THE SALMON AND SALMON FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 
21 
The Alaska Packers’ Association is the largest canning operator in Alaska. Of 
the 29 canneries operated in 1897, 17 belonged to this association, with an output of 
600,491 cases, or nearly 74 per cent of the total pack, while the other 13 canneries 
packed 239,584 cases, or 26 per cent. In addition to the 17 operating canneries the 
association had as reserves 8 other establisliments, besides several in a dismantled 
condition which have not, however, been abandoned. 
The Paciflc Steam Whaling Company has increased the number of its canneries 
during the past two year.s. In 1889 the company built and operated a cannery at 
Eyak, Prince Wdliam Sound; in 1893 itcontrolled the plantof thePeninsulaTradiug 
and Fishing Company in the Copper River Delta. In 1896 it built and operated a 
cannery at Hunter Bay, in southeast Alaska, and another at Chignik Bay, Alaska 
Peninsula. In 1897 a cannery was built and oi)erated in Uyak Bay, Kadiak Island, 
and cannery buildings were erected at Kenai, Cook Inlet. Machinery will probably 
be installed in the latter ready for operation in 1898.* 
SALTING SALMON. 
Redfish are salted oidy in localities like Bristol Bay, where a large run sometimes 
taxes the cannery facilities, when the surplus is salted, and at Egagak (Bering Sea) 
and Tyonek (Cook Inlet), where the run is not large enough to maintain a cannery. 
A few king salmon are salted for private u.se at canneries where stragglers are taken 
in the general catch, and at places like Killisnoo, where a little salting is done on 
special orders. 
The commercial salting outside of Bering Sea consists chielly in whole cohoes 
and humpback bellies. In the latter the number varies according to the cutting. 
One saltery (Ketchikan) delivered humpback bellies under contract to a cannery at 
$3.25 per half barrel, and tried to cut 160 bellies to that measure. This product 
should reach retailers on the Pacific coast at, say, $5, and if sold at 5 cents per belly 
would bring $8, making a good pi’ofit for the venture and a cheap fish for the 
consumer. 
It is very difficult to obtain accurate saltery statistics. The low iirice of salt 
salmon, and the terms offered by the canneries in the purchase of fresh fish, have 
induced the men formerly engaged in salting to sell their fish fresh, the cannery 
tender calling for them, and to salt only those that are not called for in time, or the 
surplus in the event of a large run. Small schooners frequently move from one stream 
to another when the run is small and salt a few fish on board. It is doubtful if there 
are more than three or four salteries in Alaska, outside of Bering Sea, that are con- 
ducted purely as such, and these are in remote places where the catch is uncertain or 
it is inconvenient for the cannery steamer to call; the others are operated only to 
make use of the fish not sold fresh. 
On account of the variation in the weight of the same species it is rather difficult 
to give even an appro.ximate estimate of the number of live fish necessary to make 
a barrel of salt salmon, but the following may give a general idea of the subject: 
A barrel of salt fish contains 200 pounds of fish washed from the salting tub; 1 
barrel of redfish has from 40 to 52 fish; cohoes from 25 to 35; humpbacks, from 70 
to 80; king salmon, from 40 to 14. A barrel of humpback bellies represents from 300 
to 320 fish. 
" The iiiacluiiery was installed and the plant operated in 1898. 
