Submitted by M.Lenz, Collections Assistant

Throughout the Collections Catch of the Week, we’ve shown you our favourite treasures of the collection. Now, as our work has come to an end, we’d like to show you our most hated. This is the “Scab”, its several fragments of an oil cradle. It feels quite similar to a flaky pastry, as the layers of metal have separated as they’ve rusted. This item doesn’t offer much unless there’s an exhibit on corrosion coming to the Cannery soon.

This summer, we worked on the collections rationalization project. The end goal of this is to inventory and catalog every item in our collection. This is not only to find the treasure that’s buried, but to get rid of the trash. It’s an important process and one that is often overlooked for a long time as a museum’s collection grows. Hopefully in the coming months the scab and other artefacts like it will be removed to make room for items that can help preserve and teach the history of the West Coast fishing industry, and not just rust away on a bottom shelf.

Posted by m.horita

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