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An Introduction to Bahamas Vacations
A Bahamas vacation is something that most travelers will never forget. The 700 islands of the Bahamas make up a 100,000-square-mile archipelago, extending over 500 miles. Including uninhabited cays and large rocks, it has a total estimated land area...
Campsite Meal Planning and Recipe
Hello Again, Today we will be talking about meal planning. Meals are one of
the most memorable aspects of any camping trip and if one meal is
a disaster you will never hear the end of it. I will show you how
to avoid spending half the day in...
Siberia, Russia Part 3 – Communist Planes and Defining “Fluent”
In the first two parts of this series, we covered my decision to move from San Diego to Chita, Siberia to be a professor at Chita State Technical University. We pick up the story aboard the flight from Anchorage to Khabarovsk, Russia. Day 3 ...
Top Holiday Travel Destinations
Despite the high cost of fuel and other travel expenses, an
estimated 63.5 million Americans are planning to travel at least
50 miles or more from home this Christmas and New Year. Hotel
rates are up nearly 15% at some popular destinations,...
Your Vacation First Aid Kit
Your vacation supplies must include a first-aid kit.
Have it available while traveling and take it with you whenever you go walking, hiking, or any activity that takes you away from civilization.
You can use just about any type of container for...
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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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