58 



tinning for five weeks, there was in the Karlnk River a 

 glnt of hnmpbacks which kept all other salmon out of 

 the stream. It was impossible to pull a boat across the 

 river. A haul was made with a 90-foot seine at 6 a.m., 

 and the men were dressing fish from that haul until 6 p.m., 

 caring for about 140 barrels, or about 11,200 fish, during 

 twelve hours. After this they were occupied three hours 

 in clearing the seine, in which the remaining salmon were 

 about four feet deep. I do not think of any way of inten- 

 sifying the statement of fact here recorded, for it is a 

 fact repeatedly observed and abundantly verified. When 

 the humpbacks enter a stream in force they simply fill the 

 water from shore to shore and from bottom to top. This is 

 the smallest of the Pacific salmons, averaging about five 

 pounds in weight and seldom reaching ten pounds ; but it 

 makes up in numbers what it lacks in size, and it occurs 

 throughout the territory and eastward to the Mackenzie 

 River. As a food-fish, in the sea-run condition, it is ex- 

 cellent. It is salted in moderate quantities for disposal in 

 San Francisco and other markets. Natives dry it, either 

 with or without salting, and store up vast numbers for use 

 in winter. 



The red-salmon, or red-fish (Plate VII, fig. 21), also known 

 as blueback and saioqiti — the krasnya ryba of the Rus- 

 sians — next to the humpback is the most abundant salmon 

 of the territory. Commercially, it is the most important fish, 

 .and, indeed, the most valuable j^roduct of Alaska. The 

 Government has a prospective revenue of $1,000,000 annu- 

 ally from its seal islands. The people engaged in the salmon-, 

 fishery last year took about $3,000,000 worth of fish from 

 Alaskan waters, and they were chiefly the little red-salmon. 

 This is not a large fish, for it averages only seven or eight 

 pounds in weight ; individuals weighing fifteen pounds are 

 occasionally seen. Like the king-salmon, it travels the 

 whole length of rivers, pushing on to their sources, but. 



