The Cape Bathurst, fully loaded with salmon from West Coast Troll Camps, prepares to unload at a dock in Tofino in this undated photo. The major boom in salmon fishing came in the 1950s for Tofino and Clayoquot Sound with the expansion of the trawling fleet.

For three decades the region enjoyed an economic boom as salmon was plentiful. Between 1950 and 1970 there were upwards of 400 vessels using the harbour; eight local processing plants; numerous canneries and even a saltery where fish were preserved and prepared for market.

The salmon fishery boom provided plenty of jobs on the west coast for more than two decades. it began waning in the early 1980s. By 1983, according to the Tofino Clayoquot Heritage Museum, the last wild salmon plant closed in Tofino and the salmon chapter with it.

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