Golden Harvest : Fifty Years of Calpak Progress (1950)

this is part of a movie made in 1933 it showed how the beginnings of the California packing Corporation were rooted deep in the history of California itself it's an appropriate beginning to this review of 50 years of calpac History [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] it is more than the history of a business this story of the building of Del Monte its name is descended from the r antic era of Spanish California its Beginnings were laid in the Days of Gold beside the Blue Pacific on the western Fringe of our continent lies a land of almost legendary abundance California a land of curving Shore and rugged Promontory a land of flower decked Hills and smiling valleys of Golden Sunshine and deep fertile soils into this favored country a century and a half ago came the missionaries from Spain bringing with them not only a burning Zeal to spread the faith but a rich store of Horticultural knowledge they set out Gardens and Tiny Orchards filled with plants and trees laboriously brought from distant Spain as the years rolled on more missions Rose against those Sunny hillsides Carmel they built in the shadow of King's Mountain close by a spot they call Delonte it is this DelMonte that has furnished a name typifying the romance of a past that is ever present in the business of today there followed years of Peace in this Pleasant land a gracious leisurely civilization took root and flourished then suddenly in the spring of 49 across this peaceful scene their birst from the sieras a thrilling cries gold with magic wings the word spread Eastward to a nation still teeming with the pioneering Spirit huge Caravans hastily organized set out on that mad Quest that was to make history and create a new nation between them and their distant goal stretched Untold miles of trackless wilderness before them lay months of weary Journey Bes set by hardships which might well have daunted men of lesser breed Great Rivers unmapped unbridged slung barriers of turbulent water across their pathway sheer Canyon walls challenged their passage delaying them through precious days and weeks but never stopping them never daunting the matchless courage of those Pioneers finally the golden Land Of Promise the El Dorado of their dreams towns sprang into being overnight filled with turbulent throngs of gold sign gold was keing today little remains to tell us of those stirring times only a few half forgotten mining camps their straggling buildings crumbling slowly into ruin yet out of that dauntless Spirit of 49 emerged a group of sober-minded men and women who when the glittering tide of gold had eved turned their faces toward the fair valleys below and the more lasting wealth which lay waiting there for the touch of man to bring it into being this was how the California canning industry was born as seen Through The Eyes of calpac cameramen many years ago we filmed out of the spirit of 49 to set a mood to convey a feeling to recall an ideal now as we turn the corner of 50 this mood feeling ideal is still with us in the time of a golden anniversary this Spirit remains a lively one [Music] [Music] 50-year-old companies are sort of like people they tend to reminisce so let's go back before the days of the talkies back to an old flicker that came on the scene about the same year as calpac in the style of its day the old film tells its story as a melodrama among its stirring scenes are the first films ever made of harvesting asparagus with real [Music] [Music] horsepower [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] e a California Peach canery more than 50 years [Applause] [Music] ago a marriage is blessed with issue [Applause] [Music] here are some of the rarest scenes on film and they're part of the calpack Story 2 for these rugged old sailing ships were the famous Fleet of the Alaska Packers Association Pioneer canners of Delma [Music] salmon they took on board everything they needed for putting up the salmon pack during the brief Alaskan Summer money for the payroll much of the Machinery the men and the food to feed them including pigs [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] casting off from San Francisco out they went through the Golden Gate North to [Music] Alaska when summer ended and the Arctic winds grew colder back they'd come with the seasons pack in their [Music] HS they were part of an era that was centuries old they were the last commercial sailing Fleet to fly the American flag sturdy Square riggers that brought the era to a graceful close [Music] on the shores of the Bearing Sea itself The Bleak canaries waited not until the sailing ships arrived could a wheel be turned this was the Alaska of many years [Music] ago but cowp PAC cameram men were on the scene filming The Men Who fished for DelMonte salmon from Alaska many decades ago even as [Music] today the fishing boats were towed out toward the fishing [Music] grounds the salmon caught in the net by their gills were hauled aboard the small boats gunnels almost a wash under the weight of their catch the tiny gilets headed for the lighter which took their salmon to the [Music] canary meanwhile from the fields and Orchards of California came still another delmonti film Sunshine gatherers released in movie houses all over the country [Music] it showed in almost Living Color that DelMonte fruits did indeed buy with one another in gathering sunshine [Music] this Garden of Eden today would be surrounded by veritable subdivisions and freeways but this was when both California and calpac were very young and fruit was spread under the sun in acres of drying yards [Music] fresh cut asparagus was taken to Riverbank Wars along the Sacramento barges hauled it Downstream to the [Music] canaries those were the days when delmonti fishermen sailed by the Dark of the Moon out to find the teeming schools of sardines these rare scenes show a page of calpac and California history that closed perhaps forever when the sardines mysteriously vanished from California's coastal [Music] Waters and farther off the coast of California some times as far south as the Waters of Mexico and Central America calpac fishermen were even then tracking down the [Music] tuna the chummer teased the tuna with sardines as bait using a feathered lure with a barbless hook the fisherman needed muscle [Music] sometimes you needed two or three poles attached to one hook to land your [Music] tuna the size of a tuna was measured by the number of poles it took to haul him aboard [Music] [Music] today powerful machines take the backbreaking labor out of harvesting mechanical Harvesters move over a cow pack cornfield others special machines bring in the Pea Harvest [Music] gigantic boom Harvesters in in cpac's Hawaiian pineapple [Music] fields so from fields and Orchards All Over America come more and more delmonti products and all for processing in the most modern of canaries [Music] from out of that Spirit the spirit of 49 we grew the past is More Than A Memory it's a backdrop for today and a prologue for tomorrow now in every part of America producing in lands that border every sea selling in Nations around the world California packing Corporation and its DelMonte brand still promising youngsters at 50 [Music]