Drive south to Richmond (www.tourismrichmond.com) on Highway 99, then west on the Steveston Highway, and left at No. 1 Road to the village of Steveston — both a working town and a tourism center.
In the late i8oos, Steveston was one of the largest fishing ports in the world, with fifteeen canneries packing a total of 195,000 cases of salmon yearly. It was also home to a hard-living mixed-race commun¬ity replete with gambling and opium dens, and bordellos.
During World War II the Japanese, and their fishing boats, were interned. Their story is told at the Britannia Heritage Shipyard (5180 Westwater Drive, Richmond, 604-718-8050); its Murakamis Visitor Centre is devoted to the story of a single family. Four of a dozen remaining Britannia shipyard buildings are also open to the public. In one, skilled boat builders restore old wooden working vessels.
The Gulf of Georgia Cannery (12138 4th Avenue, Richmond, 604-664-9009, www.gulfofgeorgiacannery.com), a National Historic Site operated by Parks Canada, is one of the few remaining 19th-century canneries on the coast. This is an experiential place, replete with the sounds of cascading tins and shouting laborers, where you can chill out in the Ice House (and smell the alternative to keeping fish ice cold). The cannery explains the various types of fishing boat that ply this coast, and the complexities of an industry that remains hugely political. It’s open May through October.
The Coast Salish native Indians knew the point at Steveston, now Garry Point Park, as the “place of churning waters.” This is the exposed shoreline of what can be a merciless Georgia Strait, so it’s not inappropriate to find here a moving memorial to lost fishermen, in the form of a symbolic net-mending needle.
Traditionally, families would welcome their fishermen home by light-ing fires on the beach; today, Garry Point is the only beach in the Lower Mainland where open fires are permitted. This makes it a great nighttime spot, but it’s a year-round daytime mecca as well. On all but the worst winter days, people are here — walking, cycling, kayaking, and flying kites.
Steveston village has more than twenty restaurants, most serving sea¬food, including a couple of fish-and-chip places down on the docks. You can even buy, in season, catch right off the boats tied up at the wharves. Seasonal cruises depart from these docks. I recommend seeking out the rotund sea lions that bask on the offshore rocks in April and May.
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