Fisherman's Wharf

The post war era up to around 1990 was the heyday of the fishing fleet at Fisherman's Wharf. There were only two docks (dock one and dock two at the east end) of the ten docks that didn't have fishing vessels tied to them. These two "live aboard" docks were home to a diverse and often eccentric community during the seventies and right up until the turn of 2000.

Many colourful characters roamed the docks and interacted with the fishermen. People would appear from nowhere and make the wharf their new home until suddenly they would move on and be quickly replaced by equally eccentric types. This meant that there was never a dull moment and the local police were often kept busy breaking up fights and cross checking their list of outstanding arrest warrants with that of the wharf inhabitants.


He has a physique like a Greek god...

The wharf was bookended by two floating fuel barges with Esso at the west end and Texaco at the east end (where the World Mark stands today). The Texaco float had showers which was a plus for the wharf rats and for a while even had a hamburger joint called Vinnie's Eats ("Dine afloat or Dinah Shore"). Apparently some wharf people resented having to pay Texaco for showers in the eighties. A community effort on dock one produced a floating shower complete with its own hot water tank that all were welcome to use. It had to be disbanded however when people began to receive large electrical shocks during their ablutions.

There were a handful of float homes during this era but the main occupants were mainly on boats of all descriptions. Trimarans jostled with Chinese junks and people living in floating boat moulds. The long suffering wharfinger was everyone's enemy and hardly anybody actually paid their moorage (the author included I am afraid to say). The wharfinger's revenge was to sneak down very early and unplug all the boats, especially in cold weather. As he went back up the dock people would crawl out of their bunks, plug themselves back in and return to sleep.

Over the years the fishing fleet began to shrink and more dock space was allocated to live aboards. As the power and sail boats moved to the west new float homes began to take their place. A new sheriff came to town in the form of an efficient wharfinger who in addition to collecting the rent began to bring some order to the place. In 2002 the federal Department of Transport divested the wharf (and other harbour assets) to the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority. The GVHA was faced with the difficult task of starting to run the wharf as an actual business. Unlike your average marina the wharf is now home to an eclectic group of tenants including the fishing fleet, live aboards, float home dwellers, transient vessels as well as the many commercial operators.
The wharf is still a colourful place to visit but in a different way than it used to be. Here's to Old Mac, Gypsy John and Carmen the Leopard Skin Lady who all lived and died at Fisherman's Wharf.

The Fishing Fleet

For forty or more years beginning in the 1950's, salmon vessels, primarily trollers, were tied two and sometimes three abreast during the off season. Although the seasons became progressively shorter over the years, generally speaking the fleet would depart for the fishing grounds in the late spring and not return until the weather turned for the worse in the fall. For many years a "blessing of the fleet" by a man of the cloth took place before the boats and their crews set off in search of the various species of salmon found off the west coast.

Up until the early 1980's Dennis Shellfish operated a crab and fish buying facility just to the west of the Shoal Point condominiums (where the Malahat building is now). Fishermen could tie alongside their dock and unload their catch. The company ran a crew that shucked tons of crab meat. Dennis Shellfish became Washington Fish and finally Albion Fisheries before being torn down in the late 1980's.

The now home of the cruise ship terminal at Ogden Point used to be the home of B.C. Packers. This was primarily a salmon and herring offloading and storage facility but with the decline of the fisheries fell into disrepair, went under in 1990 and was subsequently demolished. Just to the east of Fisherman's Wharf, where Pier One now stands was Oakland Fisheries. They too specialised in offloading salmon and herring (1979 was the last big boom year for herring in Victoria). As fishing dried up and waterfront land became invaluable its fate was sealed and it closed down in the mid 1980's.

Trollers still make their home at the dock today but instead of numbering in the hundreds we have only a dozen boats perhaps. Dwindling salmon runs and allocation issues caused the federal government to embark on a massive buyback during the 1990's until the present and as a result most of the small boat fleet has been retired. The boats that remain tend to be larger, freezer equipped vessels that may have several other types of valuable fishing licenses attached to them.

As the salmon fishing became less viable many of these larger boats turned to the offshore Albacore tuna fishery. This fleet heads out towards the end of June and the season lasts until the weather turns nasty, usually in October. Some of the bigger vessels head eight hundred miles or more out in search of the perfect water temperature in which the fish thrive. Smaller boats tend to stay inside of one hundred miles offshore but may cover an area stretching from northern California to Haida Gwaii.

Some of the tuna boats that call Fisherman's Wharf home include the Redeemer, Equalizer, Nordic Spirit and Sea Ranger. In the summer these big boats come in, holds stuffed with frozen tuna, to RBS Seafoods tuna offloading facility at the west end of the facility. Millions of pounds are offloaded annually and sent by reefer truck to Vancouver and beyond.

Fisherman's Wharf is also home to small crab and prawn fleets. Both are trap fisheries with participants limited to 300 pots per license. Prawn fishing occurs in May and June and is generally conducted in waters between two and four hundred feet deep. Crabbing is usually done in waters less than one hundred and fifty feet deep. In addition there is a small quota based fishery for red and green urchins occurring in the winter months. After heading to their favourite spots divers descend beneath the surface to harvest these sought after animals. Again, they are offloaded at the Huron St. Dock and trucked to Vancouver.

Much like barnacles stuck to a rock, fishermen continue to be an important part of the history of Victoria Fisherman's Wharf and indeed the harbour as a whole. As long as people continue to value and demand sources of sustainably caught local seafood we are confident that they will continue to be a fascinating part of our waterfront.