FISHERIES OF ALASKA IN 1907. 19 
have been compelled to go farther and farther away each season in 
order to secure sufficient salmon to operate their plants. Two of the 
canneries have a number of traps set in Icy Strait, some 80 miles 
away, and depend upon these for the greater part of their fish, but 
they have found the long haul quite expensive, and after the season 
had closed the Pacific-American Fisheries, which operated a cannery 
in Chilkat Inlet, erected a new cannery in Excursion Inlet, an arm 
of Icy Strait, close to the location of the traps. The company in- 
tends to retain the old cannery intact and use it should the necessity 
arise. 
In last year’s report mention was made of an objectionable practice 
in the Chilkoot and occasionally in the Chilkat River, namely, the 
fishing of the Indians of the neighborhood, who take large numbers 
of red salmon with gaff hooks and sell the catch to the three canneries 
operated in the vicinity. As stated above, the run of red salmon in 
this section has been growing less and less each season, and it would 
seem that after the fish have run the gauntlet of the numerous traps 
and nets in Lynn Canal and the Chilkoot and Chilkat inlets they 
should be permitted unobstructed passage up these narrow rivers to 
the spawning beds in the lakes at the head. As the fish are in a 
somewhat advanced spawning condition at the time of capture, and 
are frequently badly torn by the action of the gaffs, they are not of 
much value to the cannerymen. The latter claim that they pur- 
chase them only because of the fear of incurring the ill will of the 
Indians, and that they would welcome an order of the Department 
closing both streams to all commercial fishing. 
It does not seem possible that it was the intention of the framers 
of the Alaska salmon law to permit the use of spears, gaffs, and hooks 
in rivers the size of these when the salmon are taken in such large 
numbers and sold to canneries, the original intention doubtless being 
to allow the Indians to secure only enough salmon by this means to 
satisfy their own domestic needs; and these two rivers are the only 
ones in Alaska in which this objectionable practice obtains. But 
since the rod, spear, and gaff are excepted in the provisions of the 
act for protection of the Alaska fisheries, apparently no remedy is 
open to the Department without an amendment to the law. The 
canneries, however, have it in their power to stop the practice by 
declining to purchase the fish. 
About two weeks during the latter half of September were devoted 
to an examination of the shores of Chilkoot Lake and the streams 
entering it, with a view of locating the spawning grounds of the 
redfish and finding possible hatchery sites adjacent to proper water 
supplies. Spawning redfish were found about the shores of the 
«The Columbia Canning Company, through its cannery force at Chilkoot, rendered 
very material assistance in outfitting for and carrying out this trip. 
