38 ALASKA FISHERIES AND FUE INDUSTRIES, 1911. 



CANNING. 

 CONDITIONS AND EVENTS OF THE SEASON. 



The season of 1911 has the distinction of having been the most 

 profitable the salmon packers of Alaska ever experienced. At the 

 ojKMiiug of the season there were no stocks in first hands, while the 

 demand for the new pack was so great that the packers could have 

 easily contracted in advance for the sale of the total pack for which 

 I heir plants were outfitted. Many of them held off, however, pre- 

 ferring to take their chances on the opening prices, and their judgment 

 was \indicated, as these were considerably above most of the contract 

 l)rices offered, and in some instances better than the opening prices. 



As the season of 1910 had been a profitable one, the attention of 

 ca]ntal was attracted to Alaska with the result that 9 new canneries 

 were built and operated this year in southeast Alaska, 2 in central 

 Alaska, and 2 in western Alaska, a total increase of 13 in all the dis- 

 trict. In central Alaska the Alaska Packers Association, which had 

 been operating 2 canneries at Karluk, abandoned these and occu- 

 pied a new single cannery of equivalent capacity on Larsen Bay. 

 The names of the new companies appear in the list of canneries. 



On October 29 the cannery of the Kasaan Co., at Kasaan, Prince 

 of Wales Island, southeast Alaska, was burned, the" cannery and 

 warehouses and a considerable part of the season's pack being totally 

 destroyed. This is the third time this plant has been destroyed by 

 fire, the first time being in 1906 and the second in 1910. The plant 

 had been rebuilt and operated in 1911, and the company intends to 

 again rebuild in tmie to operate in the season of 1912. 



On August 29 a part of the piling under the cannery of F. C. Barnes 

 Co., at Lake Bay, southeast Alaska, collapsed and a portion of the sea- 

 son's pack slid into the water. The greater part was rescued, but 

 the plant had been so badly damaged that canning operations were 

 suspended for the remainder of the season. 



During a heavy gale on September 17 the piling under the ware- 

 house of the Fidalgo Island Packing Co., at Ketchikan, southeast 

 Alaska, gave way and precipitated into the water nearly all of the 

 season's pack. The greater part was subsequently recovered, but 

 many cans were dented and broken and a further loss was occasioned 

 b,y the rusting of the cans from their contact with salt water, so that 

 most of the pack had to be sold much below the prevailing market 

 prices. 



In April, during a storm, the ship Jabez Hotoes, laden with the sea- 

 son's outfit for the Chignik canners of the Columbia River Paclcers' 

 Association, was driven ashore on the beach near the entrance to ( hig- 

 nik Bay. The outfit was saved, but the vessel became a total l;>ss. 

 During the same storm the ships of the Chignik canneries of the iUaska 



