mi,A ^4? A L„i,n
Hold, since the turnons stainpeue ol
’97 placed Alaska before the world in
so dramatic a light,, says Alice Henson
Christoe in the Alaska-Yukon magazine
has been popularly accepted as the
chief resource of this big new land.
Indeed, the mention of the word Alas
ka, calls up in a flash two mental pic
tures—a vast white snow fietld, and
the gleam of golden nuggets.
Like so many popular notions glean
ed in these busy days from hurried
persuals of tall headlines of newspap
ers, this concept lacks accuracy. It
comes, therefore, as a surprise to most
of ns to learn that gold and the pro
ducts of gold mining—in fact, the total
output of all the mineral products of
Alaska combined—fall far below the
products of another industry, and that
the place of honor in the wealth of
Alaska must be given to its fisheries.
Since 1878, when definite reports be
gan to be kept, the mineral products of
Alaska have yielded $147,000,000. The
products of its fisheries during these
years have been more than $175,000,
000. Before this time, in the days of
the Russian occupation and the trans
fer of 1867, the mineral products were
an unknown quantity.
It was fur trading, not gold mining,
that led to the first exploration and set
tlement. of Alaska. Gold has been sent
from Alaska in considerable quantities
for only fourteen years past; but a hun
dred years ago millions and millions
of dollars in wealth were being taken
from Alaska yearly in the shape of furs
from aquatic animals—the sea otter, the
beaver and the fur seal. The Klandike
gold rush is more recent but no more
remarkable than the “rush” that took
place from Siberian shores for these
precious skins on the return of the Ber
ing expedition in 1743. Crowds of ad
venturers, half mad, started to cross
the stormy Bering straits in every rude
kind of hand-made craft, boxes even,
fully a third of the voyagers losing
their lives on the way. Sitka, the seat
of the great Russian-American Fur
company, was casting bells for the Cal
ifornia missions a quarter century be
fore the historic gold strike of ’49. The
"Yukon river country was sprinkled
with settlements of French Canadian
tranners years before the washing' out
of some yellow nuggets by Carmack on
Bonanza creek made an epoch in the
history of the continent.
Indiscriminate butchering of these
valuable sea animals for so many years
would have led to their extinction but
for government measures for their pro
tection. With the decrease of their im
portance as a factor in the wealth of
Alaska, another phase of the fishing in
dustry has assumed growing prom:
inence—the catching and preparation of
food fishes for the markets of the world
It is interesting to note in the official
reports of the Pacific Coast salmon
pack, from the inception of the indus
try in 1864, how Alaska, beginning late
in the list, has steadily and I’apidlv out
stripped all other sections of the coast.
In 1909, with two million cases of
canned salmon to her credit, Alaska
doubled the second competitor, Puget
Sound. In 1910, with a slightly larger
output, the number was three times the
next in rank, British Columbia; Puget
Sound i,q this year taking third place.
This is to say nothing of the other
food fishes that are prepared in various
ways for the market. Alaska halibut,
for Example, finds its way to Nova Sco
tia and the east, for as Atlantic banks
decease by being fished out the newer
Pacific is more largely drawn upon.
The fisheries of Alaska present so
manly points of interest that the treat
ment of them would take one far ahead
if he followed the lead. Historically,
it takes one back to the beginning of
things, and there is romance enough in
those old days of the despot of Baranoff
and the Russian regime to furnish plots
for marvelous tales never vet told. Two
stories in the field of literature having
Alaskan fisheries as a background, come
to mind—one by Kipling, “Matka, the
Story of a White Seal,” and the other
much more recent, f‘The Silver Horde.”
by Rex Beach. Scientifically, one could
spend hours among the queer fishes,
with odd names and strange anatomies,
or studying the hatcheries and their
Illfliiuua UA VYUIXV, ^ **^**^^
have been made the subject of exten
sive research by scientists in the em
ploy of the government, among others,
David Starr Jordan. Fifty-one families
two hundred and eighty-eight species,
have been classified and described.
Geographically, we would wander thou
sands of miles along a coast line of
varied climate and latitude, from the
far Attu islands, swept by the Japan
current, to frozen Point Barrow; di
vided, for convenience, into four geo
graphic sections—Southeast Alaska,
Central, Western and Arctic Alaska.
But, in this practical day and age, it
is in the industrial phase that mostkpeo
ple have interest—what has been done,
really; what it means in dollars to the
nation; how the fish are prepared for
the table. Housewife and business
man, who represent the vast majority
of the reading public, must know
things of this sort first. The romance
comes later, if they can find time in
this very stern struggle for existance,
wlnere the most fit and strong survive
and the weak, alas, go to the wall.
Alaska, as we have said, is divided
by inspectors into four geographic sec
tions—“Southeast Alaska, embracing
all that narrow strip of mainland, and
the numerous islands adjacent, from
Portland canal northwestward to and
including Yakutat bay; Central Alaska,
the region on the Pacific or south side,
from Yakutat westward, including the
Aleutian chain; Western Alaska, the
shores of the Bering sea. and islands
in this sea; and Arctic Alaska, from
Bering strait to the Canadian border.”
Reports of these sections are fairly
complete, though in those difficult of
access, as Arctic Alaska, it has been
found impossible to give accurate data
on osme points, for example, on the
number of persons employed and the
investment in the fisheries of aquatic
animals is here general among the na
tives.
By tar tlie greater part or me ns aery
products of Alaska are marketed out
side the district, but a steadily increas
ing local demand is noticeable, espec
iallv in the case of hitherto somewhat
neglected minor species.
In 1909 ( last report published) the
number of persons engaged in the fish
eries of Alaska was 12,588, of whom
4,487 were engaged directly in fishing,
7,520 in the canneries, salteries, and
other shore work, and 581 employed in
the transporting ' vessels. The invest
ment in fisheries in this year wras $9,
881,682, the total return value of pro
ducts $11,181,388. The greater part
of this -was in canned salmon.
Products of Alaska fisheries include
black cod, cod, eulachon (“hooligan”
is the nearest • approach to the pron
unciation of the name of this fish, a
favorite with the natives), flounders or
sole, halibut, herring, pollock, red fish,
rock cod, salmon, smelt, tom cod, trout|
fertilizer, oil, clams, crabs, aquatic
furs and skins, whale products, walrus
ivory and seaweed.
These are the so-called “com
mercial fisheries of Alaska. The world
outside of this is one for the sports
man or scientist to explore.
Of the “commercial” fish of Alaska
the salmon leads far and away. It is
the salmon industry, therefore, that we
shall first consider.
Canned salmon is the most familAr
form of this excellent food fish; but in
Alaska, besides the fresh fish shipped
out and the canned salmon, it is also
treated by freezing, mild-curing, pick
ling, dry-salting, and smoking, and any
thing more delicious than some of the
new delicate smoked products would be
hard to find.
The salmon itself is of five kinds—
the coho or silver salmon, the king or
spring salmon, red or sockeye salmon,
pink or humback salmon, and chum or
dog salmon. Salmon trout or steellieaa
salmon also are found, making six of
the nine known species of salmon in the
United States. The other three species
of the nine are the Atlantic salmon
and two species of landlocked salmon
found in certain New England lakes;
these three varieties are never canned.
A special commission appointed at
the request of President Cleveland in
1903 to study the salmon fisheries of
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