A Look at the GREAT CANNERY ROW REUNION 2005
(Topics and Presenters for the event on Saturday, October 8th.
Doors open at 9:00 a.m.—the program starts a 9:30 a.m.—and ends at 6:00 p.m.)
and here's a look at where we're going to be: the Steinbeck Lobby and
the Steinbeck Forum of the Monterey Conference Center.
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Images from the incredible black and white photo collection of Cannery Row (1957-1958) by Robert Lewis (the Maritime Museum of Monterey major exhibit 2000-2001) will again be on exhibit. We owe Robert a great debt, indeed, for a look at an incredible view of the Old Row and its people before it rose again from the ashes of the Monterey sardine industry. |
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Partial
sponsorship has been obtained for the Hovden cannery historical model
exhibit from the Spirit of Monterey
Wax Museum. Perhaps you or your organization can complete the
sponsorship
of this incredible exhibit. Bill Johnk, historical
modeler from Boulder, Colorado, will exhibit his mid-1940s historical
scale model of the Hovden
cannery—destined for the Museum of California
in Oakland. The City of Monterey owns his previous works: Pacific
Biological Labs ("Doc's Lab) and the Wing Chong Market—all will be on
exhibit
only during the Reunion. |
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Mr. Bob Enea,
historian and nephew of "Sparky" Enea of the Sea of Cortez voyage and
its Steinbeck "Log"—presents an inside account of that trip, its
Steinbeck implications and the origins of John Steinbeck's famous WWII
novel about the Nazi occupation of Scandinavia (Norway): "The Moon Is
Down." In a separate Great Cannery Row Reunion presentation, Bob also leads a Fisherman's Panel, "Harvesting the Silver Tide," with more information presented below. |
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Prof. Bill Gilly, Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University, tells of the recent re-enactment of the 1940 voyage to "The Sea of Cortez" by Ed Ricketts and John Steinbeck. Modern science retraces the route of Monterey's "Western Flyer," back to the origins of the The Sea of Cortez. On the 1940 trip, John Steinbeck began his World War II classic The Moon Is Down. |
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Charter Board Member of the Cannery Row Foundation, Eldon Dedini, renowned cartoonist for Esquire, the New Yorker, and Playboy magazines, will be signing rare posters for the first Great Cannery Row Reunion in 1983. Shown with Foundation Executive Vice President and founder, Michael Hemp, during ceremonies at the Monterey Conference Center in 1983. |
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The last few of the 50 limited edition Ed Ricketts Memorial bronzes will be available at the Reunion. The 50 of-a-kind bronze replicas of the actual Ed Ricketts Memorial (sculpted by the memorial's sculptor, Jesse Corsaut) completes the cost of the actual memorial already in place on Cannery Row. Donors names will be cast on a plaque attached to the Memorial. Meet the sculptor, Jesse Corsaut, who also created the John Steinbeck bronze now owned by the City of Monterey, which will also be on exhibit. |
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Mr. James Bridges (a member of the Cannery Row Foundation board of directors) shares the worlds' largest sardine and fish canning collection on his web site, www.sardineking.com — and will be making a presentation on The Art of Collecting Sardine Labels and how you, or your children or school classes, can start collecting sardine labels for projects and as art. |
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Joe and Doris
Bragdon are former
residents of the Old Row and are now docents at the National Steinbeck
Center. Joe worked on the rebuilding of the Del Mar cannery after the
fire that destroyed it—and the original Ocean View Avenue lab of Ed
Ricketts—in 1936.
