SOUTHEASTERN ALASKA SALMON STATISTICS 
549 
Affleck Canal and its arms, Bear Harbor, Kell Bay, and Port McArthur, appears 
to be the most productive locality as regards pink and chum salmon in the Sumner 
Strait district notwithstanding the fact that the streams are small. In the long 
record of its production, 5 years, 1913, 1917, 1923, 1924, and 1926, stand out as 
exceptionally good pink salmon seasons with 1924 showing a catch of nearly three 
quarters of a million, approximately three times that in any other year. The catch 
in 1927, however, dropped to only a little over 8,000 thus reaching an unparalleled 
low level of production the cause of which cannot be traced. All fishing before 1924 
was carried on under the provisions of the law of 1906. In 1924, fishing was prohibited 
from August 20 to September 9, and yet with this seasonal closing of 20 days the 
largest catch in the history of the Affleck Canal fisheries was made. In the next 
3 years, 1925 to 1927, fishing was prohibited from August 22 to September 14, a 
period of 24 days, and fishing gear was limited by prescribing the size of seines which 
could be used. These regulations were continued without change through 1927. A 
further restriction, prohibiting fishing within 1,000 yards of all streams tributary to 
Affleck Canal, was imposed in the same year. But the combined effect of all these 
regulations cannot reasonably account for the apparent serious decline of the pink 
salmon fisheries as shown in the catches of the two last odd years. A comparison of 
these catches shows the abruptness of this decline. In 1923 a catch of 234,288 was 
made; in 1925 the catch was 132,710; and in 1927 it was only 8,256. No explanation 
of this is found in the unallocated catch of 1927, as the total number of pink salmon 
in that category for the entire Sumner Strait district was only 5,087. The escapement 
of salmon in southeastern Alaska in 1925 was conservatively reported as adequate for 
a satisfactory seeding of the spawning beds while some observers claimed that it was 
the best they had seen in years. These observations did not apply specifically to the 
Affleck Canal section but were of general application. The runs of pink salmon were 
admittedly light in the Sumner Strait district in 1927, streams were low in July and 
the first part of August and were entered by very few salmon; and there was prac- 
tically no escapement even after heavy rains later in the season restored the streams 
to their normal flow. The same condition existed in respect of the chum salmon but 
not to such a marked degree, as the catches of this species were appreciably smaller 
in all years than those of pink salmon. 
The red salmon stream at Point Barrie enters Keku Strait about 2 miles north 
of the point. It was probably fished regularly from the year salmon canning began 
in this section of Alaska, but there is no continuous record of catches until after 1903. 
Since then it has produced steadily although in some years the catch was extremely 
light. However, in later years, after fishing was curtailed by laws and regulations 
the catch has closely approached the average yield when the locality was virgin terri- 
tory and when fishing was largely in the stream or directly at its mouth. In addition 
to the seasonal closing, which first became operative in 1924, fishing was restricted 
in 1926 to waters beyond 1,000 yards of the mouth of the stream, and in 1927 the 
closed area was extended to 1 mile. These restrictions may have materially reduced 
fishing in this locality, thus accounting in part for the small catch of all species of 
salmon here in 1927, yet some allowance must also be made for the effect of the 
unusual conditions which prevailed throughout the Sumner Strait district in that 
year. Fair numbers of pink salmon have been reported from Point Barrie, but the 
catches were marked by wide variability and show no tendency toward 2-year cycles. 
That these fluctuations were due to natural causes is not necessarily true; to some 
