The Funter Bay Cannery

By: Gabe Emerson

(Note: Visit Emerson's website for much more information about the history of Funter Bay.)

Construction of a salmon cannery began at Funter Bay in 1902, but its story starts a few years earlier. In 1899, a Portland businessman by the name of James Thomas “J.T.” Barron organized the Thlinket Packing and Trading Co. His initial cannery locations were Santa Anna and Point Gerard near Wrangell [1]. Salmon packing was a popular investment opportunity at the start of the 20^th century, and Barron quickly sold his Wrangell plants to the Pacific Packing and Navigation Company, a “Salmon Trust” formed in 1901. Barron used the profits from this sale to finance a new cannery at Funter Bay on Admiralty Island.

On December 16 of 1901, Captain Campbell of the vessel Prospector brought J. T. Barron to Funter Bay to scout cannery locations [2]. Barron liked what he saw, and on January 1^st of 1902 he filed a mining claim for the “Irvington Lode”, a plot of about 12 acres on the Northwest shore [3]. Other than a few token holes, no mining was ever done on this claim, but land laws of the time made this the easiest way to acquire property in Alaska. Barron also used loopholes in the Homestead Act to acquire property along the shores of Chatham Strait, Lynn Canal, and Icy Strait. These “homesteads” were used to base fish traps and cabins for trap watchmen.

Work began in the spring of 1902, with the steamship Yukon bringing supplies to the site on March 7 [4]. Barron purchased the 53’ steam tug Kodat, and contracted with the Juneau Iron Works to do repairs [5]. On May 7 Barron took the Kodat to Funter where it was beached for further modifications into a cannery tender [6]. This vessel was later renamed the Buster, a nickname of both J.T. and his son (and later company Vice President) Robert Barron.

Thlinket Packing Co cannery in 1907.
Photo by W. H. Case, courtesy of University of Washington Freshwater and Marine Image Bank

“Buster” was also a brand of Pink Salmon packed by Barron. In 1907 a portrait of young Robert appeared on the label, as well as on the cover of that year’s Pacific Fisherman Journal. The company re-incorporated that year as the Thlinket Packing Company with James Barron as president, M.G. Munley as secretary, and C. F. Whitney as sales manager [7]. Munley was a Portland lawyer, district judge, and onetime mayoral candidate who was heavily invested in the company. Whitney had previously been sales manager of the New York Life Insurance Co.

Another 1907 event was the visit of Skagway photographer W. H. Case that August [8].His photos were used as postcards and publicity material, and even appeared on the company letterhead. Several of these photos are shown below.

Steam tug Anna Barron tending a pile trap at the
Kitten islands outside Funter Bay, from a 1907 Case & Draper postcard.

Employment in the early years included many local Tlingit people, perhaps the background for the company’s name. In the first year (which may have included construction crews), it was reported that there were 65 white workers, 30 native Alaskans, and 38 Chinese workers [9].  A 1905 description notes that the cannery employed 73 men, “All Indians except the superintendent and perhaps a half dozen Chinamen”. The men got 20 cents per hour, and children, including “one little boy eight years old who worked 9 hours every day”, received 10 cents per hour. In addition to canned product for the American market, wooden barrels or “tierces” were packed with salted salmon for export (Dog salmon to Japan and Kings to Germany) [10]. Ironically, by 1906 the seasonal labor seemed to be more Chinese than Tlingit, a local paper noted that the steamship Cottage City had brought 73 Chinese laborers to Funter Bay that spring [11]. The Tlingits were pushed out of their former fish camp adjacent to the cannery, and the site was used for an expanded saltery operation.

Salmon being brailed from the trap,
from a 1907 Case & Draper postcard.

The cannery grew quickly during the first decade of the 20^th century, and was sometimes described as the “Largest in Alaska” [12]. The plant had a salmon pack every year from 1902 to 1931, and often came first in volume of cases sent South.  As with other Southeast industries, cargo in and out was handled by flag-stop service with any of the steamship companies serving the area. Several times each year, commercial steamers from various companies would divert from their normal routes to pick up packed salmon or deliver supplies and workers. The cannery experimented with handling their own shipments, using the 203’ clipper ship General Fairchild as a barge in 1915 [13]. This must have proved uneconomical, as the Fairchild was sold in 1917 and the company returned to using commercial transport. Smaller boats used as cannery tugs or tenders included the Robert Barron, the Barron F, and the Anna Barron (named after James’ daughter).  Barron’s children and his wife Elizabeth frequently joined him at Funter Bay for the summers, as did Judge Munley’s family.

