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Agassiz - A Heritage of Hops
Agassiz Harrison Museum
Agassiz , British Columbia

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   For 60 years hops, a basic
ingredient in beer was the
major industry in the Agassiz
area of British Columbia. At
the height of the business
300 acres of a total holding
of 450 acres were planted
with hops. In 1948 the hop
fields were decimated by
flood water and the yards

sold four years later.
   The First hop yards
planted in 1892, belongs to
the B.C. Hop Company and were
managed by Supt. George
Hammersly, Capt. W. E. Green
and Messre, Sitch and Lane.
   Hops were harvested from
August to Early October every
year and during that time

Agassiz prospered. With the
arrival of a thousand
pickers, the town's normal
population swelled to 15
hundred and business
flourished. Many town
merchants increased their
sales by setting up small
stalls beside the hop yards
to serve the pickers.

   Reliable men with teams
of horses were hired to plow
and cultivate the hop fields.
In the early days pickers
came exclusively from first
Nation families but later the
work force included locals
and Chinese immigrant who had
come to Canada to work on the
CPR line. From 1939 to 1945

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