144 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
THE KARLUK AND CHIGNIK DISTRICT. 
EXTENT AND CHAKACTER OF THE REGION. 
Tliis district extends from Cape Douglas to Unimak Pass and includes the canneries 
on Kadiak and Afognak islands, Ohiguik Bay, and Thin Point. From Cape Douglas 
along the southern shore of the Alaska Peninsula to Chiguik Bay the coast is rugged 
and deei)ly indented, with high mountain masses impinging close upon the shore. 
Nearly all of these indentations probably receive streams that have salmon runs, but 
few of them are known to have redfish in numbers suthcieut for commercial purposes. 
The canneries on Kadiak have prospected over this section and at times have sent a 
steamer to Kukak Bay and obtained a load of redfish. The canneries in prospecting, 
or on information from the natives, will locate one or two men on a stream for a full 
season and provide them with means for salting, judging the value of the stream from 
their output and their report. The only canneries that have been operated in this 
locality from Cape Douglas to Chignik have been on the islands of Kadiak and 
Afognak. The bulk of the packing has centered around the mouth of Karluk Eiver, 
on the northwest side of Kadiak Island, in latitude 57° 36' north, longitude 154° 17' 
west, where more salmon are taken than at any other one place in Alaska. 
The output of this district during the past sixteen years represents 43.8 i>er cent 
of the total Alaska pack, Chignik furnishing 8.1 per cent. The percentage has fallen 
off during the past few years, owing not so much to a reduction in the pack as to 
the increased output of southeast Alaska and Bering Sea. 
During the summer of 1889, in accordance with an act of Congress directing the 
United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries to investigate “the habits, abun- 
dance, and distribution of the salmon of Alaska, as well as the present condition and 
methods of the fisheries,” a party composed of Dr. Tarletou H. Bean, Mr. Livingston 
Stone, Mr. Franklin Booth, and Mr. E. E. Lewis spent the entire season on the islands 
of Kadiak and Afognak. The report upon their investigations is given in the Fish 
Commission Bulletin for 1889. 
KARLUK. 
Commercial fishing for salmon has been carried on at the mouth of the Karluk 
Eiver for the past tiiirty years. The first cannery was built in 1882; previous to that 
a few hundred barrels of salt salmon were annually put up. The earliest account of 
commercial fishing dates back to 1867, when three parties were engaged in salting 
salmon. In 1870 the Alaska Fur Trading Company and the Alaska Commercial 
Company began to salt salmon — at first only to a limited extent, the output grad- 
ually increasing from year to year. From this small beginning grew the present 
great industry. 
Prior to 1880 no record was kept of the salmon taken. In that year fishing com- 
menced June 15 and ended September 22. The output amounted to 800 barrels of 
salt salmon and 100 half barrels of salted salmon-bellies. The species taken was 
probably the red salmon {Oncorhynchus nerka). 
The catch at Karluk in 1895 was approximately 1,762,000 redfish, in 1896 it was 
2,650,000, and in 1897 it was 1,867,000. The canneries usually count on packing 