Funter Bay cannery in 1973, courtesy of Phil Emerson.

Competition for salmon was fierce, with fishermen and packers using tactics both legal and otherwise to defend what they felt were their rights. In 1904 at the request of multiple cannery owners, President Roosevelt dispatched the revenue cutter Perry to Funter Bay, where two Japanese fishing vessels were seized and the crews deported [14].  Independent fishermen hated traps, rightly considering them to catch too many fish and reduce future runs. Some turned to fish piracy, using stealth, bribery, or outright armed robbery to thwart watchmen and rob traps. Piracy became so bad that the Thlinket Packing Co. began hiring military veterans as guards. In 1919 several packers again teamed up to request government support, and the US Navy sent patrol vessels to the area [15]. While packers banded together to fight certain rivals, their relations were not always friendly. Competitors sometimes “jumped” trap sites, a tactic analogous to claim jumping a mine. During the 1911 fishing season, J.T. Barron had just purchased land and begun installing a fish trap at Lizard Head, South of Funter Bay. When he left the territory on business, a rival company quickly built their own trap in front of his property. This led to a heated lawsuit which Barron eventually lost, the court ruling that land ownership did not include tidewater rights [16].

Fairbanks-Morse gasoline engine at the former cannery site.

The next few decades saw changing fortunes for the Thlinket Packing Co. In 1917 at age 22, V.P. Robert Barron drowned at an Army training camp while trying to rescue fellow cadets [17]. Salmon runs in 1915 were reported at record breaking numbers, with 140,000 cases packed at Funter Bay [18]. However, the results of overfishing soon became apparent, with the cannery struggling to fill 25,000 cases in 1919 [19]. In 1920 the cannery changed its name again, replacing “Company” with “Corporation” in an apparent fundraising bid [20]. In 1926 the cannery, traps, and boats were sold to Sunny Point Canning, which became the Alaska Pacific Salmon Corporation in 1929.  J.T. Barron

seems to have retained an interest in the property until his death in 1941.

Water was an ongoing issue at the cannery. Large volumes were required for steam generation, washing, and cooking the product. Even before finalizing his land survey, Barron had begun putting in water pipes at the site in 1901. The Thlinket Packing Co eventually built a network of redwood-stave pipes through the forest to several nearby streams, storing water in tanks and reservoirs on the property. Lack of water may seem a strange problem to residents of rainy Southeast Alaska, but this was the reason given for the cessation of packing operations in 1931 [21].

Cannery tender wreck at Funter Bay.

After closing, the cannery buildings were used for storage and trap maintenance, until fish traps were outlawed at Alaska statehood. The P. E. Harris co, a former competitor, purchased the mothballed property in 1941; this company later became Peter Pan Seafoods [22].

During WWII, the run-down buildings were re-occupied by Pribilof natives who were forced from their homes by the US government. Evacuation was ostensibly for protection from Japanese invaders in the Aleutians, but the army also wanted to demolish village infrastructure which could aid the enemy. The evacuees were dropped off at the cannery with little to no planning, and left largely to fend for themselves with inadequate heat and water. A cemetery at the site attests to the poor care these American civilians received; the casualty rate was higher than that of overseas servicemen [21].

Despite various on-site watchmen and caretakers, a lack of maintenance eventually led to the collapse of most of the large structures. Local residents salvaged some of the wood for homes and cabins. By the 1990s the property was in an advanced state of disrepair, and most of the remaining structures were razed.

Salmon scow in the woods.

Today the Funter Bay cannery is mostly gone, with private homes and cabins replacing the former salmon packing operation. A few wrecks around the bay may have been former cannery tenders; the Buster caught fire and sank in Funter Bay in 1926. The Anna Barron sank at Point Couverden around 1931. A Harris Co. boat, the Morzhovoi, also caught fire in the bay in 1955 [23]. At least one former cannery tender survives; the Barron F, now named the Frank F, is currently a fishing boat in San Diego [24]. In the woods at Scow Bay, the cannery’s wooden fish scows can be found rotting into the rainforest on the remains of their winter storage slipways.

