PACIFIC COD FISHERIES. 37 
had but a brief existence, dropping out of active fishing operations 
early in 1912, while in December, 1914, Capt. Matheson bought from 
the Matheson Fisheries Co. the schooners Fanny Dutard and Azalea 
and sent them north in 1915 under his own name. After disposing 
of its 1914 catch of cod the Matheson Fisheries Co. wound up its 
active career in the summer of 1915. 
The first Canadian company to engage in cod fishing on the — 
Pacific banks was the Western Canadian Fish Co. This company 
built a home station at Barnet, British Columbia, in 1903, and sent 
the brigantine Blakeley to Bering Sea. The company struggled 
along until the latter part of 1905, when it went out of the business. 
In 1913 the Canadian Fish & Cold Storage Co., of Prince Rupert, 
British Columbia, outfitted the schooner Albert Meyer and sent her 
to the Bering Sea banks. She arrived there at almost the end of 
the fishing season, and as a result brought back but a few hundred 
fish. ‘The vessel made another trip in 1914, when it met with fair 
success. As the market was very poor when she returned, the com- 
pany gave up this branch of its business. 
HISTORY OF ALASKA SHORE-FISHING STATIONS. 
The natives living in the vicinity of the great cod banks of Alaska 
have depended upon them for a considerable part of their food 
supply, although not to such an important extent as they have upon 
the salmon. When the Russians came more and more home use was 
made of cod, and the same is true of their creole descendants to-day. 
With the exception of a few small shipments made from Kodiak in 
the early years of the industry, the catch of the natives and few 
whites living at other than the regular cod stations has all been 
consumed locally. 
The late Thomas W. McCollam, of the McCollam Fishing & Trad- 
ing Co., of San Francisco, was the first to perceive the advantages to 
be obtained from establishing stations close to the cod banks, where 
the fishermen could go out daily in dories to the adjacent banks and 
the catch be stored ashore until a cargo accumulated, when a vessel 
could be sent north to bring them to San Francisco. 
Karly in the seventies a party of hunters had established a station 
at Pirate Cove. a very pretty and well-sheltered cove, with ample 
depth of water, at the north end of Popof Island, one of the Shu- 
magin Group. A wharf and several buildings had been constructed 
by the party. Mr. McCollam purchased this station and established 
here the first regular shore fishing station for cod in Alaska. 
An agent and about eight fishermen were stationed here during the 
early years of its existence. At first the fish were all kenched, but 
later on tanks were sent up and the fish held in pickle until shipped. 
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