The panel of long-timers, including Frances Low, Elizabeth Wheeler,
Dottie Sanchez, and Abel Quinones, will recall "Life on Old Cannery Row" and
work in the canneries. Pat Hathaway Collection photo |
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Mr. Scrap Lundy,
historian and CRF Board Member, presents his incredibly detailed
research on John Steinbeck's "Cannery
Row"—Real People, Real
Places in a chapter-by-chapter walk through the real data and
material John used in his world famous fiction. Scrap Lundy's history
of the Abalone is the standard in that realm and lead him to our
Monterey abalone divers and then the untold story of the cannery
divers, without which there may not have been a Row. |
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Prof. Don Coers, Angelo State University, San Angelo, Texas, will explain the impact and significance of Steinbeck's wartime novel—for which he was awarded the Norwegian Haakon Cross of Freedom. Prof. Coers, the expert on this Steinbeck work, will help unify the Norwegian theme with John Steinbeck As Propagandist: "The Moon Is Down." |
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Prof. Richard
Astro, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Keynote Speaker at the first Great Cannery Row Reunion (1983), receiving a copy of the John Steinbeck portrait by Judith Deim after the Sea of Cortez voyage. Dr. Astro, among the very earliest to appreciate the influence of Ed Ricketts on John Steinbeck, will again deliver the keynote address at this year's Reunion. |
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Mr. Piers Crocker, Director of
the Norwegian Canning Museum at Stavanger (the actual "Sardine Capital
of the World") leads the dual centennials of the arrival of Knut Hovden
in Monterey (where he became the "King of Cannery Row") and Norwegian
independence from Sweden—both in 1905. Mr. Crocker will
share the history of the sardine canning industry we have in
common and help establish a permanent bond between the "Sardine
Capitals of the World." Stavanger is a "Euro City of Culture" in 2008. |
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Mr. Tim Thomas, Maritime Museum of Monterey historian, will be presenting "I Wanted to be a Baseball Player: Frank Manaka and the Japanese Fishermen of Monterey Bay"—the largely unknown saga of Japanese fishermen and their crucial role in the development of the Monterey fishing and canning industry. The Cannery Row Foundation wishes to thank the Maritime Museum of Monterey for also providing free admission for Great Cannery Row Reunion 2005 attendees to their museum on both Saturday and Sunday, October 8th and 9th. |
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Mr. George Fraley, Pebble Beach, one of the last cannery divers in Monterey, will explain the crucial role in each season's canning industry preparation for the "Silver Tide." With the floating hopper unloading system anchored off each cannery, pipeline repair and maintenance and hopper anchoring were the dangerous lifeline the the canneries depended on—without these in operation there would be no fish coming ashore! Diving historian Scrap Lundy and Boardmember Sylvia Fraley and cannery diver George Fraley will help explore The Hard Hat Divers of old Cannery Row. |
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Carol McKibben, historian, presents material from her new book, Beyond Cannery Row—Sicialian Women, Immigration and Community in Monterey 1915-1999, in an exploration of the role and impact of Sicilian women in the history of Cannery Row and the contemporary Monterey community. |
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Legendary Monterey
musician, businessman and community leader,
Mike Marotta—who played at the first Great Cannery Row Reunion in May
1983—returns for a special appearance to make the Reunion complete with
the "Music of Monterey and Cannery Row." His group played the early
Cannery Row Reunions from 1983 though 1987 at the Conference Center,
the Outrigger on Cannery Row and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Join us in
a tribute to Mike Marotta! |
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Mr. Bob Montano, President of King Oscar USA, San Francisco, is providing a Norwegian Sardine tasting and a complimentary tea towel (which also makes a good golf towel, we're told) for for all Reunion attendees. What a great way to celebrate—in good taste— the "Two Sardine Capitals of the World." |
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Educator, Steinbeck
authority, and Cannery Row Foundation board member, Art Ring, presents
a fascinating look a "The Novel Ideas of John Steinbeck." The photo at
left is from the Cannery Row Foundation's "Hopkins Marine Station
Lecture Series" in 2002 that celebrated the dual centennials of the
birth of John Steinbeck in Salinas and the 100th anniversary of the
first canning shed on old Ocean View Avenue (later "Cannery Row"), also
in 1902. |
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Fishing
historian, Bob Enea, presents a fisherman's panel
called "Harvesting the Silver Tide"—about the days and dangers of being
a fisherman in the Monterey sardine trade. Bob Enea and Michael Hemp
are shown at left with Bob's "Surviving Skipper's"
at the 1986 Great Cannery Row Reunion at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Click here for the full photo of
all the skippers. Bob's Fisherman's Panel includes John Cardinalli,
purse seiner New Hope, John
Mercurio, purse seiner Mercury,
and Mike Mairorana, purse seiner Dux. |
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Prof. Stephen
George, BYU-Idaho, the president of the New Steinbeck Society of
America, will present an informational view of the Steinbeck world as
published in the Steinbeck Journal, and the programs of the Society in
the exploration, preservation and education of the themes and works
of—by our way of thinking—America's greatest author. Steinbeck themes
are as relevant today as they were at the time of the Dust Bowl
migration, or the invasion of Norway in WWII. |
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Click here for an Mp3 of the Great Cannery Row Reunion 2005 PSA (Public Service Announcement) on radio around the Central Coast in support of the Cannery Row Foundation's event. |
| Exhibits: Pat Hathaway Photo Collection Robert Lewis Collection (1957-1958) Bill Johnk historic models of the Hovden cannery, the Wing Chong Market and Ed Ricketts' ("Doc's) lab. "The Western Flyer" purse seiner by historic boat modeler, Mark Demaria. Dottie Bicknell Sanchez ("Mack's" daughter)—Old-time (abalone) "Rose Bowls" on display and sale. Original "Great Cannery Row Reunion" posters from 1983, for sale signed by Eldon Dedini. Jesse Corsaut's bronze Steinbeck bust (acquired by the City of Monterey) |
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