Though the structures and vessels are mostly gone, the legacy of the Funter Bay cannery continues in other ways. It brought regular mail service to the community, first with boats and now with seaplanes. The cannery became known as “Funter” and is shown as a town on many maps. Mount Robert Barron above the bay is named in honor of the young company V.P. The company dock and store long served as a social and economic focal point of the area. Today the dock is maintained by the state and is a popular stopover for recreational boaters.

References:

[1] Roppel, Pat. "Southeast History: Early Cannery at Gerard Point." CapitalCityWeekly.com. Capitol City Weekly, 19 Sept. 2012. Web. 16 July 2013.

[2] Daily Alaska Dispatch [Juneau] 16 Dec. 1901: 3.

[3]. Hill, Lloyd G. "Plat of the Claim of J. T. Barron Known as the Irvington Lode." Map. Mineral Survey #560. District of Alaska: US Surveyor General's Office, 1902.

[4] Daily Alaska Dispatch [Juneau] 7 Mar. 1902: 3.

[5] Daily Alaska Dispatch [Juneau] 20 Mar. 1902: 3.

[6] Daily Alaska Dispatch [Juneau] 7 May 1902: 3.

[7] Pacific Fisherman Journal  Vol 5, No 5. 1 May 1907. Archived at University of Washington Digital Collections (http://content.lib.washington.edu/pacfishweb)

[8] Daily Record-Miner [Juneau] 6 Aug. 1907: 3.

[9] Roderick, Barry H. A Preliminary History of Admiralty Island, 1794-1942. Douglas, AK: B. Roderick, 1982. Print.

[10] Gorrell, Joseph R. A Trip to Alaska. Newton, Ia.: 1905.

[11] Daily Alaska Dispatch [Juneau] 29 Mar 1906: 3.

[12] Ewing, O. D. "Trip to Alaska Described." Mahoning Dispatch 17 Oct. 1913: 7.

[13] "Old-Time Clipper Ship Changes Hands Again." Weekly Commercial News [San Francisco] 2 Jan. 1915.

[14] Neiwert, David A. Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

[15] “Fight Alaska Fish Pirates.” The Appeal [St. Paul Minneapolis] 1 Aug. 1919.

[16] James T. Barron vs. Claire J. Alexander. 1&2. United States Circuit Court of Appeals. 18 Sept. 1912.

[17] “Alaskan Boy Dies in Aviation Camp.” Daily Alaska Dispatch [Juneau] 28 Aug. 1917.

[18] “All Records Are Broken By Run Of Salmon” Daily Alaska Dispatch, 11 Jul. 1915.

[19] “Canners Face Bad Situation This Season” Daily Alaska Dispatch, 3 Aug. 1919.

[20] “Offer Thlinket Packing Stock.” The Wall Street Journal.  19 May 1920

[21] Mobley, Charles M. World War II Aleut Relocation Camps in Southeast Alaska. Anchorage: National Park Service, Alaska Region, 2012.

 [22] Good, Warren. "South East Alaska Shipwrecks " Alaska Shipwrecks. Web. 16 July 2013. <http://alaskashipwreck.com/>.

 [23] "FRANK F." Coast Guard Vessel Documentation. NOAA Office of Science and Technology, n.d. Web. 16 July 2013. <http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/st1/CoastGuard/VesselByName.html>.

August Buschmann Speaks

Note: What follows is an excerpt of the testimony of August Buschmann, pioneering cannery operator and fish trap operator, taken from the Special Subcommittee on Alaskan Problems, House Committee on Merchant Marines and Fisheries, on the Elimination of Salmon Traps in the Waters of Alaska, November, 1949. Not only does Buschmann describe the genesis of many canneries in Southeast Alaska, his testimony clearly shows the speed at which canneries proliferated around the bays and inlets of Alaska. Readers interested in discovering more about specific cannery locations and personalities engaged in the fisheries are encouraged to spend time with historic Bureau of Fisheries and House Committee reports, which contain priceless, untapped information related to Alaska's fisheries history. For those interested in fish traps, Jim Mackovjak's newest book, Alaska Salmon Traps, is the place to begin.  A huge thanks to Jim Mackovjak for sharing this transcription. 

"I came over here with my parents from Norway in 1891. After arriving here we became interested in fishing and the salting of fish near Port Townsend, at Scow Bay, for a short period of time. Then we moved to Port Townsend and fished and salted and smoked fish there for a short time.

