As we all savour this fruit season, many of us like to take the opportunity to preserve local fruit so we can continue to enjoy it in the winter as well. There used to be a number of canning companies in Niagara-on-the-Lake and this image shows the Niagara Canning Company in September 1945. The building was located on Lakeshore Road and is now Strewn Winery. Each year the Mennonite community found themselves with a surplus of fruit that was ripening quickly. Peter Wall solved this issue with the creation of the “Niagara Canning Company Limited” in 1940. Shareholders in the company had the privilege of being the first in line to deliver fruit but also to see return on the profits. During the canning season women from the community, and even some travelling in from Mennonite communities out west, would work long hours in the cannery. A boarding house, which accommodated 60 people, was located nearby where the women would be picked up and dropped off daily. By 1945 wages were 37 cents an hour for girls under the age of 16 and 42 cents for those over 16.  Due to several factors, including flooded markets and competition, the cannery closed in 1948. Recorded stories about the canning history of Niagara-on-the-Lake can be found on the museum’s “Memories of Niagara” oral history website at www.memoriesofniagara.wordpress.com.