PACIFIC HERRING 
235 
salting of the 1918 pack, a great slump occurred in the market. A good share of the 
1918 pack was sent to the reduction works in Seattle and it took over two years for 
the pickling industry to recover. In the meanwhile it had become firmly estab- 
lished in central Alaska, while in southeastern Alaska, owing to the comparatively 
small size of the fish, it had waned and never recovered the importance it held in 
1918, the pack exceeding 20,000 barrels only in 1922 when 30,000 barrels were packed. 
In central Alaska, however, over 100,000 barrels of herring were pickled in 1922 and 
again in 1925. 
The growth of the third type of herring industry, that for bait, is correlated 
with the growth of the halibut fishery which it supplies. The halibut fishery com- 
menced in 1888, the first fishing being done on the banks of Washington and British 
Columbia. The fishery gradually worked north. By 1912 or 1913 it had become 
an important Alaska industry. The catch of halibut of the whole coast now totals 
about 53,000,000 pounds. Herring is the bait used to the practical exclusion of 
everything else. Since the halibut fishermen prefer fresh bait, claiming that the 
halibut take it more readily than the frozen, the majority of the bait herring are 
kept alive in pounds and sold fresh as needed, the cold-storage plants serving to tide 
over the too frequent periods when fresh herring are not obtainable. In 1927 the 
halibut industry used over 8,000,000 pounds of herring bait from Alaska. Of this, 
4.600.000 pounds represents frozen bait from southeastern Alaska. Of the 3,400,000 
pounds of fresh bait used, 2,800,000 pounds were from southeastern Alaska and 
600.000 pounds from central Alaska. The bait statistics, especially those for fresh 
bait, are very incomplete, but it is practically certain that the amount of bait con- 
sumed has reached over 8,000,000 pounds for several years preceding 1927. 
Some dry-salting of herring in bulk for the oriental market has been done. In 
1910, Capt. A. W. Thomas built a large saltery for this purpose in Ketchikan, and in 
1911 over 3,000,000 pounds were salted. In 1912, more competitors entered the 
field and over 13,700,000 pounds were prepared, but in 1913, in spite of the increased 
effort, the production fell to 8,700,000 pounds, and in 1914 most of the operators 
went out of business. Since that time, 1918 is the only year in which the dry-salted 
product in southeastern Alaska has exceeded 1,000,000 pounds. In recent years 
herring have been dry-salted in Cook Inlet to be sold to the domestic market for 
smoking, as much as 2,500,000 pounds being prepared in 1924. 
During the early development of the Chatham Strait and Prince William Sound 
fisheries, the herring companies made a determined effort to establish a market for 
canned kippered herring. Commencing with nearly 20,000 cases in 1916, the output 
was increased until it reached over 100,000 cases in 1919, but all efforts to find a 
satisfactory market failed. In 1920, the last year, only 3,600 cases were canned. 
All of the product was canned in southeastern Alaska, with the exception of 34,000 
cases canned in Prince William Sound in 1919. 
A few minor industries may be mentioned. In 1904 the Juneau Packing Co. 
canned over 3,000 cases of herring at Juneau as one-quarter oil and three-quarters 
mustard sardines, but were unable to compete with those from the Atlantic coast. 
In 1926 a company on Chatham Strait installed a refrigeration unit and commenced 
shipping freshly kippered herring to the States. Another company followed suit in 
1927. This development holds great promise for the future. 