Then we moved to Bellingham and did the same thing there. While we were there we put in the first pile trap that was put in on Lummi Island, that was operated by hand, with a hand windlass on a log float, and we also operated a small floating trap on Lopez Island. That was in 1892.

In 1893 I went to Alaska for the first time with my father and I fished halibut on a halibut schooner in Alaska out of Ketchikan. And later on in the season we fished halibut and salmon, dogfish, and sharks. That fall my father located a cannery site in Mink Bay off of Boca De Quadra Inlet in southeastern Alaska.

In the spring of 1894 I accompanied my father to Alaska again, where he built his first cannery, in 1894 in Mink Bay, operated it through the season and packed about 10,000 cases. We operated there for several years and then my father located a saltery site in Taku Inlet, close to Juneau, Alaska, and operated a saltery there for several years.

We located a trade and manufacturing site at Petersburg in 1896, and commenced construction of a cannery that was first operated in 1898.

From there I was transferred to Sitkah [Sitkoh] Bay, to construct a new cannery there at a location now called Chatham, Alaska, it was called at that time, Sitkoh Bay, in 1900.

[Buschmann omits the fact that during the 1899 and 1900 salmon seasons he operated a salmon saltery at Bartlett Cove, in Glacier Bay, where he also constructed a cannery building that was never outfitted with canning machinery.]

At that particular plant, which was completed and operated that year, we packed about 60,000 cases. The reason for constructing this plant was that the Petersburg cannery, located about 100 miles away, which was operated the first year in 1898, received most of its fish from this area, since there were practically no salmon in the area around Petersburg that particular year.

The year 1900 was the return cycle for that heavy run in the Chatham area. There happened to be no fish whatsoever in that area, and it is believed that the tremendous run and escapement that was there 2 years before of which very few could be taken created the shortage of that year. Out of a pack of 60,000 cases which we had prepared to can, we could only get 20,000 cases of pinks in that area with 3 big tenders and 14 hand seine boats covering Chatham Strait, Icy Strait, Chichagof Island, and Baranof Island areas where we had expected to pack principally pinks that season.

That goes to show that even in olden times we had smaller runs of pink salmon in southeastern Alaska than we have ever had since that time. This was in 1900.

In the fall of 1900 and spring of 1901 father sold out of the three canneries and two salteries that his companies owned, to a company called the Pacific Packing & Navigation Co. that has accumulated a number of canneries along the coast of Alaska and also on Puget Sound.

In 1901 I built and operated the first pile trap close to Port [Point] Couverden at the entrance to Icy Strait, and operated that pile trap with several others for 3 years.

In 1904 I operated a steamer for the Killisnoo fertilizer plant at Killisnoo, Alaska, and we caught principally herring, but when herring were scarce we would always load up with salmon at the neighboring bay so as to bring home a load of fish.

In 1905 I took a contract to deliver two shiploads of dog salmon for the Japanese Government. These ships sailed into southeastern Alaska, and with 1 little seine boat and a small crew of 5 or 6 men, including my brother, we loaded these ships with approximately 200,000 dog salmon at Chaik Bay. In 1906 I operated a cannery for the Northwestern Fisheries Co. at Sana Ana, and in 1907, 1908 and 1909 I operated a cannery at Hunters Bay, on the west coast of Prince of Wales Island, were we also operated a salmon hatchery, here we also built and operated the first power seine boat that ever came to Alaska, which was operated by my brother Eigil at that time.

In 1910 I was transferred, and instructed to build a cannery—on Cooks Inlet—for the Northwestern Fisheries, and I believe I had the luckiest season of my career that year, since we left here on Friday, March the 13^th.

In 1911 I built a cannery of my own at Ford Arm on the west coast of Chichagof Island, southeastern Alaska and packed about 20,000 cases, operating exclusively with seines.

In 1912 and 1913 we operated at Ford Arm on the west coast of Chichagof Island, putting up small packs. In 1915 I also built a cannery in Cooks Inlet on Knik Arm, across from Anchorage, which I operated for 3 years. Then in 1918 I built and operated a cannery at Port Althorp, at the entrance to Icy Strait, southeastern Alaska not far from Juneau, where we had prospected the fishing conditions for some time. I supervised the operation of this cannery myself until the fall of 1919, when I sold this cannery to the Alaska Pacific Salmon Co.

