PACIFIC SALMON FISHERIES. 59 
CHIGNIK BAY. 
Chignik Bay is on the southern side of the Alaska Peninsula and 
is the first important indentation after leaving Cook Inlet on the way 
to the westward. The bay is about 150 miles southwest of Karluk. 
On the westward side of the bay is a small deep bay known as Anchor- 
age Bay. Several of the canneries are located here and the trans- 
porting vessels of all the canneries make their anchorage at this 
point. In the extreme southwest corner of Chignik Bay is the 
entrance to Chignik Lagoon. At the head of this lagoon, from 
which all the canneries draw their supplies of red salmon, is the 
mouth of the stream up which go the schools. 
Chignik River is about 6 miles long, with an average width of 100 
yards. The depth in the river is such that a boat can ascend only 
at high water. The river has its rise in two lakes, each about 10 
miles long. 
“Red salmon predominate in the runs, although all five species are 
to be found. A run of very small red salmon, weighing about 2 
pounds, and known as Arctic salmon, appears here every year. 
Practically all of the fishing here is with traps, although gill nets 
and seines have also been used at times. 
This bay, next to Karluk Spit, has been the scene of more bitter 
fights for supremacy in canning than any other place in Alaska. 
In 1888 the Fishermen’s Packing Co., of Astoria, Oreg., sent a party 
to Chignik Bay to prospect for fish, and they returned in the fall with 
2,160 barrels of salt salmon. 
The next year, this company, operating under the name of the 
Chignik Bay Co., built a cannery on the eastern shore of the Lagoon, 
24 miles from the entrance. 
The same year the Shumagin Packing Co., composed of capitalists 
from Portland, Oreg., and the Chignik Bay Packing Co., of San 
Francisco, built and operated canneries close to that of the Chignik 
Bay Co. All three of these companies soon arrived at a working 
agreement and finally combined into one organization. All were 
operated in 1889, 1890, and 1891. In 1892 they all joined the pool 
of the Alaska Packing Association, and the cannery of the Chignik 
Bay Co. alone operated. In 1893 they all became members of the 
Alaska Packers Association. 
Since 1891 only the cannery of the Chignik Bay Co. has been oper- 
ated. The Shumagin building has been moved alongside the former 
and the machinery consolidated, so as to form practically one large 
cannery. 
In the spring of 1896 Hume Bros. & Hume built a cannery on the 
eastern side of Anchorage Bay and made a pack that year and in 
1897. 
