Namu, British Columbia

Namu is a small fishing port, former cannery town and First Nations community on the coast of British Columbia, Canada. It is located about 95 km (59.0 mi) southwest of Bella Coola or 35 km (21.7 mi) SSE of Bella Bella, on the mainland shore of the Inside Passage ferry route directly opposite Hunter Island, and just south of the opening of Burke Channel and King Island. The community's harbour is named Namu Harbour, and a large lake just inland is Namu Lake, which lies in the short drainage basin of the 15 km Namu River, immediately east of which is the small but rugged Namu Range.

Namu was the namesake of the killer whale Namu, who was captured nearby in 1965 and was the second orca ever displayed in captivity.

One of the early canneries on the central coast of BC, the cannery was built near the Heiltsuk village. In its early iteration the cannery employed a race-based policy of labour; with groups of First Nations, Japanese, Chinese and "Whites" - and was for a time racially and sexually segregated, including but not limited to whites-only bathrooms and the management positions being reserved for Caucasian men.

Initially one of many independent canneries founded on the Central Coast, Namu was acquired by BC Packers who consolidated their operations in the 1950s by closing many smaller outlying canneries and consolidating them into three main bases; Steveston, Namu, and Prince Rupert. The arrival of ice plants and brine tanks on seiners changed the previous fishing industry, where the handliners had to be within an hour's row of the cannery to prevent the catch from spoiling, and led to the canning outports' decline. Namu became a large fishing camp with an iceplant, salmon and herring packing lines, bunkhouses, wharves, hydro plant and fuel facilities. The "large" canning plants were demolished in the 1980s.

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