I also in the meantime had become interested in the Hood Bay cannery, at Hood Bay and I had financed Nick Bez on his first canning operations in Peril Straits, at Todd—the Todd Cannery. I think that was 1924.

I was also interested in a cannery at Sitka, which we sold just a few years ago.

Since the early 1930s I have not been so very active in the business, although I have had interests in several canneries, and up to the present time have made trips to Alaska every year, and I have since 1893 spent anywhere from 2 or 3 weeks to 9 months in the Territory every year.

I graduated from the commercial branch of the Pacific Lutheran College, in Parkland, Wash., in 1899; received my pilot’s license to operate cannery steamers and other small steamers in 1902; I took out my United States citizens papers in Tacoma, Wash., in 1903.

I was appointed by President Hoover and served as a dollar-a-year man under Judge Royal Gunnison, Food Administrator for Alaska, during World War I, as fisheries consultant and advisor in connection with catching and canning salmon in Alaska.

I was selected a member of the Fact Finding Board of Three, operating under the supervision of the United States Department of Labor, to determine a fair price to be paid for fish and labor in the Alaska salmon industry in 1938...

I served as first organizing chairman of the consultant committee, appointed as a war measure by the Secretary of Interior in 1942. The purpose of this committee was to devise ways and means of producing the greatest quantity of canned fish by concentrating all fishing and canning operations along the entire coast line of Alaska into the most efficient operating units, to save labor, transportation, and floating equipment, since the Army and Navy had commandeered and actually taken over most of the salmon industry’s efficient tenders, scows, and other floating equipment, including several canneries, which were so desperately needed when war so unexpectedly broke out.

I have spent all or part of every operating season, ranging from 3 or 4 weeks to 9 months in Alaska since 1893, and expect to continue doing so since I am very much interested in the Alaska fisheries.

I am at the present time interested in a cold-storage plant at Sitka, Alaska; a cold-storage plant we built last year at Sand Point, Shumagin Islands, Alaska; have an interest in five fish traps in southeastern Alaska, and have a very small interest in the Alaska Pacific Salmon Co., operating canneries in Bristol Bay and south of the peninsula."

MUG-UP: The Role of the Mess Hall in Cannery Life

By: Katherine Ringsmuth

We all know that salmon have fueled Alaska’s commercial fishing industry for over 100 years.  So, if salmon fed Alaska’s numerous salmon canneries, what fed Alaska’s numerous cannery workers?  Believe it or not, the answer is not salmon!  Although salmon was eaten on occasion, it was not the primary source of nutrition fueling the industry’s workers. Over the century, cannery workers’ diets have consisted of rice, powered milk, coffee, canned goods, doughnuts, salad bars, and prime rib. 

I was five years old the first time that I experienced cannery life in Alaska. Eating in the cannery messhall was one of my clearest recollections of that time.  Perhaps because each meal was punctuated by the loud shrill blow of the steam whistle, which halted the deafening chug of the cannery machines and peace, if only for 15 minutes, returned to the Naknek River.  My family and I ate in the Blue Room (which was always painted yellow for some reason) and we were served by a waitress who brought us our meals on white China plates.  The blue room was reserved for the superintendent, the office workers, crew supervisors, and the occasional fish buyer or other VIPs. But, I remember wandering beyond the blue room and into the main hall where the cannery crew ate.  The large rectangular room seemed as if it could contain a football field.  It had hard wood floors, which supported the twenty or so picnic-style tables, each supporting eight individual seats.  The air clinked with the sounds of forks and spoons scrapping the faded green and yellow cafeteria trays and buzzed with the sound of languages a five year old seldom heard—Scandinavian, Italian, Croatian, Filipino, Spanish, and Japanese.  I especially loved to wander into the aroma-filled bakery where the head baker—Devona—made fresh doughnuts and cookies by the hundreds.  The oven in the bakery was eight feet long and rotated three racks—you could easily bake several hundred cookies or dozens of pies at once.

