Branksome Hall - Slogan Yearbook (Toronto, Ontario Canada)

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28 THE BRA NKSOME SLOGAN When they are cool a little Japanese man shakes each tin, and can tell very quickly which are full and which are under- weight. The full ones are all put together and sold as first-class. All the tins are piled up, brick fashion, to within a few feet of the ceiling, and in the winter they are lacquered and labelled. The cans are made, too, in the same building, during the winter time. The emploj ees in this cannery are of mixed nationality, Indians, Chinamen and Japanese. Quite a number of Indian women were at work, and they sometimes work, we were told, with papooses strapped on their backs. We were surprised to see a number of Indian children playing around on the floor, apparently happy in spite of the prevailing fishiness. It seems they have machinery which can do the work the women would do, as satisfactorily and more quickly, but they have to employ the women in order to keep the men. We left the cannery to wend our way back along the rail- way track, still in the teeming rain, feeling considerably en- lightened and moderately curious as to whether we should relish canned salmon at our next encounter quite so much as on previous occasions. The whole process was conducted in a very cleanly manner, but sometimes these glances behind the scenes are anything but appetizing. I, for one, I am glad to say, find myself quite able to enjoy the product still without being haunted b} mem- ories of raw and mutilated fish. ETHEL M, AMES.

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THE BRANKSOME SLOGAN 27 Salman QDanit rg in lltctoria During my trip to the Coast this summer, one of the most interesting and enjoyable days was spent in Victoria. We were anxious to go through a salmon cannery while there, and a iriend of ours who was verv kind in showing us the .sights of the town, drove us out early in the morning to withinl half a mile of one of the canneries. This half-mile we had to walk, along a railway track in the pouring rain. (Victoria, we were told on good authority, has very little wet weather, and we just hap- pened on an unfortunate day.) On entering the cannery we found the atmosphere extremely fishy, so much so that we were doubtful as to whether our strength of mind would prove sufficient to keep us there for the appointed time. Fortunately we became more or less used to the overwhelming fragrance, and were able to follow the foreman around and see pretty well what was going on. That morning they had had what they called a small catch, something like twenty-seven hundred fish, but to our unsophisticated eyes it seemed an immense quantity. When the fish are brought in they are left in a big pile on the floor at one end of the building and are taken up, a few at a time, and held in a machine which cuts off the heads and tails, and splits open the bodies. The insides are taken out and then the fish are sent along a moving belt, past a number of large tubs, where Indians wash them. When one of the workers is ready for more fish, he just opens a little wooden door at the top of his tub and this blocks the progress of the fish on the belt and turns them off into his tub. When he has enough he shuts the door again. After being washed, the salmon are passed on to another row of workers, who cut them up. Then the pieces are taken to tables, where they are put into cans with the skin laid next to the tin. The tins are taken on large trays to a machine that has little brushes for cleaning off the grease and then they travel along, single file, on a belt to another machine, where the tops are placed on and soldered. Next they are put in ovens and steamed for half an hour. After that the cans are dropped in boiling water to find out if there is any air inside. If there is air a little hole is punched in the top of the tin to let it out, and then it is soldered up again. The cans are now put back in the oven and steamed for an hour at a temperature of 240 degrees Fahrenheit.

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THE BRANKSOME SLOGAN 29 Let ' s look as if we were quite used to it and didn ' t feel a bit nervous, we said. So we tried to adopt an extreme!} non- chalant expression, and marched up to the sacred portals of that most dreaded, and afterwards most loved, of institutions, the University of Toronto. Of course I think the standpoint of any girl who has lived in the city all her life cannot be that of a true Freshette, for she knows so very many of the irls at Varsity, in comparision with a girl who has gone to school in some far-off town all her life. Nevertheless, I am sure my inward feelings were quite ' •fresh and green enough, even if my outward appearance was a little more composed than that of some others. We were very fortunate in having someone to take us round to register and enroll nearly all the time. But, if we were left to our own resources in the halls for more than a minute, we felt like fish out of water. We did feel at home, it is true, in the cloak-room, where only a few months before we had taken last despairing looks into a Latin book or European History, and had gone in to an examination resolved never to forget that 476 was the date of the fall of Rome. Five minutes later we were debat- ing whether it was the Battle of Adrianople or Chalons! The East Hall also had a familiar aspect, and we recognized with delight the dear, beautiful, ugly old Indians, who line its walls. They had certainly been inspiring when we wanted to write ' ' solch un ' ' for ' ' such, a, in a French exam ! Now, however, in that hall beautifully printed signs were tacked up in different places with French, Oerman, La tin, etc., inscribed thereon. And we stood in line and wended our way very slowly up to the Registrar ' s desk to receive the precious little cards which w e must not lose under any consideration. Then we went to the tables under the various signs and the pro- fessors there said: Monday, 2 to 3, room 65; or Tuesday, 9 to 10, room 6; or Friday, 10 to 11, West Hall. We gazed helplessly at one another and said: Yes, Monday, from 6 to 5, room 2 or 3, but Tuesday? The poor man sighed, and repeated it all over again, only to leave us in a worse muddle than before ! At last it was over, and we had leisure to look around. Stately Seniors stalked about in gowns and directed poor, be- wildered Freshies. Here and there a happy group of friends gath- ered, who had not met since the spring — or perhaps since the