SALMON FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 
11 
The capital is upward of $2,000,000. In 1890 they employed 550 men to can 260,000 
cases of salmon of 48 pounds each. In 1891 they proposed to reduce the force of men 
to 160, and still increase the take of salmon. They agreed to employ the same force 
of fishermen and to appoint a superintendent to see that each day’s catch was equally 
divided among the eight companies. Each cannery was to be allowed the privilege 
of using private labels as before. The object of this consolidation was not to raise the 
price of the salmon, but to reduce the cost of taking it, in order to compete with the 
other thirty canneries and make money. In 1889 three canneries were located on 
Chignik Bay, and their catch was enough to pay only one, so they employed only one 
force of fishermen, and the yield in 1890 showed the wisdom of the plan. The title of 
the association is “ The Board of Managers of the Karluk Canning Companies.” The 
president of the board is Leon Sloss, jr., of the Alaska Commercial Company, and the 
secretary, Leon Maison, of the firm of Geo. W. Hume & Co. The following account 
of the organization and its operations in 1891 was furnished by Mr. Win. H. Brommage, 
of Alameda, California. 
Early in 1891 representatives of the various canneries in Alaska held a meeting 
under the title of “The Board of Managers of the Karluk Canning Companies” with 
the object of devising means to conduct fishing operations with less expense than 
usual, intending to put up 250,000 cases. They formed a combination as follows : The 
Arctic and Kodiak, the Hume and Aleutian Island, the Karluk and Royal, the Alaska 
Improvement and Russian American. 
The pack was to be divided according to the capacity of each cannery ; for exam- 
ple: Arctic and KoVliak, ; Hume and Aleutian, Karluk and Royal, -^q and 
Alaska Improvement and Russian American, - 2 - B - 0 . Independent of this, the Kodiak, 
Russian American, and Royal Packing Companies combined and were to put up fish 
caught at Little River and Afognak, which was not to be included in the Karluk pack. 
They employed 61 white men. The larger combination employed 160 men for Karluk, 
wages $60 for round trip and $12.50 per thousand fish. 
Mr. Brommage made inquiry at the headquarters of the Board of Managers of 
the Alaska Canning Companies on February 24, 1892, and found that 800 men were 
looking for employment and that only 100 would be engaged, and that only the most 
experienced of them would be selected. These would be distributed to all the different 
stations in Alaska. He was informed that only 20 men would be sent to Karluk. 
APPARATUS AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 
Gill nets, traps, and seines are employed in the capture of salmon, but the greatest 
bulk of the catch is made by haul seines, which sweep the estuaries of the small 
rivers, in which the larger part of the salmon catch is made, or are laid out from and 
landed on the beach proper immediately adjacent to the mouth of the river. One 
seine follows another in such rapid succession as to cover all approaches to fresh 
water, and the movement of the salmon into the rivers is as effectually arrested as if 
permanent barriers were maintained across the entire width of the stream. Gill nets 
may be used with the same results by stretching them from bank to bank. Traps, 
indeed, may be so skillfully located in accordance with the habits and movements of 
the salmon as to form effectual barriers to the upward movement of salmon in the 
rivers, though invading only in part the channel. Any or all of the different methods 
