CHIGNIK TO RESURRECTION BAY SALMON STATISTICS 
653 
This is mainly a red-salmon fishery, as in the 14 years for which records are availa- 
ble only in 1912 and 1923 has any other species of salmon been taken. A few pinks 
and one chum were taken in those years. The fishery draws for its supply of red sal- 
mon upon a run that breeds in a small stream that enters the head of Kaflia Bay and 
drains a small lake not far inland. There is no reason to suppose that fish belonging 
to any other district are taken in the Kaflia Bay fishery. 
As a result of the Katmai eruption in 1912 Kaflia Bay and the surrounding 
country received a heavy covering of volcanic ashes and pumice which entireJy stopped 
the flow of water in many streams. Yet this bay, notwithstanding its proximity to 
the volcano and central location in the zone most heavily covered with ashes, pro- 
duced in that year 70,303 red salmon, the largest catch that had then been made and 
which has been exceeded only by the catch in 1913. It was the more amazing because 
80 per cent of the take was made after the eruption, which occurred early in June just 
when the run was beginning. That the salmon came and remained in the bay 
waiting for the stream to flow again is certainly a striking manifestation of the 
homing instinct of the salmon. The conditions in and about the mouth of the stream 
were observed during the summer of 1912 and were extremely abnormal. The 
water was very low, due in part to scanty rains, and the meager flow was filled with 
the finely powdered volcanic ash. Martin in his article on the Katmai eruption 6 
quotes a graphic description of the conditions in Kaflia Bay given by Ivan Orloff, a 
resident of Afognak who was in Kaflia Bay at the time of the eruption. He says 
in part: “All the rivers are covered with ashes, just ashes mixed with water.” The 
chemical conditions in the stream must have been fully as abnormal as the physical 
conditions, although nothing is known definitely about this. There is some evidence 
given by Martin that fumes from the volcano were such that rain was made distinctly 
acid. On August 15 “rain fell during the middle of the morning. The drops of 
water striking the eyes produced a sharp pain, and brass and silver were tarnished 
by the drops.” In spite of all these unusual conditions the salmon remained in the 
bay and apparently held as rigidly to their habit of returning to the parent stream 
as ever. Extremely modified conditions did not lead them to seek another spawn- 
ing stream, although it is difficult to imagine how a stream might be more radically 
changed than by the eruption. Certainly such an incident should give pause to 
those who would explain the mechanism of the homing “instinct” on relatively simple 
physico-chemical grounds. 
Four years later the catch dropped to 443; in 1917, five years after the eruption, 
it was still lower, being only 335. In these figures, then, may be found substantial 
proof of the correctness of the observation that very few salmon spawned success- 
fully in the stream at Kaflia Bay in 1912, and that the small returns in 1916 and 1917 
may have been the progeny of salmon that ascended the stream before June 6, 
1912, the date of the beginning of the Katmai eruption. This sudden depletion of 
the run was probably due not alone to the eruption and the consequent destruction 
of the spawning grounds for that and the next few years, but in part to the heavy 
inroads that were made into the run by the commercial fishery during the period 
from 1909 to 1914. During each of these years large catches of red salmon were 
made, ranging from nearly 34,000 in 1910 to over 84,000 in 1913. The combined 
effect of the eruption and of this heavy fishing was practically to destroy the run so 
far as its value as a commerical resource was concerned. Since 1914 very few fish 
« The Recent Eruption of Katmai Volcano in Alaska. By George C, Martin. The National Geographic Magazine, Vol. 
XXIV, No. 2, February, 1913. 
