SALMON AND SALMON KIVERS OF ALASKA. 
205 
“colored” fish was brought in July 29. The percentage of both sexes, whose flesh is 
becoming light while the skiu grows darker, is large. One can tell with almost cer- 
tainty from looking at the outside just what the inside appearance of the fish will prove 
to be; a bright silvery female and a male with scarcely developed hump will show 
flesh of a very pretty i)iuk, though uot so red as in the nerJca ; a fish with dark slaty 
sides and head will have pale flesh ; of course the male and female in the height of the 
breeding season have very pale meat. 
The gorhmcJia exceeds in numbers all the other species ; in the prime condition it 
is as good to’eat as any other salmon. The salting season for prime fish is short, only 
a few weeks as a rule. 
The dory carries thre5 men who seine the fish best on half or three-fourths tide and 
bring them to the wharf to be split for salting. The load averages 10 barrels of eighty 
fish each. A little saltpeter is used to set the pink color and, if possible, deepen it. 
A boy gaffs the fish to a place near the splitting table, where another boy cuts off the 
heads and passes the body to the splitters. The two splitters make a cut along the 
left side near the dorsal outline, ending it with a little downward curve on the tail. 
The viscera are scraped out and the backbone cut away ; a few moves of the knife 
scrape away the blood and other gurry, and then the fish are thrown into a washing 
vat with two compartments, one for red fleshed fish, the other for pale. The Aleuts 
buy the latter and are said to prefer the male with a decided hump. At all events 
they select such fish when given permission to take some home for the table. After 
the fish are washed and rubbed clean with a broom they are placed in a perforated 
box and wheeled on a truck to the salting house. For the first salting one-half sack 
of salt is used for a barrel of salmou; the fish remain in the first pickle about a week; 
for repacking one sack of salt is needed for three barrels of 200 pounds each. The 
fish are washed in the pickle and rubbed clean with a scrub-brush before repacking. 
TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETS. 
Elsewhere will be found a statement to tlie efiect that sixty-six vessels were 
engaged during the season of 1889 in the Alaskan salmou trade. The products of the 
fisheries are consigned to the agents of the companies, in San Francisco, Astoria, and 
Portland, who dispose of them in foreign markets, principally in England. 
FINANCIAL ORGANIZATION. 
The fishermen of Kadiak as a rule receive $40 a month, and board and lodging, for 
their work, besides $5 a thousand for the fish they catch. They are carried to Alaska 
and back without expense to themselves. I have been informed that the average 
earnings of the fishermen for six months are about $300. Most of the work in the can- 
neries is done by Chinese, whose services are obtained by contract with their agents 
in San Francisco. The information in my hands respecting the value of vessels, 
boats, apparatus, etc., does not cover the ground sufficiently to present it in this 
place. 
THE FISHERMEN. 
The number of native fishermen employed at Kadiak is very small. At Karluk one 
of the companies, the Karluk Packing Company, has about twenty of the natives for 
one of its seining gangs, but their work is not so satisfactory as that of the white men- 
