Cans Ready for Shipment, 1977

After retorting and cooling, cans of salmon were palletized and stored, to be labeled later. This is known as "bright stacking." Since all cans look alike before they are labeled, companies each had a unique code which was embossed on the lid before capping.

Palletizing consisted of putting a pallet down and a big flat electromagnet would lift an entire layer of cans out of the cooling rack and place them on the pallet. A thin layer of cardboard would be placed between the layer of cans and the process would repeat until the proper height had been reached.

Then, a large plastic bag (in this case, green) would be placed over the pallet and stapled to the wood. The stack would then move through a low-temperature oven to shrink the plastic tightly. The pallets would be loaded into the Sea-Land vans for transportation to Seattle and perhaps other ports. This method replaced putting the cans into cardboard boxes and transferring them by tender to an Alaska Steam vessel at the Ship's Anchorage.

©Photo by Richard Hawkinson with a Pentax KX

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