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Fuerteventura - a beach lover's paradise
Fuerteventura - blessed with over 150 beaches - is one of the least spoiled and the least discovered of the Canary Islands.
With a dramatic volcanic landscape, little rainfall and all year round warm temperatures, the desert landscape is unique...
Hello from Caledon, Elora & Guelph: Fall Colours, Ghosts and Ghouls
Fall is one of the most beautiful seasons in Ontario, and after
last weeks early fall colour tour through the Kawarthas east of
Toronto, it was time yesterday to check out the areas west of
Toronto. My husband and I set off on the highway, left...
Siberia, Russia Part 5 – Khabarovsk And A Little Russian
In this continuing series, we cover my move from San Diego to Chita, Siberia to be a professor at Chita State Technical University. We pick up the story outside the airport in Khabarovsk, Russia.
Khabarovsk
Khabarovsk is an amazing city....
The Dude Ranch Vacation: An American Tradition
Dude ranches, as they are known today, first gained marked popularity in the 1920s, in large part due to the writings of Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt spent some time working as a ranchman, and herding cattle, and he urged Americans to explore for...
What you need to know about - portsmouth city
Life materializes to be calm and complacent and all the worries gradually peter out as one enters the beautiful seaside town- Portsmouth. The city that was initially a ship building center has a rich historical past that is even reflected in the...
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The Japanese Started cannery row
No visit to the southwest would really be complete without a
drive along Highway 1.The road offers dramatic views of
California's sensational Pacific coast as it weaves from San
Luis Obispo to Monterey. This is the home of the fish canning
industry, made famous or perhaps infamous by John Steinbeck's
portrayal of life in the area, in his book of the same name.
Today, Cannery Row has been transformed into a tourist Mecca
featuring hotels and wonderful fish restaurants clustered around
the star of the show, the amazingly huge, Monterey Bay Aquarium
. The Aquarium features some of the delights of Pacific
Ocean life such as a giant kelp forest, huge octopuses and an
underwater window that looks out into the Bay and gives the
spectator access to the fish life that is going on around.
Definitely a must visit, and a very far cry from the canneries
that had inhabited the area before.
As long ago as 1902 a Japanese immigrant named Otosaburo Noda
saw that the enormous catches from the fruitful Pacific brought
ashore by the Monterey Bay fisherman had enormous market
potential. If the fish were cooked and canned in the area they
could be sold anywhere in the US or the world for that matter, a
feat quite impossible with fresh fish. So he and business
partner, Harry Malpas opened the Monterey Fishing and Canning
Company in the "street of the sardine" and the tinned fish
industry in
Monterey was born. Others, to, were quick to grasp
the opportunity. Frank Booth the "father of the sardine
industry" muscled in and built a large scale fish packing plant
in the following year, 1903.Unfortunatley the more successful
new arrivals put Noda and Malpas out of business in 1907. It is,
however, interesting to note that by the end of the First World
War that three of the canneries on "Old Ocean Avenue" were
Japanese owned and run.
Women did the work of preparing and packing the tins. The
fishermen landed the catch in the morning; as soon as it was
unloaded it was cooked and then canned. The whole operation had
to be completed in the same day, no matter how long it took. The
work was long, hard and often done in inhuman working
conditions. It was that, which brought the area to Steinbeck's
attention
He set "Cannery Row" in the immediate post depression years of
the 1930s and used a friend, Dr Ed Ricketts as the model for his
fictional character "Doc". The real "Doc" was a marine biologist
whose book "Between Pacific Tides" published in 1939 is still
the standard text for students of marine biology. Is it
surprising then that these squalid canneries have transformed
themselves into a marine biologist's heaven, the Monterey Bay
Aquarium? Interested in this subject? Try this link for more of the same
About the author:
www.southwesttraveller.com
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