. I hooked on a cut-plug herring with no weight and put it in the middle rod holder. It didn’t take long and the reel started screaming as Rob reached for the rod. The salmon was spooling line and was not going to stop. I brought in our two other rods and Rob went to work. The fly rod never lost its arch during the fight as Rob would gain 15 feet and the coho would take 20 feet. As time wore on Rob was gaining more that what he was losing and I netted a silver bright coho with great backbone.
After a few photos our gear was back in the water. I decided to try 27 pulls fishing a little deeper than what I had been doing. By putting the boat into neutral, I let my herring fall as to imitate an injured herring. All of a sudden my rod tip bent into the water and my line started racing out as the fish sounded. It was heavy. I started working the gear and could feel the weight. Was this my big River Inlet Chinook of a lifetime?
The lodge had already had 250 Tyees (30-plus pound Chinook) on the board this year. Forty fish were in the 50-pound range, 20 in the 60-pound range and two in the 70-pound range. One guest Ian Davies can certainly attest to that. He chose to release the very first salmon he had ever caught, which incidentally turned out to be the largest Chinook of the season -- 78.5lbs!
I continued my back-a-forth battle for 30 minutes, as it finally rolled on its side I maneuvered it into the net. It was big, but how big was the question? It was getting late in the day. We decided to head back to the lodge, I was pretty interested to see how much my Chinook weighted.
First on the scale was the coho, 14 pounds. Next my Chinook, 31pounds, a Tyee for sure, but not a record for me. However, pound for pound it was one of the best fighting fishes I have had the opportunity to catch.
That evening I was rewarded with my Tyee pin along with four other anglers. The largest Chinook of our trip tipped the scales at 50 pounds.
I was one of 34 guests that felt that we had been treated like one of the family by Ted Walkus, the manager and all his staff. We all left Good Hope Cannery with some great fishing memories.
I will be back.
PS: On another note, we were having brunch that first morning when we were all given metal water bottles, and we were asked to use these for our trip as the water is excellent out of the tap. This cuts out all the plastic water bottles for the season. Good for us and the environment. Thank you…. Good Hope Cannery.
http://www.goodhopecannery.com
Phone: 604-244-8755
Toll-Free: 1-800-665-0613
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