THIi SAT.MON AND SALMON FISIIEKIF..S OF ALASKA. 
145 
150.000 cases, which would take 1,800,000 red fish, and this is i)robably a fair estimate 
of the present capacity of the locality. It is generally believed, even by those inter- 
ested, that there is a gradual decline, chough they still run in large numbers. In 
1800 several hauls on Karluk Spit yielded 75,000 salmon to the haul. Hauls of from 
25.000 to 50,000 fish are not unusual during the height of the run. It is said that 
some years ago 100,000 salmon were taken at a single haul on the spit. 
The fish are rather small; the general average is probably 5| pounds in weight. 
In 1890 and 1897 the average number to the case was 12 fish; in 1897 it commenced 
at 17 to the case, changing to 15, and at the time of our visit, August 3 to 0, it was 13 
to the case. The first run of the season usually consists of very small fish. 
KARLUK RIVER. 
The mouth of the outlet is in the middle of a curve in the shore line on the 
northwest side of Kadiak Island, facing Shelikof Strait, forming an open roadstead 
terminating on the west in a precipitous mountain mass, about 1,090 feet high, called 
Karluk Head, and on the east in a line of cliffs from GOO to 800 feet high. To the 
eastward of this so-called river mouth is a narrow shingle spit or bulkhead, making 
from the cliffs on the east, and closing what was once undoubtedly a narrow bay or 
estuary, forming it into a lagoon, of which the so called mouth is but the outlet. On 
this shingle spit four canneries have been located at different times, but only three 
are now operated. The spit is three-fourths of a mile long with an average width of 
about 200 feet, the narrowest part being at the northeast end, where it joins a grassy 
bluff. The general direction of the spit is northeast and southwest. At the south- 
west end the outlet empties into Shelikof Strait. 
The outlet is 90 feet wide at its mouth, and at times, during a heavy storm from 
the north or northeast, it shifts considerably, sometimes 50 feet or more. The sea, 
when it encroaches on the end of Karluk Spit, does little or no damage, but when the 
opposite bank is heavily washed during the gales of winter the foundation upon 
which the Alaska Improvement Company’s cannery stands is threatened. 
The top of the spit is composed of pebbles and coarse gravel ; at the water’s edge 
small bowlders appear, and 100 feet or more below low-water mark bowlders of 
considerable size are strewn over the bottom. When fishing was first commenced off 
the outside of the spit a large amount of work had to be performed in removing the 
bowlders before the ground was suitable for making hauls with the drag seine. 
Karluk Eiver has its source in two lakes situated about 10^- miles in a dii’ect line 
from its mouth. The larger lake is about 8 miles long, the smaller 3 miles long. For a 
distance of several miles the river flows in a west-northwest direction. The mouth of 
the river proper is 2 miles above the canneries, at a point immediately northeast from 
the hatchery, where the stream flows rapidly over a bowldery bed and then spreads 
out into the lagoon (previously referred to) which is slightly affected by the tide. 
This lagoon has at the head a width of about 300 yards, and gradually widens 
until it is nearly half a mile across as it approaches the spit. It suddenly contracts 
near the end of the siiit and the southern shore, and at the outlet, at the point of the 
spit, it has a minimum width of about 90 feet. The lagoon has a general east-and-west 
direction, is about 2 miles in length, and, excejit for the shingle spit which is thrown 
across its mouth by the action of the sea, its shores are bluff, l isiug from about 50 to 
100 feet. Through the narrows of the outlet the water runs as a rapid at low water, 
and on the inside the waters are not affected by the tide until the last 3 to 0 iect 
F. C. n., 18U8 10 
