CHIGNIK TO RESURRECTION BAY SALMON STATISTICS 
705 
upward. (See fig. 11.) This upward trend was interrupted between 1902 and 1908, 
and again for a period of several years beginning in 1919. The first interruption is 
easily explained. Only 2 canneries of the 3 that operated in 1902 resumed pack- 
ing in 1903, and at the height of the season 1 of these was destroyed by fire. 
The reduction in pack that followed was not, according to Kutchin 18 due to scarcity 
of salmon. In 1904, with only one cannery in the field, Kutchin 19 again reported 
that salmon were never more plentiful, and that the pack would have been larger 
had not the supply of tin been exhausted before the run was over. He also pointed 
out that this year the run at first was heaviest from the north, indicating that the 
salmon had held a course some distance from shore on their northward movement 
into the inlet and thus avoided the traps until they approached the rivers on their 
rush down the inlet. On July 12, 1905, the only remaining cannery on the inlet 
was destroyed by fire just at 
the beginning of what prom- 
ised to be a good season. 
The falling off in catch from 
more than 700,000 in 1902 to 
less than 100,000 in 1905 was 
not due to biological causes 
but to the interruption of 
activities by disastrous fires. 
Recovery from this shrink- 
age in pack in the next 10 
years was rapid and some- 
what spectacular, the catch 
moving from the low level of 
1905 to more than 1,850,000 in 1915. Three good years then followed in winch the 
catches were only slightly below the peak of 1915. The catches for the next six 
years, 1919 to 1924, inclusive, were decidedly lower, a sudden drop in 1919 bringing 
the catch to 917,000 — the lowest point production had reached in nine years. In 
1920, the catch improved slightly but it again fell in 1921 to approximately 950,000, 
largely for economic reasons as there were fewer canneries in operation and a marked 
decrease in the number of traps and gill nets in use. After 1922 another upward 
movement began which was even more rapid than the one in 1915; it culminated in 
a catch of nearly 2,000,000 reds in 1926, despite the limitation of fishing season 
and the total prohibition of fishing in certain areas under authority conferred by 
the fishery law enacted in 1924. The escapement in 1926 was also reported to 
be exceptionally large. In 1927, the catch again approached 1,500,000, a consider- 
able drop from the year before, but still a good year for Cook Inlet. 
With all its wide expanse of water and large streams, Cook Inlet has never 
produced a run of salmon equal to that found in several smaller districts, such as 
Karluk for instance, and it seems unlikely that it will ever be a much larger producer 
than it is now. The red salmon run is of extremely short duration. It strikes the 
inlet about the middle of July and by the end of the month is practically over; the 
schools make rapid progress to the spawning streams, particularly those along the 
east shore. As a general thing, about 65 per cent of the catch is made south of 
ow>oinoir>oir>o 
<r> o — — c\j rxi m 
cd o> 
Figure 11.— Catch of red salmon in Cook Inlet 
18 Report on the Salmon Fisheries of Alaska, 1903 (1904), by Howard M. Kutchin, Washington. 
18 Report on the Salmon Fisheries of Alaska, 1904 (1905), by Howard M. Kutchin, Washington. 
