The Gulf of Georgia Cannery is a National Historic Site on the Steveston waterfront, preserving the last of what was once a coast full of salmon canneries. The buildings are original 1894 structures; inside, the canning machinery — butchering tables, soldering machines, retorts — remains in situ, giving the feel of a factory still in mid-operation rather than a sterile exhibit.
The exhibits cover the full industrial and human history: the Musqueam and other First Nations peoples who fished these waters for millennia, the Chinese and Japanese workers who provided most of the labour, the mechanisation that progressively displaced them, and the eventual collapse of the wild salmon industry. It is a thorough piece of Canadian industrial and social history. Guided tours are available; the site is managed by Parks Canada and well worth an hour or two.