SOUTHEASTERN ALASKA SALMON STATISTICS 
523 
permanent closing of the bay west of the one hundred and thirty-fourth meridian in 
1925. The largest catch of both chums and pinks was made in 1918. The next 4 
years, during which the fishing was less intense, were marked by considerably smaller 
catches. With the resumption of large-scale fishing in 1923, the catch of pinks again 
improved, but the catch of chums was even lower than in the preceding years of 
slackened effort. Available data do not indicate that this was due entirely to a 
scarcity of chums as there are reasons for thinking that that species was probably not 
fished intensively in 1923. The catch of both pinks and chums in 1924 closely 
approached the peaks of 1918, but from 1925 to 1927 the decline was apparently more 
serious than ever before and almost reached the vanishing point in the last year. It 
is not likely that this was caused wholly by the closing of the western part of the bay; 
but it may have been due to a change in the character of the fishing, or to an improper 
allocation of catches, rather than to depletion of the runs. 
In the northern part of the Stephens Passage district are several localities of 
minor importance which have annually produced some salmon, mostly pinks and 
chums. The most important of these are Saginaw Channel and Shelter Cove where 
traps intercepted the runs to Lynn Canal and the passage. Neither of these locali- 
ties has a fishery distinctively its own as there are no streams of consequence tributary 
to either. Runs to other waters move through these passages and come within reach 
of traps along the western shore of Shelter Island. 
Two localities, False Point Pybus and Fanshaw Bay, in the southern part of the 
district, are given separate consideration in the table since good catches have been 
reported from both places in recent years. The data, however, are insufficient for 
more than passing notice at this time, but they may be useful in subsequent reviews 
of these fisheries. 
WEST COAST OF CHICHAGOF AND BARANOF ISLANDS DISTRICT 
This district covers the waters of the west coast of Chichagof and Baranof 
Islands from Point Urey southward to Cape Ommaney, with all the islands lying 
between these extremities. (See fig. 28.) The western shores of both islands are 
very rugged, particularly that of Baranof, the southwestern shore of which is indented 
by numerous narrow inlets extending several miles inland almost to the base of the 
mountain range which traverses the island from end to end. The northwestern sec- 
tion of Chichagof Island is also extremely mountainous even near the coast making 
a rough irregular shore without deep indentations or large streams. Under such 
physical conditions it is not surprising that the district embraces no large salmon 
stream, yet the streams, as small as they are, were among the earliest to be exploited 
in southeastern Alaska. 
Salmon canning began in Alaska in 1878 with the opening of two canneries one 
of which was located at Old Sitka near the entrance to Katlian Bay about 6 miles 
north of the present town of Sitka. This plant was operated two seasons, obtaining 
its supply of fish mainly from Redoubt Lake. The pack in 1878 was 2,757 cases; 
in 1879 it was 5,855 cases. Thereafter the cannery was idle until it was dismantled 
in 1882 and the machinery transferred to a new cannery in another district in central 
Alaska. In 1889, a cannery was opened on Redoubt Bay, about 10 miles south of 
Sitka, and operated 2 years, making a pack of 4,454 cases in that year and 10,123 
cases in 1890. It was moved to Redfish Bay, near the south end of Baranof Island, 
