34 GRINNELL 



all leaving and entering the water almost at the same place, 

 as if chasing one another. 



When the fish have at last congregated at the mouths 

 of the rivers, the work of the canners begins. They 

 seldom cast their nets unless fish are actually seen, but 

 when the salmon are visible the seine, from three to five 

 hundred fathoms long, is swept through the water, and 

 the captured fish are loaded on to the steam tug, which 

 then takes them to the cannery. 



The fishermen who manage the small boats and sweep 

 the nets are either Indians or Aleuts. The crews of the 

 steam tugs are usually white men, while the workmen on 

 the wharf and in the cannery proper are all Chinamen, ex- 

 cept for an occasional foreman or skilled mechanic. 



After the loaded tug is tied up to the wharf, two or three 

 men equipped with single-tined forks toss the fish from 

 the deck to the wharf above, where they are received by 

 other men similarly equipped, who pass them along to the 

 gang who clean the fish at a long table. The man at the 

 end of the table seizes a fish and cuts off its head and 

 slides it along to the next man, who by two rapid cuts 

 along the back takes out the backbone and loosens the 

 entrails. It is then pushed on to the next man, by whom 

 these loose pieces and whatever blood there may be in the 

 visceral cavity are scraped away, the tail is cut off and the 

 fish is thrown into a tank of water. From this it is lifted 

 and placed with many others in a large tray, which is 

 wheeled into one end of the cannery building. All these 

 operations have taken place on the wharf, without the 

 cannery and over the water, so that usually all the waste 

 products fall down into the water below, where a part 

 is devoured by the trout, which are constantly to be seen 

 swimming about, a part by the gulls and other birds which 

 congregate in great flocks near at hand, and the remainder 

 is swept back and forth by the tide, much being carried 



