A display of canned fish at the downtown Seafood Shop run by Haines packing Company. Friday, May 15, 2020. (Claire Stremple/KHNS)

While COVID-19 has decimated the economy and shuttered a number of small businesses, it hasn’t laid Haines Packing Company low. The local cannery opened a downtown retail location in Haines on Friday.

Melanie Thomas is working the counter at the new Seafood Store downtown. She scoops up an armful of king crab legs.

“So, we have the king crab,”she said as she cracked open one of the shop’s freezers.

“They’re large! Very large. Delicious. I’ve tried some.” she laughed, hoisting an unwieldy bag of legs.

They’re one of the locally caught frozen options. The store is a satellite of Haines Packing Company, the cannery on Letnikof Cove.

“We just brought our fish and our merchandise and [we’re] hoping to get some good business here,” Thomas said.

The sunny space is full of humming freezers and refrigerators filled with pink and white fillets and frozen curls of shrimp. A plexiglass shield over the cash register is the only indication of the pandemic. Thomas is standing in front of an empty aquarium, which she says will be filled with crabs very soon.

Malanie Thomas hoists some king crab legs out of the freezer at the Seafood Shop downtown. May 15, 2020. (Claire Stremple/KHNS)

“I think we’re just gonna have them as pets. I get to name them. I’m kinda set on Bergetta for one of them,” said Thomas with a smile.

It’s the first day open, but she said she’s made a handful of sales already… and lots of people are peeking inside. It’s a soft open: no big announcement.

The cannery has had a retail space at Letnikof Cove for five years, and a store in Whitehorse. In April, owner Harry Reitze said that COVID-19 restaurant shutdowns had impacted their wholesale fish market, but direct sales at their Yukon store have been steady.

Haines store manager Joleen Reinke said when the storefront across from the brewery on Main Street opened up, it was time to try a Haines location. She said locals will have an easier time accessing their stock.

“We’ve been getting feedback from locals and everything, you know: ‘We’d do a lot more shopping if you were closer to town,'” she said.

The seafood store will be open seven days a week. It sells fresh, frozen, and canned fish and seafood. Reinke says soon there will be a cooler full of local produce, eggs from Whitehorse, and fresh oysters on Tuesdays.