Remembering a Day in May

Astoria, Oregon ~ May 5, 2013
I was sorting some photos and remembering a day in May. At Coffee Girl with friends, watching ships and sea lions in the river.
Astoria, Oregon, Daily Photo is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Getting Choppy

Astoria, Oregon ~ July 4, 2011

I took this photo last July from the back deck of Coffee Girl just about the time small boats decided that coming back to the mooring basin was the better part of valor. The photo below indicates one of the reasons this might be a good idea. The big ships aren't bothered. I love the ships' names. The one on the left has the evocative name of Navios Mercator.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Salmon for All

July 17, 2010

When you have coffee on the back deck at Coffee Girl on Pier 39, you get a view of the river and boats in three directions. But you also get to see the inside and back of what was once a productive, working cannery. Not much has changed in terms of the building. Most of the equipment is gone and the workers aren't there any more. But the building has not been turned into an historic reproduction. You can experience quietly the feel of the place and imagine the history.

Here's the full view of the back of the building, and here are more posts about Pier 39.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Old cannery scale

October 17, 2009

This old scale and the view are just a couple of the things I enjoy about the Pier 39 building, which used to be the Bumblebee Canning Company. The doores to the left take you into a comfy, atmospheric and much-loved coffe house called Coffee Girl, where treats (scones, lox and bagels, fruit/granola parfait with lox on the side - yumm) are served along with one of my favorite cups of coffee. It's the original place where coffee was served to the cannery workers. We'll be back, don't worry. Here are some other posts featuring Pier 39 and Coffee Girl. The inside of Pier 39 is essentially a roofed-over outdoor museum. I hope it never changes much. Thank you, Floyd!

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Inside/Outside at Coffee Girl

It's always warm and inviting at Coffee Girl, even when it's wet outside. Here you can get a hint of the superb view from the window or the outside deck. The deck is perched quite a few feet above the river with fantastic effect. If you're going to sit out at the table, I suggest waiting until the rain stops. The flowers are inside on the window sill, by the way! The link above has lots of nice photos. I recommend it highly. Or if you're in Astoria, I recommend dropping in. It's on Pier 39, on the east end of town.

Take a look at Floral Friday to see more nice flowers from around the globe :)

The "littlest" catch?

Laurel (right), Teagan (my grand-tapir, in the red shirt) and I went to our favorite coffee spot for lunch yesterday. We had a window table at Coffee Girl, where we could watch the mist and clouds over the river and see the fishing boats as they came and went. I like the decor, the food and the people. The decor is very real and not kitchy; it includes this vintage life preserver from the Alleutian Ballad crab boat, which starred in Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch. The Aleutian Ballad wintered in the dock here at Pier 39 (the building that houses Coffee Girl), and here's a photo I took of it last November. It's fitted out with seats for its new life as a tourist fishing/crabbing boat in some of Alaska's calmer waters. I happened to be looking out the window on April 2nd this year as it passed downriver. I wonder if that's the day it left here for the summer?

I actually never watched that show because I don't have TV. Did you watch it?

Pier 39: Do you remember Bumble Bee tuna and salmon?

Pier 39 now houses other businesses and a small museum, but in its day it was the center of a well-known fish canning industry. The J.O. Hanthorn Cannery was originally built in 1875, although it has been renovated since. Before my time here (I moved to Astoria in 2001), the waterfront was the location of many working canneries. Sadly, all but this one are gone now.

"Anonymous" posted a comment correcting misinformation I had on this page. Based on something I found online or misread, I thought this cannery began life as Elmore and was changed to J.O. Hanthorn. Anonymous wrote: "Elmore Cannery was in Union Town-on the current site of Astoria Warehousing...the 39th street facility was called Hanthorne--When CRPA took it over it was used as a recieving station and cold storage for the CRPA, later called Bumble Bee, for imported fish from all over the world which were stored and then trucked down as needed for the canning operation at Elmore."

Thanks for this bit of history!

One of my favorite places for coffee in Astoria is Coffee Girl, one of the numerous businesses now located in the old building, with windows that face the river. You can sit at tables or benches on the back deck high above the water, or sit inside if the weather isn't so nice. They use the same counter where coffee was served to the women working the cannery in bygone years. The cannery building also has "executive office rentals and artists lofts." There are quite a number of suites as well as a small museum of the cannery days. Rogue Ale Public House is also in the old cannery building.

Check out the web site of Bumble Bee Seafoods, LLC for in-depth information on Bumble Bee and the canning industry in Astoria. Briefly, they say, "The history of Bumble Bee Seafoods can be traced to 1899, when seven canning companies along the Columbia River in Astoria, Oregon, decided to unite their operations under the auspices of the newly incorporated Columbia River Packers Association (CRPA). Salmon fishers and canners had come to Astoria in the 1860s, when the Columbia River produced abundant salmon supplies. After the salmon supply peaked in the 1890s, the more than 50 businesses that had sprung up in the area began looking to Alaska for their catch of the ocean sockeye variety of salmon." Many fishing boats still ply between Astoria and Alaska, making the connection between the two very strong.

In the 1930s, it was found that tuna were plentiful off of Oregon's coast. By the end of the 1950s, the Bumble Bee brand was well known. The company began expanding nationally and internationally, and Astoria became less important in the fish canning industry as new fishing grounds were also exploited. In 1980, Astoria's Bumble Bee cannery closed. You can read more and see a few of the old canning labels here: http://www.canneryworker.org/. Then Visit History in Vogue for some old photos of the cannery and recent info about Pier 39.

The building may become busier as time goes by, but currently, I think most Astorians would say it was a pleasant and peaceful place to enjoy the scenery, take visiting friends, and have coffee, snacks, or a beer and burger. It's not crowded, and it still has as much of the old charm as you could want. In making the old building usable, they've left most of it very much intact. It's very picturesque, and various images from the building will appear on my blog in the future.

This is not a view of the pier you normally see. I took the photo from the adjacent jetty with a long lens.

Come see other entries in Scenic Sunday.