❖ The Old Cannery Dock, Friday Harbor, WA.

Photo postcard by Johnston, postmarked 1948.
From the archives of the S.P.H.S. ©

Fish Tender NEREID, 
Bow to shore, crew member on deck.

Built 1911 by Albert Jensen, Friday Harbor, WA.

3 Original photos from Saltwater People Historical Society©

Site: Home port of Friday Harbor, WA.

"If only docks could talk, oh what stories they could tell! For many years my Uncle Art was the engineer on the Friday Harbor Canning Co.'s fish carrier NEREID. Of course, when they came in with a load of salmon they needed to tie up at the cannery dock to unload, but other times they just needed a place to park the boat for awhile. In such a case, if all of the spaces were full, they often tied up to another boat that was already at the dock. (This practice is called rafting.)       Way back in the thirties or forties, Uncle Art was a good friend of George Willey who was the manager of the Friday Harbor Canning Co. It seems that one summer, someone with a log patrol license had tied a cedar log alongside the cannery dock. It was a big one, probably in access of six-feet in diameter and about forty-feet long. They left it there for a long time; so long in fact that Mr. Willey was getting worried that a big winter northeaster would drive it right through the cannery dock. He told Uncle Art about his concerns and asked 'Unk' if he could do anything about the situation.       Well, one very foggy day someone untied the big log and gave it a mighty push out into that dense fog. Dad 'just happened' to be out in that fog with his boat, and slowly the huge shape of that log came into sight. Dad said that in that thick fog it looked like it was as big as an aircraft carrier. He towed it home and cut it into shake bolts. Quickly he moved those bolts to a nice secluded clearing in the trees where he split them into shakes. There were enough to shake the entire house with a lot left over. As a teenager, I planed some of those leftover shakes to about an eighth of an inch thickness and made them into a guitar. Some sixty years later I still have that guitar. The cedar wood was beautiful in the guitar; the shakes were beautiful on the house too. They're still on the old house today."       Above text by Henry Hoffman, San Juan County, Oct. 2006        Henry's Stories, Kitchen Garden Press, Shaw Island, 2008.

"Capt." Willey, as he was affectionately known to his many friends, was born in 1869, and came to Puget Sound as a boy where he has been actively engaged in the lumber, shipping, and salmon business almost continuously. 
      Soon after the turn of the century, together with the late Wm. Schultz and Wm. Persell, he formed the Friday Harbor Packing Co. and purchased the present Friday Harbor Canning Co. property, to operate one of the most successful ventures on Puget Sound.
      In 1925, on the death of Wm. Schultz, he took over the cannery and continued as principal owner and manager until 1935, when he retired.
      Courtesy of the Friday Harbor Journal, n.d.

OUR ISLAND SMOKEHOUSE

Cedar smokehouse, 
designed and built c. 1925
 by Art Hoffman (1900-1981) on Shaw Island.
Photograph 2010.

"When Dad was just a little kid, his father had a large fruit orchard. He often traded fresh fruit for fish from the local Indians. The Indians who lived in the San Juans were friendly and liked the white settlers, unlike the warlike Haida tribe that came from British Columbia in their large dugout canoes. They killed some of the local Indian men and took many of the women and children back home as slaves. Fortunately, the Haidas never stopped at the Hoffman beach. Of course the local Indians were terrified of the Haida. But then, the younger Hoffman kids were just as afraid of the local Indians, probably because their older brothers and sisters had told them that the local Indians would scalp all of them if they ever got the chance.
      One day when the local Indians came to the Hoffman beach in their small dugout canoes, they caught my dad and uncle Art by surprise. They couldn't get to their favorite hiding place, which was the upper room of a two story smokehouse that my grandfather had built. To reach this upper area, there was a built-in ladder which went through an open hatch in the floor of this upper room. It was a favorite hiding place for all of the Hoffman kids to use whenever they needed one for whatever reason, because there was always plenty of smoked salmon hanging up there to feast on while you were hoping to not get caught. This time Dad ran to the main house and hid under a bed. Uncle Art hid somewhere else. Shortly after Dad hid, an Indian woman came to the house for tea and cake with grandma Hoffman. The guest couldn't help but notice Dad's two feet sticking out from under the bed, so she dragged him out kicking and screaming bloody murder. He was sure he was going to be scalped. Instead she lifted him into her lap, hugged him, and shared her tea and cake with him. Because of the way she loved him, Dad thought the local Indians were pretty much like other people, they loved kids and had no intention of scalping anyone.

      Another story that my father often told about his dad's smokehouse was this one. It seems that my Uncle Art had heard somewhere that one could shoot a candle from a 12-gauge shotgun through a 3/4" board with damaging the candle. My dad doubted this. Uncle Art was just as adamant that it could be done. They argued the point with neither one backing down. Finally Art said, 'I'll tell you what! I'll bet my shotgun that it can be done.' Dad said, "okay, but you'll need a 3/4" board." Since they happened to be standing by their smokehouse which was made of 3/4" boards, it seemed reasonable to Art that this was a good place to prove his point. He picked up his shotgun and took aim at the smokehouse. Dad yelled, 'Wait', but the warning came too late. KABOOM! A mighty hole was blown in the side of the smokehouse. One of them said to the other, 'I don't think Dad is going to be too happy about that hole.' But then they opened the door and the candle was lying on the floor unharmed. In spite of the hole, Art had proven his point. Somehow they managed to patch up that hole before their dad saw it; they did a good job as today there is no evidence of the incident."

Told by Henry Hoffman

3rd  generation Shaw Islander
For Saltwater People Historical Society/ 2010