Good Hope Cannery is an on-going project located in Rivers Inlet, British Columbia. The cannery was originally built in 1895 as a fish cannery. With the advent of flash-freezing in the early 1940s, the cannery slowly reinvented itself as a sport fishing lodge. My client purchased it recently and decided to restore it to it’s old glory and upgrade it into a world-class lodge—which became our task. There is also an ongoing mission to bring the entire building back in time to it’s original glory.
The basic idea has been to upgrade existing guest rooms, kitchen, dining room, and bar. We have also been restoring the working area of the cannery using original materials and finishing techniques. We built a new staff quarters which is fondly called “The Hilton”. Besides everything, one of the crowning features is a c.1930 hand-built bar which we brought all the way from Toronto. I also, rented a U-Haul and drove from Los Angeles to Vancouver picking artifacts, antique lighting and furnishings from the era. The project required a lot of coordination as getting materials to the Lodge was either transported by boat or float plane (no roads to this place). There is a museum that is slowly being formed demonstrating the old cannery, which is an ongoing process.
