GRANT REPORT
THE
LANGUAGE of
WORK The NN Cannery History Project celebrates Bristol Bay’s diverse, invisible workforce By Debra McKinney
W
hen Katie Ringsmuth strolls the boardwalks of Bristol Bay’s historic NN Cannery, she sees stories etched in the weathered wood and weary bones of its timeworn buildings. She hears the blast of the steam whistle, the grumble of the boilers, the pop-poppop of cans sealing in the cooling shed, the melody of multiple languages spoken by workers from all parts of the world. This old cannery on the south shore of the Naknek River—one of the major, pristine rivers behind Bristol Bay’s world-class sockeye salmon fishery—may be way past its prime, but it still has much to say about this fishery, this state, and Alaska’s place in the world. The mess hall, the bunkhouses, the company store, the abandoned boats swallowed by weeds, the grown-over graveyards with toppling crosses—all are conduits for the voices of those who labored behind the scenes at Alaska’s largest salmon cannery. “This story goes far beyond putting fish in a can,” said Ringsmuth, University of Alaska Anchorage history professor, author, and director of a project to keep the cannery’s story alive. “Those buildings contain the history of the people.”
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A L A S K A H U M A N I T I E S F O R U M FA L L 2019
That history is one of an ethnically diverse cannery culture, a seasonal, international community that’s been relegated to the footnotes of Alaska’s fishing industry. They are the invisible ones, the seasonal workers from the states, Japan, China, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Italy and Croatia, to name a few. Their work put food on tables around the world for well over 100 years. With too many narratives to wrap into one, all are connected through the common language of work. That gets to the heart of the NN Cannery History Project, a collaboration among historians, curators, filmmakers, archeologists, artists, former cannery workers, fishermen, elders, and local high school students to collect and share stories of a place former NN Cannery worker Oscar Peñaranda refers to as “the salmon goldmine of the world.” RESCUING HISTORY
The NN Cannery started as a saltery in 1890, was soon absorbed by the Alaska Packers Association, then transformed into the cannery, expanding from four buildings to a compound
