The Green caldron - University Library

March, 1962 13
Canning Salmon
Glenna Middleton
Rhetoric 101, Theme 11
TETHERED TO THE SLIMY PIER, TEN COMMERCIAL FISHing
boats bob up and down in the foamy, green salt water. Sea gulls
screech and swoop down over the boats in eager anticipation. A steady
stream of salmon is being unloaded from the holds and carried into the
cannery. The fishermen never look up from their work, but continually jab
at the seething mass of glittering salmon and toss them one after another
onto the cluttered pier which is strewn with hoses, slabs of dirty ice, and
puddles of blood. Men in rubber hip boots select the salmon to be immediately
canned and flip them onto moving ladders. They then pile the low grade
salmon and halibut, which have wandered into the nets by mistake, into
blood-stained carts to be rolled ofif to the freezers.
In only eight hours this steady stream of fresh salmon is cleaned, chopped,
cooked, and packed into the familiar cans seen on the grocers' shelves.
Canning salmon is a continuous assembly-line process, starting when the
live salmon are unloaded from the boats and sorted on the dock.
After the fresh salmon have been unloaded and sorted, they are carried
by the moving, hooked ladders into the cannery. Inside the cannery machines
are roaring and clanking as the fish go through the moving blades, rotating
brushes, and sprayers. The air is filled with a misty spray caused by the
boys who shower off the walks and movable parts of the machines, and swish
the clumps of entrails and blood into water-filled thoughs. The fish are
carefully graded and inspected, and then they are sent to a machine with
rotating blades which neatly chops ofif the head of each fish and drops it
into a metal basket. The baskets are removed every five minutes by high
school boys who dump the heads into a grinding machine. The pulverized
heads are quick-frozen and sold as mink food.
The headless fish are ready to be cleaned and sliced. Men in rubber
coveralls inspect the salmon and place them into a slicing machine which
splits open their bellies. After each fish is cut open, women wearing rubber
gloves, hip boots, aprons and bandannas remove the intestines and throw
them into troughs filled with running water. The intestines are not thrown
away, but are poured into steam vats to be cooked and dehydrated for
fertilizer. Because of this manufacture of fertilizer, the whole factory reeks
with a pungent, oppressive odor. After the fish are cleaned, men with
butcher knives whack off the tails and place the shiny bodies into another
slicing machine which cuts each salmon into ten crosswise sections.
Now that the salmon are beheaded, cleaned, and sliced, they are ready
to be packed into the cans. This is done by teams of women dressed in