FISH CANNERY WALK: American River on Kangaroo Island, South Australia

Tucked away in a sheltered bay on the North coast of Kangaroo Island is the spectacular inlet of American River . . . Today's guest houses, wharf, oyster leases and fishing charter fleets are a far cry from 1803 - when, more than 30 years before official settlement of South Australia American sealers and whalers made camp in the shelter of the hills.

They spent the winter sealing and building a 40 tonne schooner, “Independence” and called their new island home “American River”. And so the first chapter of the relaxed little hillside settlement's history was written - and like most Kangaroo Island towns it's a history with strong links to the sea . . .

“So Flinders called this Pelican Cove? He called it Pelican Bay after the number of pelicans he saw here. There aren't quite as many here now, but I wonder if that wasn't post the drying up of Lake Eyre - we often get a big migration of pelicans through to this area”.

Locals like Tim Williams have an intimate knowledge of the area's links with the sea . . . such as the ambitious fish canning factory that operated in the late 18 - hundreds.

“So Tim, what's the history of the fish canner?"

Um, the fish canning operations started here in the 1890's and operated for about 2 years canning snapper and king george whiting. You can see some of the ruins through this area of the old canning plant”. “It eventually shut down because they couldn't keep the fish for long periods during the good fishing times. Too hot? Yeah"

"So how many people worked here?"

Up to 40 people worked here at its peak over those 2 years - both preparing the fish and also cooking it in the cans - 4 hours boiling it in shallow pans with the lid off and another 4 hours with the can on. You wonder the condition of the fish when its cooked.

"Doing that to snapper and whiting - now we whack on the barbie with a bit of white wine for about 4 minutes and that's it”.

“So you can imagine though for 40 blokes working here It must have been fairly tough conditions?"

Incredibly rugged - they had a little bit of water - there's a well back here but this is an example of what the quarters would have looked like with perhaps a brush roof and they used to crawl inside and sleep on the ground. Back in here you've got a lined hollow in the bank of the hill - probably where they tried to keep the fish with broom brush over the top. To keep the sun of it”.

The work was hard, but the determination of the men and women to make a living out of it was strong.

“And it was a really busy period when everyone was catching fish - you know we talked about Ernie Walters getting 72 dozen in a day and stopping because his fingers bled - and then arriving and finding that everyone else had had a good catch and so he'd then have to clean them all before the cannery would accept them - and pay for his fish”.

The fish cannery, like many early industries was only short lived and while it's unlikely many of the workers made their fortunes - the locals today are sure they would have enjoyed island life anyway.

“I suppose Tim, in many respects, a lot of the scrub around here would be pretty much the same as when Flinders came . . .

Yes, particularly up here at Ballast Head, it is still untouched native bush, so yeah, the coastline and the general scene of the scrub coming down to the coast would be just as he would've seen when he came in.

R-pretty much the same yeah - and this here, this is one of the clearings you mentioned where they use to haul the . . . yeah, it's fairly obvious these rocks have been moved aside, which would have been one of the landing sites when the small boats would have rowed in or sailed in with the fish for the cannery”.

Like many other industries on KI, the fish cannery was an example of the resolve of the early inhabitants.

Some of the first craypots in South Australia were set from the fishing boat “Stella”.

Down the coast, a little from the cannery walk is what's left of Muston Wharf. Here, thousands of tonnes of salt, mined from the Island's lakes were loaded onto ships - bound for the mainland.

“. . . at Muston in about 1910 it was at its peak, there were several hundred people working inside that set up and they had the only railway line in Kangaroo Island coming from the Salt Lake through to Muston to load the salt onto the ships. In those days, the steam ships started to come in and take the salt away and later when that salt industry stopped they started mining gypsum in those lakes - it was an industry that was continuous from the very early days of the settlement right through until the late 80's when the gypsum trade stopped from here, so its quite a long history of mining for gypsum taking over”.

Those industries are now long gone, but the influence they had on the Island's make up remains The cannery, the mines and even early tourism ventures were major drawcards for people to come to the Island and many stayed.

The Fish Cannery Walk at American River is well marked. The nearby Kangaroo Island Lodge has sponsored a pamphlet on the area. Written by local Jane Renwick, it highlights the various features and enables self-guided tours of the Cannery Walk. It's available from local shops and accommodation houses.