See It Now: Our Photo tour of Cannery Row includes a handy map to go with this guide. You may want to print it out before you go.
Cannery Row Walking Tour
Cannery Row is the name of the street that runs parallel to the Monterey shoreline and nearest to the water. To begin this walking tour, park in one of the lots in the blocks around the Monterey Bay Aquarium and start your walk in front of the aquarium entrance.The Monterey fishing industry began in the mid-1800s when Chinese fishing families arrived by boat. Located too far from their markets to sell fresh fish, they dried it using techniques learned in their home country. Later, Japanese fishermen arrived to fish for salmon, and by the time of the famed "cannery row" John Steinbeck wrote about, Sicilian immigrants had taken over as the area's primary fishermen.
In the early twentieth century, plentiful sardines in the Monterey Bay combined with a shutdown in East Coast fishing (due to worries about German submarines) to propel Monterey into a sardine-catching and -canning frenzy. By the middle of the century, the sardine population declined due to natural cycles and overfishing, and by the 1950s, most of the canneries were closed.
Cannery Row Step by Step
If you're rather have someone guide you than go on your own, the Monterey Bay Aquarium sponsors a very informative, entertaining, once-monthly walking tour of Cannery Row.- Monterey Bay Aquarium: (886 Cannery Row) This state-of-the art aquarium was once the Hovden Cannery. Inside, just to the left of the main entrance you'll find some of the cannery's old boilers and an informative exhibit about the sardine industry. It's not worth the price of admission for just this exhibit, but if you're going to the aquarium for other reasons, don't miss it.
- Ed Ricketts Lab: (800 Cannery Row) The Pacific Biological Laboratories, run by John Steinbeck's friend, biologist Ed Ricketts is a gentlemen's club today and open to the public only during occasional public tours. Ricketts inspired the character "Doc" in Steinbeck's books Sweet Thursday and Cannery Row.
- Wing Chong Building: (835 Cannery Row) The market that was once here figured in Steinbeck's Cannery Row, but the its owner made much of his fortune by drying and selling squid. The La Ida Cafe in the building next door was where Steinbeck's character, part-time bartender Eddie the poured leftover drinks into a jug for Mack and the boys.
- Cannery Worker Houses: Wedged into a little park just past the Bear Flag Building, these houses are some of the few remaining structures put up to house the cannery workers. Each is decorated as if a different nationality family lived in it: Spanish, Japanese and Filipino, just a few of the nationalities who found work here. The mural beside them shows an idealized scene of Cannery Row days, with a family living in a discarded boiler.
- McAbee Beach: This little beach was once the site of a Chinese fishing camp and Azorean Portguese whalers once launched their boats from it, but it takes its name from John B. McAbee who created a vacation tent village here before the cannneries moved in.
Continue along Cannery Row past El Torito Restaurant.
- Reduction Plant: As romantic as Cannery Row days seem, the plain truth is that Monterey sardines were never very popular, being too oily for most people's tastes. However, enterprising businessmen soon figured out that they could make money by boiling up the heads, tails, bones and other leftovers and selling them for chicken feed. The former Stohan Gallery was once a reduction plant that carried on this process.
- San Xavier Cannery: The empty lot across from the Chart House was home to the San Xavier Cannery. The cannery scenes for the film Clash By Night starring Marilyn Monroe and Barbara Stanwyck were filmed here. The big tanks at the back of the lot once held fish oil and are part of the historic landscape. Next to them you'll see an old fuel tank.
Continue your walk back across Cannery Row and walk out onto the little square next to the Monterey Plaza Hotel. From there, you can watch sea otters, harbor seals and sea lions swimming in the kelp beds.
- Factory Crossover: Just past the hotel, a covered walkway passes overhead. There were once sixteen of these crossovers on Cannery Row, used to carry canned fish from the factory to the warehouse, but this one is the only original left.
- San Carlos Beach: Continue down Cannery Row to the small beach near the Coast Guard station. This is one of most popular places for scuba divers to go into the bay.
