PACIFIC COD FISHERIES 421 



While a small proportion of the white men are excellent fisher- 

 men of the type required for hand-line fishing from dories, the 

 majority of them are ordinary beach combers picked up on the 

 water fronts of San Francisco and Seattle, or men of very little 

 acquaintance with the sea even, let alone any fishing knowledge. 

 The reason for this is that the salmon and halibut fisheries offer more 

 congenial employment to the more intelligent and progressive of the 

 fishermen. At the end of the salmon season in Alaska quite a few of 

 the better class go to the shore stations and work there until the 

 opening of the salmon season the following spring, when they take 

 up the salmon work once more. 



The natives generally are among the best of the station fishermen, 

 as usually they are well acquainted with the locations of the many 

 isolated spots that while rich in cod yet sometimes cover but a few 

 feet or yards in extent and are difficult to find unless certain land- 

 marks are well fixed in the mind. They are persistent and skillful 

 fishermen and generally are among the high-line fishermen unless 

 handicapped through age, disease, or bodily infirmity. They are apt 

 to quit when the whim seizes them, but the author's experience with 

 cod fishermen generally is that both whites and natives are apt to 

 quit on very slight or no provocation at all, the desire for a change 

 of scene at frequent intervals seeming, in their eyes at least, to be one 

 of the essentials of the industry. 



VESSELS AND BOATS 



Fishing vessels. — Unlike the vessels used in the New England fish- 

 eries, there is no distinctive type employed on the Pacific cod fishery. 

 Not a single vessel now used exclusively in fishing was built espe- 

 cially for that purpose. All of them were at one time brigs, barks, 

 barkentines, or schooners employed in the carrying trade of the 

 Pacific and were purchased for use in the fishery after they had 

 attained varying ages. As the schooner rig has proved the most 

 economical, the vessels have been altered gradually, until all are now 

 of this rig. They vary in length from 102 feet 6 inches to 156 feet, 

 and the net tonnage ranges from 138 to 464. 



In Alaska a different type of vessel has been evolved. As the com- 

 panies owning several stations frequently desired to transport goods 

 and fish from station to station, small sailing vessels were employed 

 in the early days. These had a large cargo capacity and were vessels 

 that previously had been used in California waters for various pur- 

 poses. As the trips made by these vessels necessarily were uncertain, 

 owing to their dependence upon sails, it was soon seen that power 

 vessels would be more profitable, and about 20 years ago the first 

 vessels of this type were sent up under sail. N In order to make them 

 suitable for navigation under the trying conditions that prevail in 

 this section of Alaska, they were greatly altered, but even then they 

 proved far from satisfactory. 



^ In 1912 the Union Fish Co., of San Francisco, had built on Puget 

 Sound the first power vessel to be devoted exclusively to the codfish 

 industry. It was a schooner-rigged vessel and was named the Union 

 Jack. The vessel was 85 feet long, 18 feet beam, and had a net 



