FISHERIES OF THE GREAT LAKES IN 1885. 211 



Dealers. — One firm at St. Ignace and one at Mackinac Island are the 

 only dealers in fish in this region, and they handle a large proportion 

 of the catch of the fisheries on either side of the Straits of Mack- 

 inac, bat especially those on the eastern side. These firms employed 

 twenty-seven men in the capacity of collectors of fish, shoresmen, pre- 

 parators, and mechanics ; kept three steamers engaged in visiting the 

 fishing-grounds and collecting fish; had $25,800 invested in wharves, 

 buildings, fish-cars, etc., and $14,000 in fishing steamers, and bought 

 and shipped in 1885 about 1,600,000 pounds of fish, valued at about 

 $60,000. The firm on Mackinac Island located there in 1875, and began 

 shipping fresh fish packed in ice to Chicago by steamer. In 1885 they 

 built a freezing apparatus, with a capacity of 40 tons, which will en- 

 able them to utilize many fish that would otherwise have to be salted 

 or sold fresh at a loss. 



MarJcets. — The fish which are landed at St. Ignace for shipment are 

 sent to Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, andBuffalo, the greatest 

 amount going to the first-named place, except in winter, when Cincin- 

 nati gets the great bulk of the trade. In the early days of the Mack- 

 inac Island fisheries, the fish were all salted in barrels containing 200 

 pounds and shipped by steamer to Buffalo and Cleveland. Mr. James 

 C. Bice (one of the earliest fishermen iu this region), in 1857, when 

 very heavy fishing was done, shipped on an average 2,000 v half-barrels 

 of salt fish weekly. In 1841 he traded fish for flour, barrel for barrel, 

 in Chicago. In 1845 he began shipping fresh fish to Cleveland, in fish- 

 cars of about half the size now used, holding 1,500 pounds of fish, 

 packed in ice. At that time fish were bought by the piece, the price 

 for whitefish being, about 5 cents each; trout were larger then than 

 now, ranging from 10 to 40 pounds ; the largest one ever taken weighed 

 84 pounds. The price for trout at that time varied from 10 to 50 cents. 

 Since 1857 a large part of the catch has been sent to Chicago. 



Statistical summary. — The number of men employed iu connection with 

 the fisheries in this section was 135, of whom QS were professional fish- 

 ermen and 27 men, as already stated, were engaged by the dealers to 

 collect and handle fish. Two hundred and eighteen people were de- 

 pendent on the fisheries in addition to those before mentioned. 



The apparatus used consisted of 2 fishing steamers and 3 collecting 

 steamers, valued at $24,000; 14 gill-net boats, 17 pound-net boats, and 15 

 other boats, valaed at $5,755; 510 gill-nets, 278,700 feet in length, valued 

 at $5,080; 50 pound-nets, valued at $18,800; and miscellaneous apparatus 

 and accessories, including fish-cars, valued at $3,850. The shore prop- 

 erty was worth $26,975, and the cash capital amounted to $22,000. The 

 total capital invested was $106,460. 



The catch in 1885 amounted to 1,181,270 pounds" of fresh fish and 

 135,500 pounds of salt fish, valued at $39,303 and $3,816, respectively. 

 The quantities of the different species were 641,370 pounds of whitefish, 

 228,200 pounds of trout, 193,700 pounds of pike and pickerel, 105,000 



