84 U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
In 1908 the first fish wheel to be located in the coastal waters of 
Alaska was operated in the Taku River, in southeast Alaska. The 
wheel was set between two 4-foot scows, stationed parallel to each 
other, and each 40 feet in length. The wheel had two dips, each 22 
feet in width and hung with netting. It could be moved from place to 
place, the same as the scow wheels on the Columbia River. It was 
operated throughout the king and red salmon runs, but caught almost 
no salmon, and was not set in the succeeding years. 
For many years the natives of the interior of Alaska have been 
resorting to the banks of the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers and their 
tributaries in order to secure a sufficient supply of salmon to sustain 
them through the succeeding winter. The favorite apparatus of these 
natives at present is a type of fish wheel introduced by the whites 
about 1905. An oblong framework of timbers is constructed in the 
water and moored to the bank by ropes. A wheel, composed of two 
or three dips, is placed in this, the axle resting upon the framework. 
The current catches each dip in turn, thus causing the wheel to 
revolve, and the dip is of such shape that the salmon caught roll off 
it into a trough, down which they slide into a boat moored between 
the wheel and the shore or into a box fixed to the supporting frame- 
work on the side. Although crude in construction, these wheels are 
very effective and a large number of them are set each season. 
The Columbia River fish wheel is a patented device. It was first 
used by the patentees, S. W. Williams & Bro., in 1879, and for 
several years they retained a monopoly in its use. A number are 
now operating on the river. The device was not new even when 
patented, as a similar ‘‘fishing machine,” as it is called, had been in 
use prior to this time and is still used by white fishermen on the 
Roanoke River in North Carolina. 
REEF NETS. 
When the whites first visited the Northwest they found the natives 
employing a number of ingenious devices for catching salmon, and 
one of the most effective of these was the reef net. J. A. Kerr, Esq.,% 
who has been engaged in the salmon fisheries of Puget Sound for a 
number of years, has written the following very interesting account 
of this native fishery: 
The aborigines the world over have developed ingenuity solely along the lines of 
their necessities. The coast Indians of Alaska evolved the bidarky and the ingenious 
implements for taking the seal, the walrus, and the whale. The Siwash of Puget 
Sound developed a seaworthy dugout and appliances for taking salmon that marks 
the acme of Indian invention. 
When Vancouver explored the waters of the Sound he found over 500 Indians en- 
camped at Chiltenum, now Point Roberts. He relates in his log of the voyage that 
these Indians were engaged ‘‘in fishing for salmon with crude nets made of the bark of 
young willow.’’ He described the racks upon the contiguous upland used by the 
ndians in curing the fish. 
When Gov. Stevens negotiated the treaty with the Indians of the lower Sound at 
Point Elliott, now Mukilteo, in 1855, I was informed by Col. Shaw, the interpreter, 
that over 7,000 Indians attended, the session lasting for five days. 
The Government sought to have the Indians confined to reservations, and the dis- 
position of their ancient fisheries was a matter of great solicitude on their part. 
Salmon was the principal article of their diet. 
After protracted discussion the sixth clause of the treaty was made to provide 
that ‘‘the right to take fish at their usual and accustomed fishing grounds, together 
with the right to erect and maintain racks upon the contiguous upland for curing and 
drying the same, is hereby forever guaranteed to said Indians.”’ 
a The Siwash Reef Net. By J. A. Kerr. Pacific Fisherman Yearbook, 1917, p. 60. 