In those days, the messhall was literally at the center of cannery life.  A cannery worker’s day began and ended with the welcomed smells of the messhall.  A monotonous, usually wet, and strenuous day of cleaning guts and canning salmon commenced with a 7 am breakfast, at which workers gobbled down eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, pancakes, coffee.  At 10 am the whistle blew, announcing the first mug-up of the day.  The slime line stopped and workers in yellow rain slickers consumed coffee, doughnuts, turnovers, and other pastries.  At noon, workers wandered the boardwalk to the messhall to gulp down fresh made soups, salads, homemade breads, and a main dish such as pizza, burgers, and always a fresh dessert.  The goal was to eat in ten minutes and sleep for fifty.  At three o’clock came the afternoon mug-up and workers washed down chocolate chip, oatmeal, sugar cookies, macaroon, and even ginger snaps with gallons of fresh made coffee.  Five o’clock brought dinner, which often times served as a cannery workers calendar—pork chops on Mondays, steak on Tuesdays, roast beef on Wednesday, fish (usually not salmon) was served on Fridays. At nine o’clock the messhall served the third mug-up of the day, which consisted of deli sandwiches and left over desserts.  Finally, if the cannery was operating during the peak of the Bristol Bay salmon run, then there was a midnight meal, at which tired and weary workers ate generous portions of eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes and French toast in the warmth and comfort of the messhall.

I always remember my father, Gary Johnson, who was superintendent at the South Naknek cannery, saying that his cook was one of his most important employees.  He understood that the cannery workers’ trip to the messhall was “the social event of the day.” In fact, he would say that he hired (and fired) his baker depending on how well he or she made maple bars.  And indeed, my dad was not the only cannery superintendent that felt this way.

Throughout his many years as superintendent at the Snug Harbor cannery, Joe Fribrock learned that the best workers were content workers, so after World War II, he hired Ralph Havestein, a chef from the Seven Gables restaurant in Seattle to run Snug’s messhall.  In fact Joe’s young wife at the time, Dorothy Fribrock, was a bit threatened by Snug’s messhall cook:

  “It wasn’t until I tasted the noon day meal, did I agree wholeheartedly with all of the praise Joe heaped upon Ralph’s cooking.  His gravy was delicious.  I silently noted I’d have to really out cook myself to even get in his league.  Every meal was better than the last.  Our first night we had individual sirloin steaks over an inch thick, cooked to perfection, O Brian potatoes, two vegetables, cabbage and carrot salad, plus three varieties of homemade bread.  Four kinds of cake, tea and coffee.  Never in all my life had I seen food in such abundance at one meal.  It was like every day was Thanksgiving or Christmas.” [1]

Interestingly, academic studies that discuss the historical significance of the canned salmon industry rarely mention the role of the messhall. They tend to focus on economics, technology, even ethnic and environmental perspectives.  But if we listen carefully to the interviews and stories told by people who worked at Alaska canneries, we can conclude that what they ate was important to them and seems to be a common denominator that in many ways, bonded people together.  According to Ray DePriest, who worked at Snug Harbor in the 1940s:  “Every Sunday [Havestein would] have these Boston cream pies, and then the cream puffs with Chocolate tops.”  Not only did Ray and his buddies receive three square meals, but during the salmon peak Ray remembered the nightly mug-ups and a midnight meals that fed the hungriest of growing boys.  “We just about ate the cookhouse out of eggs,” recalled Ray, “you really ate like a horse.”[2]

Still, when cannery life is viewed through the lens of food and the messhall, it can illuminate one hundred years of cannery segregation.   For years, canneries were segregated by upper echelon of workers and the lower echelon of workers.  No one really knows why the Blue Room was called so, but as one cannery foreman suggested, because “the Blue Bloods eat there.” Furthermore, most canneries in Alaska were segregated by race.  As Dorothy Fribrock noted about Snug Harbor when she first arrived in the 1940s, there was a China mess, Filipino mess, and native mess, each with a separate cook. 

Indeed, how, where, and what cannery workers ate not only reflects the social milieu of cannery life, but also illuminates exploitive hiring practices, the appropriation of Alaska Natives into the American system of capitalism, gender relations, and finally, racial integration—all aspects that shaped the commercial fishing industry in Alaska.

