110 DESCRIPTION OF IMPORTANT FISHERIES AND THEIR PRODUCTS 



Bristol Bay. The Bristol Bay area produces a major portion of the 

 United States pack of canned red salmon. A very small pack of canned 

 Chinook, chum, pink, and coho salmon is also made, incidental to the 

 red salmon pack. A very small amount of king salmon from this district 

 is also mild cured, and both red and king salmon are salted in a small- 

 scale operation. The natives of this district also take a considerable 

 number of fish for personal use and for dog food. The Bristol Bay canned 

 salmon pack is of good quality with good color and the fish are rich in 

 oil. There are some variations in quality in the fishing districts in this 

 Bay due to the races of salmon going into different river systems to 

 spawn. 



Bristol Bay is a very large, shallow and open fishing area with charac- 

 teristically turbid water. For this reason the commercial fish are taken 

 by gill nets. The major portion of the catch is taken by drift gill nets 

 with a small part of the catch made by set nets along the shore. The 

 typical operation is for the gill net boats to play out their net and drift 

 until a catch is made. Following the drift, the fish are delivered to cannery 

 tenders and power scows for delivery from the fishing grounds to the 

 canneries. The canneries in this district are close to the fishing ground 

 so that delivery is not a problem. The difficulty occurs in this fishery 

 when a large run of salmon enter Bristol Bay and the catch exceeds the 

 cannery capacities. When this situation arises, the canners put the 

 fishing boats on limits and use chilled brine and refrigerated sea water 

 to maintain the quality of the raw salmon. 



A small part of the Bristol Bay catch is delivered to freezer boats in 

 a mother-ship operation. These boats usually have brine freezers similar 

 to those used in the tuna industry, although there are ships which air 

 freeze the salmon. This frozen salmon is delivered to canneries in Alaska 

 or in Washington and Oregon for processing. Salmon has highly unsatu- 

 rated oils, and for this reason this freezing operation presents some 

 serious problems from the standpoint of oxidation of these oils during 

 frozen storage prior to canning. The very heavy landings during the 

 season in this district make the protective glazing of the fish with ice 

 almost impossible; also the brine freezing makes it impracticable to apply 

 a protective coating to the salmon in frozen storage. 



When these frozen fish arrive at the cannery, they are thawed by air, 

 water sprays, or by immersion in water, and they are then canned in the 

 normal manner. The pack from this district is put up in ono-pound and 

 half-pound cans with a small four-pound production developing in the 

 area. 



The pack from this part of Alaska is shipped by steamship to Washing- 

 ton and Oregon for distribution. One of the problems in the southward 



