54 
FISHERIES OF ALASKA IN 1909. 
schooner Lizzie 8. Sorrenson (49 net tons) was fitted up and used as 
a whaler, the gasoline schooner Prosper being used, as in 1908, for 
towing the whales to the station. The first whale was killed on May 
7. Part of the whaling products from this station shown in the 
statistical tables are from whales killed in 1908, the products not 
being shipped until 1909. 
There are shore whaling stations along the Arctic shores of Alaska 
at Point Hope, Cape Lisburne, Icy Cape, and Point Barrow. There 
are but few white men at these stations, Eskimos composing the most 
part of the boat crew T s. Whales are hunted in the open leads in the 
ocean offshore from the stations. As a rule, only the bone is saved, 
although the natives use a considerable quantity of the blubber and 
meat as food. Owing to the difficulty of communicating with these 
points, no data relating to the persons employed and the investment 
have been secured. The bone shipped out is shown in the statistical 
tables. 
The latest reports from these stations are that Point Barrow se- 
cured 11 whales and Point Hope 13 whales, a decrease of 12 from last 
year, while at Icy Cape, where 10 or 12 whales were killed in 1908, 
only 400 pounds of poor bone was secured this year. 
Owing to the fact that the big catch of bone by the various fleets 
in 1908 had glutted the market, the owners of the Arctic fleet are 
reported to have agreed to hold whalebone at $5 per pound, and not 
to send their vessels to the Arctic this year, in order to give the 
whalebone market an opportunity to absorb the surplus supply. 
Early in the season the owners of one steamer quietly outfitted her 
and sent her north. Not to be outdone, most of the other owners also 
outfitted and sent north a few of their vessels. The fleet comprised 
the steamer Herman (290 tons), the steamer Jeanette (240 tons), 
the steamer Karluk (221 tons), which will spend the winter of 
1909-10 in the North; and the schooner Rosie H. (69 tons), which 
spent the winter of 1908-9 in the North, and was still there when 
this report closed, although an unconfirmed report had been received 
to the effect that she was ashore near Flaxman Island. The data 
relating to this fleet do not appear in the statistical tables of this 
report, as the headquarters are in San Francisco. 
AQUATIC FURS. 
Beaver . — But few beavers are now coming from the Yukon Valley, 
at one time the principal source of supply, the greater part of the 
present meager quantity coming from the Kuskokwim River. The 
catch was 2,323 skins, an increase of 1,043 skins over 1908, when 
1,280 were taken. 
