from where they were hatched and marked. They go to sea, pass the years of their ocean life in the neighborhood of the place of their birth, wandering through their feeding grounds, then return approximately to the stream of their nativity when they reach maturity.

The natives, from the Thlingits of the southeast, all along the coast as far as the Arctic Ocean, and on the rivers of the interior, derive the larger part of their food from the salmon runs. They take the fish by various methods, split it open, each tribe after a cut of its own, and hang it on a rack to dry without salt. The product is called yukali by the Aleuts. It is so prepared to the present in many places, and today the greater part of the 30,000 natives of Alaska depend chiefly on the salmon as a means of sustaining life.

When the Russians came to the coasts a little more than a century and a half ago they found the racks of red yukali at the mouths of the streams, just as they may be found in a thousand places today. They proceeded to take advantage of the myriads of fish which thronged along the shores, and they chose places for their fisheries, notably at the mouth of the Karluk River, and the Ozerskoe Redoubt, at the outlet of the Globokoe Lake, near Sitka. The Karluk fishery was first utilized by Gregory Shelikof during the winter of 1784, and it was used during the whole of the period of Russian occupation, over half a million fish being taken on an average each year.3 About 1860, the chief manager of the Russian American Company made arrangements for preparing salted salmon in larger quantities, but the failure of the company to secure a new charter prevented the carrying out of the plans. The Redoubt fishery was the source of most of the supply for the Sitka station from the time of the settlement in 1804 until the transfer of the Territory in 1867, about 70,000 fish being taken there on an average each year. The fish were taken by the Russians with nets and with traps set in running streams, called zapors. These traps operated much the same as do the present fish traps, or pond nets, except that they were set in the stream and often closed the whole stream to the passage of the fish. The Russian method of preserving the fish was by salting in casks much after the present method of salting salmon. Their product was not large in quantity, never exceeding two thousand barrels in a year, of which part was exported to California and other places outside the Russian possessions.

4

But few salmon were taken during the early years of the Ameri

• Golovin, Obzor Russkikh Kolonii iv Cyevernoi Amerike, p. 106.

4 Tikhmenef, Istorii Obosryenie Obrazobania Rossiisko-Amerikanskoi Kompanii, Part II, p. 237.

can occupation, two thousand barrels of salted salmon only being produced in 1868, in addition to the local consumption. This was slowly increased for the next few years, several salteries being operated. At Kasaan, an Austrian named Baronovich, whose name was connected with almost every form of Alaskan enterprise from smuggling to copper mining, conducted a saltery; the Redoubt fishery was continued, also the Karluk saltery, and later one was established at Klawak.5

In 1878 the canning of salmon was initiated by the establishment of two canneries one at old Sitka, the other at Klawak and the combined pack of the year was 8,159 cases. The success of the business being demonstrated by these two ventures, the industry was extended to Prince William Sound and to Karluk during 1882. By 1884 a small establishment was located on the Nushagak, in Bristol Bay, which made a trial pack of 400 cases, the first in that vast region of Bering Sea where so many great plants are now situated and from which about a million and a half cases are now brought each season. The business advanced by rapid strides: twenty years after the first cannery was built there were twenty-nine in operation, and the pack totaled 254,312 cases. The business had attracted some of the shrewdest men of the West. Competition in some places was keen, and a contest for the wealth of the waters was at hand. At the end of the next decade there were forty-eight canneries and thirty-nine salteries, while one pack had reached 2,169,873 cases, valued at $8,781,366.8 Great as was this volume of trade, it was yet to be eclipsed by further development. During the year 1917 it climbed to over one-half the pack of the whole world, with a total of 5,922,320 cases, valued at $41,478,514, the number of canneries reached 114, and the investment in the salmon fisheries totaled over $34,000,000.

7

9

These are the main steps in the upbuilding of the greatest industry of the Territory. It is at the climax of its prosperity, and its future depends on a wise management. It may be made to yield millions of revenue for all future time, or it may be practically destroyed in a few years.

In New England the streams at one time were filled with one of the salmon species, the Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), identical

• Pacific Salmon Fisheries (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1917), p. 41.

• Morris, Report Upon the Customs District of Alaska Territory (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1879), p. 115.

'Moser, Salmon and Salmon Fisheries of Alaska (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1899), pp. 50 et seq.

8 The Fisheries of Alaska in 1907 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1908), pp. 11 et seq.

• Collector of Customs for Alaska Report for 1918, Pacific Fisherman, Year Book, January, 1918, p. 51.

with the salmon of Europe and of the affluents of the Atlantic Ocean.10 Its range was from Labrador to the vicinity of New York City, and within the boundaries of the United States were twenty-eight rivers which were frequented by them, from the St. John to the Housatonic. From almost every one of these rivers the salmon has been exterminated, although a few fish are caught in the streams of Massachusetts, and the rivers Kennebec and Penobscot in Maine yield a few thousand each year. The Maine rivers are stocked by hatcheries maintained by the government, and the eggs for the hatchery have been brought, first from Canada, later from Alaska. This illustrates the effect of unrestrained fishing for salmon in the United States.

