24 
FISHERIES OF ALASKA IN 1909. 
FRESH SALMON. 
The demand from Puget Sound for fresh Alaska king salmon was 
excellent this year, and during most of the spring months the prices 
realized were very good. A considerable proportion of the shipments 
comprised white-meated king salmon and small red-meated kings 
which were not suitable or were in too great abundance to be used 
by the mild curers. The business was confined to southeast Alaska, 
and Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg, Douglas, and Juneau were 
the principal shipping points. 
During the course of the year 42,623 king salmon, valued at $39,707, 
were disposed of in a fresh condition, principally outside of the dis- 
trict. This was an increase of 6,337 fish over 1908. A considerable 
quantity of red, coho, and humpback salmon were also disposed of 
locally in a fresh condition. 
MINOR PRESERVING PROCESSES. 
Dry salting and drying . — At a few places -in central Alaska the 
bellies of red and coho salmon are cut out and pickled, after which 
the backs are dried in the sun, and the resulting product, called 
“ ukalu,” used for fox food at the fox ranches. 
The dry salting of dog salmon for food has almost ceased, but 
71,600 pounds, valued at $1,038, being prepared. During the Rus- 
sian- Japanese war this was quite an important industry. 
Smoking . — A delicious smoked product, known locally as “ beleke,” 
is put up at Kodiak and several other places, the backs of red and 
coho salmon being utilized. A full description of the method of 
curing appears in the 1908 report of the salmon agents. 
Freezing . — The only establishment engaged in freezing salmon is 
at Taku Harbor, in southeast Alaska. The species handled this year 
were coho and dog salmon. Other species of fish frozen were halibut, 
black bass, black cod, and steelhead trout. 
MISCELLANEOUS FISHERY NOTES. 
DISASTERS. 
As the ship Columbia , under charter to the Alaska Salmon Com- 
pany, which has a cannery on Wood River, a tributary of Nushagak 
Bay, was on her way from San Francisco to the cannery with the 
season’s outfit and the canning and fishing crews, composed of 53 
Italians, 96 Japanese, and 45 Americans and Scandinavians, she was 
driven on the eastern shore of Unimak Pass, about 6 miles from 
Scotch Cap light-house, early in the morning of April 30, and 
became a total wreck, the crews barely escaping. The Columbia was 
a full-rigged ship of 1,327 net tons, built in Bath, Me., in 1871. Her 
