Nortons
(Continued from Page 3)
We need between 55 and 60 people.
We have roughly 45 boats fishing
we can figure an average of 110 to
120 fishermen. All together that’s
about 200 people involved in this
one plant. Indirectly—well, all the
merchants in town, the longshore
men who load the crab at the dock
... the list could go on and on. Be
sides the 3 plants in town, there
are 3 others locally.”
Crab cannery operation is an ex
pensive proposition; not only are
there machines to maintain, and
freezing rooms, and pumps, but all
the gear fishermen use in gather
ing the giant crawlers from the
briny deep. A string of 30 crab pots
means a minimum of 3,000 feet of
line, 30 large marker-identity bouys
and at least 90 smaller floats below
the water line to keep the pots up
right. Then there are bait boxes
and bags, and other smaller parts.
A lot of gear is lost during the win
ter storms that blow the pots and
markers miles from their original
positions, often into deeper water
where they are never found.
By the same token, the fisher
man’s occupations is a hazardous
one. Emil Norton said, “I take my
hat off to the fishermen. They have
to be industrious, intelligent, and
good seamen to be out in these
winters and come home in the
spring with everything safe and
sound. It’s they who make the pay
roll possible for the city of Kodiak.
The majority of our fishermen own
their own boats, and they are good,
steady producers.”
Though townspeople work in the
local canneries, it has always been
necessary to bring in workers to
the outlying canneries. They come
from Seattle now, from the Filipino
community. Until World War II
labor came from the Japanese in
Mr. and Mrs. Emil Norton and Family
Staff Photo
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San Francisco, and before that, at
least until 1929, from the Chinese
community in San Francisco. This
latter was a practice begun in the
early days of fish canning, when
large, 4 masted schooners came
north loaded with live larders—
cattle, chickens, pigs, as well as all
the canning supplies needed for
the summer operation. In that time
a large number of the Chinese
workers was shanghaied. The can
nery owner hired one man, called
the “China Boss” to take care of
getting and paying his crew; this
“China Boss” took his cut out of
their wages. “In 1928 I remember
Chinese working down at Kadiak
Fisheries,” Emil Norton said.
“They had their Tong Wars aboard
the ships and at the canneries, and
they settled them with knives, or
Tong axes. The losers here at Ko
diak are supposed to have been
buried at China Point, just off
Near Island. Whether fable or not,
there used to be a marker over
there, but I don’t think you can
see anything there now.
“My father came to Alaska be
fore even the early days of those
cannery ships. He left Finland at
16 and never went back—most of
his relatives came to America or
Canada anyway. He started as
cabin boy and cook’s helper, and
remembered beating codfish with
a hammer to soften it before it
could be cooked, and scraping mold
off the biscuits. He sailed around
the world twice before coming to
Kodiak in April, 1893. He used to
say, ‘It was the time of wooden
ships and iron men; now we have
iron ships and wooden men.’ At
that time he was sailing in a seal
ing schooner, but they were mainly
after sea otter in those days, until
1910 when a law stopped all hunt
ing for them.” We asked if Emil
might have a skin, just as a me
mento? “No, ma’m! It’s against the
law to have one in your possession,
but I do remember seeing one,
years ago. It was very beautiful,
a rich, dark fur, and so soft. I don’t
believe there is another fur that
can match sea otter.
“My father did have a fur seal
coat, probably made locally. It
was a big thing, and very soft, but
it finally wore out, so we don’t
have that either. After 1910 Dad
was captain on schooners and fish
ing tenders. He fished for a great
many years, worked in canneries,
and at one time, ran a trading store
on Woody Island for Alaska Com
mercial Company. But I think that
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PH. 486—2662
was in the early 1900s. Except for
2 trips outside to Seattle he stayed
here the rest of his life; he never
wanted to be anywhere else.”
Th Nortons have watched Kodiak
glow from a little village of 300 or
400 people to the small city it is
today, paved streets replacing cow
paths, gardens giving ’way to fresh
vegetables brought in by ship,
along with many other things they
grew up without. Emil likes to hunt
duck in the Bristol Bay region
which he calls a hunter’s paradise,
and Iefrieda longs to grow a garden
again, for the pure pleasure it
would afford. But her time is filled
with her busy family, and his con
suming interest is the cannery,
and the fishing industry he loves.
Photography
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