11

The Old World has preserved its salmon better than has the old parts of the New, showing that our methods may be improved upon. Along the Rhine, thickly settled though it is and has been for over two thousand years, the fish is still found, although in limited numbers. Caesar found cities of forty thousand inhabitants along this stream before the birth of Christ, and the fishing has undoubtedly continued from that time to the present, yet the salmon still finds its way up the historic stream. The statistics of the whole river are unavailable, but the estimate of 65,000 salmon taken in each year is made by the Bureau of Fisheries.12

Norway also has salmon, the value of the catch in 1896 being 1,069,979 kronor, of which the river fisheries produced 224,688 kronor and the sea fisheries 845,291 kronor. In addition to this the privilege of the rod and line fishing in the stream is rented to sportsmen for about 200,000 kronor.1

13

Three hun

In the Scottish seas and rivers the salmon still run. dred years ago the annual average catch amounted to 47,000 pounds sterling.1 14 They have been depleted in those waters, but in 1864 the product was valued at 500,000 pounds sterling.

In Ireland the catch on the Galway was but 1,603 fish in 1853. Later a better system of protection was instituted, and the number rose to 20,512 in 1864, while the whole catch of the country was valued at 300,000 pounds sterling.

15

The presence of civilization alone does not entirely destroy the fish, although undoubtedly the clearing of the watershed and polluting

10 "The Atlantic Salmon," Manual of Fish Culture (Washington, Government Printing ∙Office, 1900), p. 17.

11 "The Maine Salmon," Bulletin of the Fisheries Commission (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1910).

12 Ibid., Part II, pp. 828-9.

13 Norway-Official Publication for the Paris Exposition, pp. 369, 373. The kronor is valued at about 29c.

14 P. Hume Brown, History of Scotland, Vol. III, p. 373.

15 Report of the Fisheries for the State of Maine, 1869.

the spawning grounds reduces the number very materially. If proper measures are taken to insure enough parent fish reaching the spawning grounds the supply will continue. The question is, are there enough fish passing to the breeding grounds in Alaska to insure the supply necessary for the preservation of the industry? The encroachment

of civilization has not as yet made any marked inroads, and any decrease is to be directly attributed to over-fishing.

In Alaska, the salmon fishing was at first entirely unrestrained by any regulation whatever, and it was more than twenty years after it became a Territory of the United States before a law was passed for the fishery. When a law was passed it was practically inoperative for many years through lack of the means of enforcement. Along a coastline of more than two thousand miles, in which at intervals canneries were situated, there was no vessel at the command of the fisheries agent for many years. If the agent visited a cannery it was generally at the courtesy of the owner of the establishment, and he was transported in the tender of the cannery to and from the place. Under those conditions it was practically impossible to enforce the laws. Later conditions have been better, but to the present time the provisions for enforcing the laws are inadequate. In recent years, at a time when there were four boats in the Forestry Service in the Territory, there was but one boat in the Fisheries Service, although the fisheries covered much the greater length of coastline. Consequently many of the wise provisions for the protection of the fish are almost inoperative.

The laws were openly and brazenly violated in many ways and for many years, and to a great extent are unobserved at the present time. The superintendent of a cannery is sent to the country to put up a pack, and he is expected to do so without regard to the opposing conditions. If it is a four-line cannery and he is to put up a hundred thousand cases, he is paid a certain amount if he reaches those figures, and is perhaps given a bonus if that pack is exceeded. The men who have their capital invested are looking for a profit on the investment. He is there to "fill his tin," and when the fish run he takes them whether it is at the time prescribed for the closing of traps or not. When the run is on a day's closing may lose the best of the season and a shortage of ten thousand fish. Far better to risk a fine of a hundred

dollars if the Fisheries Agent inopportunely appears on the scene than to lose a thousand dollars worth of fish. Many of them would prefer to observe the law, but it is as a superintendent tersely remarked: “If I don't get the fish, the other fellow will."

The seines are drawn in the mouths of the streams where the

fish have collected in the brakish water, for the greater catch may be taken at the place where they have gathered together to ascend, although it is forbidden by law. At one time a prominent fisherman of Alaska was caught redhanded in a violation of the law by the agent, and a warrant was procured for his arrest and served. He was placed under $3,000 bonds. The report of the special agent for the government states:

"The law, as you are aware, imposes a fine of $250 for every day a stream is obstructed. . . . Court did not convene until after the retirement of the district attorney, Mr. ——, and the appointment of his successor, Mr. who agreed to accept the nominal fine of

The condition at that time, and to some extent at the present, is illustrated by a conversation related in a report:

"All I say is, 'Jimmie, go up to the trap and bring me down 15,000 fish.' All they've got to do is to take a gang of men on the lighter, and she comes down on the next tide with 15,000. The next day I say, 'Well, boys, go up and bring me down 18,000 fish.' And they go and get them out of the other trap, for while they are working one side the other side is fishing." 17

They never let the traps stop fishing, and the chances for a fish reaching the spawning grounds through the cordon of nets and traps is very small indeed. Fifty-six indictments were found during 1916 for violations of the laws. In many of the cases convictions were secured, but as to how many cases passed without the knowledge of the officers is unknown. The unlawful fishing is just as likely to be done by a small fisherman as the larger operator. The corporations are no more prone to unlawful procedure than is the man who owns a seine only.

Some of the canneries are compelled to send as far as from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty miles for their fish in some instances. One superintendent states: "I would make my pack for half the cost were it not for the conditions." Every stream is being scraped for every possible fish.

The best known and best stocked locations were the first to be fished. They were the first to become depleted of fish. The Globokoe fishery, so long the source of the Russian supply at Sitka, was fished out in 1896 and the cannery moved away. The Karluk River, only sixteen and one-half miles in length, heading in a lake on Kodiak Island, has

16 Report of Joseph Murray, Special Treasury Agent, for 1895 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1898), in Seal and Salmon Fisheries of Alaska, Vol. II, p. 455.

17 Ibid., p. 408