ALASKA FISHERY AND FUR-SEAL INDUSTRIES 123 



There were 194 persons engaged in the industry, of whom 27 were 

 whites, 105 natives, 2 Chinese, 28 Japanese, 29 Filipinos, and 3 

 Mexicans. Products consisted of 453,744 pounds of cold-packed 

 shrimp meat, valued at $161,679; 6,567 pounds of frozen shrimp meat, 

 valued at $2,627; 26 pounds of fresh shrimp meat, valued at $10; 

 2,160 pounds of fresh shrimp in the shell, valued at $321 ; and 37 cases, 

 or 888 pounds, of canned shrimp meat, valued at $296 — a total of 

 463,385 pounds, valued at $164,933. Comparable figures for 1936 

 show a production of 478,749 pounds, valued at $162,274. 



SHRIMP-PICKING MACHINE 



The Alaskan Glacier Sea Food Co., of Petersburg, started opera- 

 tions in midsummer with a shrimp-picking machme, invented and 

 perfected after 10 years experimenting by V. Bottker in cooperation 

 with Earl N. Ohmer, owner of the sea-food company. About 200 

 shrimp a minute are handled by the machine, and more of the meat 

 is removed than by the hand process. The machine also handles 

 smaller shrimp than can be picked by hand. The operation is 

 described in the November 1937 Pacific Fisherman, as follows: 



Shrimp are fed to the machine automatically through a hopper. As they pass 

 along a belt leading from the hopper they strike a brush that points them tail 

 first between two horizontal disks, which line them on the center of the feed belt. 

 The feed belt carries them between two short parallel rubber belts operating on 

 horizontal disks, which sets the shrimp back up on edge and inserts the bottom 

 of their tails between two lower parallel rubber belts. These belts grip the shrimp 

 and carry them between two small revolving horizontal disks fitted with teeth 

 which engage the bottom of the shrimp shell and extend it slightly to each side. 

 The shrimp then strike a perpendicular revolving toothed disk that tears the 

 shell from the meat. The belt carries the meat through jets of water under high 

 pressure and under a revolving brush, then to a receiver. The disk that removes 

 the shell carries the shell around to a bar and a jet of water, which removes the 

 shell and drops it into a waste receiver. Each machine is individually powered 

 with an electric motor. 



It is expected that the use of this machine will greatly reduce pro- 

 duction costs. A vacuum packing process has been developed to 

 handle the increased output. The expansion of the industry, of 

 course, will depend primarily upon the supply of shrimp available 

 on the trawUng grounds. 



CRABS 



Eight plants in southeast Alaska and five in the central district 

 were engaged in the crab fishery in 1937, the operations in some in- 

 stances being incidental to other fisheries. The Boardway Canning 

 Co. at Wrangell was sold on February 1, 1937, to the A R B Packing 

 Co. and was operated thereafter by the latter in connection with its 

 salmon cannery. The Alaskan Glacier Sea Food Co. operated crab 

 canneries at Hoonali and Cordova and also handled crabs at its 

 shrimp establishments at Petersburg and Wrangell. The Gulf 

 Packing Co. at Cordova and the Kayler-Otness, Inc., at Petersburg 

 packed both salmon and crabs. A small crab cannery was established 

 by the King Crab Co. in a leased building at Halibut Cove, on Cook 

 Inlet, to pack both King and Dungeness crabs, but only a few dozen 

 cases were prepared during the season. Other operators in the crab 

 fishery were as follows: Ketchikan Sea Foods Co. Inc. (originally 

 established as the Pacific Alaska Sea Foods Co., and later reorganized), 



