COMMERCIAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA IN 1905. 21 



up 3,173 cases of one-quarter oil and three-quarters mustard sardines, 

 valued at $12,059. These were prepared from young herring. None 

 were packed in 1905, owing to inability to compete with the excess- 

 ively low prices quoted for eastern sardines. As the prices of the 

 latter have gone up to a normal figure again, it is probable that it 

 will now be profitable to operate the cannery. The company also 

 put up smoked and salted herring in addition to other fishes. 



There is room for a very great development of the herring industry. 

 For many years salmon absorbed all the attention and capital, but 

 since -the slump in profits in the latter business during the last four 

 years more attention has been directed to herring. 



FISHING GROUNDS. 



Herring are found in abundance at certain seasons of the year 

 at many places on the Alaskan coast south of Bering Straits. They 

 are rather erratic in their movements, however, being in one place 

 especially abundant one year and totally absent the next, possibly 

 returning again after several seasons in greater numbers than before. 

 In southeast Alaska the herring arrive in April for the purpose of 

 breeding, and deposit their eggs in countless numbers in the sea grass 

 and rockweed near shore and on boughs of trees along the beaches 

 near low-water mark. For many years the inlet at Kootznahoo, on 

 Chatham Strait, was the favorite resort for herring, but they are 

 much less abundant now, owing, it is claimed, to the constant fishing 

 for them with purse seines, which breaks up the schools and drives 

 them away. The northern shore of Kuiu Island and Gastineau Chan- 

 nel are also favorite spots, although the fish have been rather scarce 

 in the latter place the last two seasons. They are quite abundant in 

 Yakutat Bay, while Seldovia or Herring Bay, just inside the mouth 

 of Cook Inlet, is a famous resort for them, immense schools making 

 their appearance here each spring and autumn. About the middle 

 of August large schools usually appear in the vicinity of Kadiak 

 Island, and Captains Harbor, Unalaska Island, is frequented at cer- 

 tain seasons by large schools of exceedingly fat herring. Herring 

 usually begin to arrive in the Yukon River from the 5th to the 20th 

 of June. The run in Norton Sound is of very short duration, the 

 fishing lasting only a fortnight, but the schools are said to be enor- 

 mously large. 



STATISTICS. 



The table on page 22 shows the condition of the herring fishery from 

 1878, the first year for which reliable data could be secured. This 

 table is not complete by any means, as salteries frequently spring up 

 and are gone in a season, leaving no trace behind as to what they did. 



