ALASKA FISHERY AND FUR-SEAL INDUSTRIES, 1923 49 



the Department of Commerce; Secretary Wallace, of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture; Secretary Work, of the Department of the 

 Interior; Speaker Gillette, of the House of Kepresentatives ; and 

 other prominent men. An extended tonr of the Territory was made, 

 and numerous heai'ings on the workings of the various departments 

 of the Federal GoYernment dealing with Alaskan matters were 

 held in an effort to discover any real troubles that might exist. 

 Secretary Hoover conducted public hearings at Juneau on July 

 10, Fairbanks July 16, Nenana July IG, Anchorage July 17, Seward 

 July 18, and Cordova July 20, with a view to securing first-hand 

 information in regard to fishery conditions in Alaska. These 

 hearings were very valuable in view of the necessity for furtlier 

 fishery protective measures. On July 22 Secretary Hoover made a 

 trip from Sitka to Biorka Island and return on the bureau's patrol 

 boat Widgeon. The bureau was represented on the presidential 

 insDection of the fisheries by E. ]M. Ball, assistant agent. 



The last public address made by President Harding in Seattle on 

 July 27 contained the following relating to the fisheries: 



The greatest Alaskan industry stands in an entirely different relation than 

 either gold or copper. I refer to the fisheries, which in present wealth-pro- 

 ducing potency far exceeds the mines. In fact, the fisheries product is now in 

 value more than donl>le that of all metals and minerals. It is too great for 

 the good of the Territory, for if it shall continue without more general and 

 effective regulation than is now imposed it will presumably exhaust the fish 

 and leave no basis for the industry. 



One must know the natural history of the salmon, the supremely important 

 Alaskan fish, to appraise the fisheries problem. We do not need to enlighten 

 Pacific coast people, who understand the sub.iect. but many others lack 

 understanding. The salmon normally begins and ends his life in fresh watei' 

 but grows and lives in the ocean. A school of small fish, hatched in a partic- 

 ular stream, go out to sea and are lost for a period of years. In that same 

 time they grow into the magnificent creatures we all know. Then they return, 

 with seemingly unerring instinct, to the very stream in which they were 

 hatched, to reproduce their kind and then to die. They congregate on their 

 way back into great schools, plowing their way up to the streams of their 

 nativity. Full grown and perfectly conditioned, they are now ripe for the 

 enterprise of the fisherman and the canner. Their habit of traveling in 

 schools is their undoing; for the fishermen with their nets and traps literally 

 scoop entire schools into their gear, and thus gradually exterminate the entire 

 fish population of a particular small stream. Thereafter that stream will be 

 barren unless a sufficient proportion of the school is permitted to escape to 

 spawn and perpetuate it. Too often this does not happen, as is proved by the 

 history of both our Atlantic and Pacific coast salmon fisheries and the record 

 of fisheries elsewhere which depend on fish with similar life habits. The 

 progressive disappearance of salmon along our coasts from California north- 

 ward is a story whose repetition ought to warn us to protect it in Alaska 

 before it is too late. The salmon pack not only represents nine-tenths of the 

 output of Alaska's commercial fisheries, but it is an important contribution 

 to our national food supply. 



It is vastly more easy to declare for protection and conservation of such a 

 resource tlian to formulate a practicalde and equitable program. Fisli hatch- 

 eries l)ave been established to restock streams, but the results are still con- 

 .iectui-nl and controversial. Argument is advanced for the abolition of one 

 method of fisliing in one spot, the condemnation of another type in another, 

 and -SO on. until tliere Is confusion of local controversies which no specific and 

 exclusive prohibition will solve. Even in Ids cruder pin-suit of the fish in- 

 dustr.v, the Indian seeks for liiniself the device which he would have denied to 

 the canner. But there is encouragem<^nt in the almost unanimous a^'reement 

 in Alaska tliat regulation must and shall be enforced, and we must apply a 

 practical wisdom to the varied situations as the salvage of tlie industry de- 

 mands. Against an.v kind of prohibition it is urged that tlie immense invest- 

 ment in Alaska's fisheries and canneries would be greatly in.iured by such a 

 reduction of the catch. To this it may well be replied that the canneries 