CHINESE WORKERS

Between 1892 and 1935 the Alaska Packers Association employed a cannery work force that came to be known as the “China Gang.” The Asian cannery workers lived in “Chinatown,” the quarters assigned to them at the cannery.  In the legers of the Alaska Packers Association, the details of cannery labor force accounting was summarized under the caption, “Chinese Contracts.”[3]

To fill short term labor needs with cheap labor, salmon cannery operators negotiated with Chinese contractors to hire thousands of Chinese cannery laborers, almost exclusively young male who had little knowledge of English or the customs of a foreign culture.  The Chinese contractors hired the crews, supervised them in the canning operation and paid them off at the end of the season.  As one historian put it, “The cannery owners divested themselves of having to supervise, bargain, or be concerned with what they perceived as a completely alien work force with a culture which could not be understood.”[4]

Besides hiring and supervising the China crew, the contractors supplied their food and hired their cook.  In return, they received a daily per capita sum from the cannery owner for provisions.  As historian Chris Friday points out in his study Organizing Asian Labor: The Pacific Coast Canned-Salmon Industry, 1870-1942, “This arrangement allowed contactors an avenue to control workers and gain profits from owners.”[5]  Because nineteen century racist attitudes viewed the Chinese as merely a source of labor rather than individuals, cannery owners tended to ignore contractors who exploited and often cheated the workmen. For example, contractors served relatively inexpensive rice, tea, and salmon or “scrap” fish from the cannery, and pocketed significant proportion of the money paid for provisions.[6]  In addition, some contractors bought the supplies through their own import—export businesses, which generated even larger profits for themselves. They also added opium to the list of provisions, intended to keep unhappy crews stoned and pacified.

To supplement their meager diets, Chinese cannery workers responded by keeping gardens, they gathered plants and shellfish in their spare time, and bartered with the local Alaska Natives living near the cannery.  For example, at the Alaska Packers Cannery at Chignik Lagoon the local Alutiit managed to resurrect familiar practices of exchange by developing a kind of underground barter system with the exotic cannery workers.  Chignik resident, August Pedersen, remembered selling bear feet and bear gall bladders to the Chinese workers in exchange for leftover food from the cannery’s messhall at the end of the summer:

My old man [Marius “Pete” Pedersen] …He used to give the Chinamen the feet and the gall.  They used it for medicines, and in the fall, they would be pretty decent. [In]Them years, you packed live animals.  Pigs.  They’d give you a pig, a live pig.  Maybe old canned salmon.  They’d give you them “dents” they called it, ten, fifteen cases, though, and maybe a couple hundred pounds of rice.[7] 

Because contractors seldom provided more than a basic subsistence, an important part of Chinese workers’ activities involved gathering additional food.  As Friday notes, “Food and its preparation carry much cultural importance for all Chinese, and each dish supposedly has its own special medicinal qualities.” Thus, in the canneries, where the food varied little and was often inadequate, it is no wonder that Chinese workers went to great lengths to keep gardens, harvest local berries, fish, and clams, and trade with locals to supplement meager diets.[8]

ALASKA NATIVES

Like the Chinese, Alaska Native workers were positioned at the bottom of the cannery’s social ladder. In the cannery pecking order, the highest paid were the Scandinavian fishermen, or the “white crew.” The Italian and Greek fishermen, or “dagos,” as they were called, were paid less for basically the same work.  For cannery work such as soldering the tins, cleaning the fish, and packing the cans, Chinese laborers (and later Japanese and Filipino) were paid the least.[9] 

At the Alaska Packer’s Ugashik cannery, employers hired a mix of twenty European and American workers in 1889, but no Natives. A year later, twenty Natives were hired to assist one hundred forty Chinese workers in the Fish House.[10]  A decade later, a few Alutiit were hired to process fish, but were still excluded from fishing and fish trapping jobs.[11]  The reason primarily had to do with food.  Canners complained that Native laborers would work only as long as needed to secure a few possessions, then abruptly quit and return to their more traditional food gathering activities.[12]  Even a government observer reasoned, “Why should he [the Native] work?  Hunger no longer worries him, his immediate wants are satisfied, and he has no others!”[13]  Still, as canneries began to experience a shortage of cheap labor due to the Chinese Exclusion Acts passed in 1882 and 1892, they began to hire Native workers, who replaced the Asian crews as the lowest participants in the cannery organizational structure. 

Cannery life was an entirely different world than life along the river at fish camp.  The industrialized plant was generally dreary, damp and noisy.  Belts whined, flywheels whirled and narrow pipes dropping from overhead brought a ceaseless stream of cold water to the work stalls.[14] At Bristol Bay canneries, a combination of Alutiiq, Dena’ina, and Yupik men and women worked in long rows as “slitters” “washers” or “slimers.”  In 1910, a group of Inupiaq from the Seward Peninsula seeking cannery jobs migrated to the Alaska Peninsula, where they carved out a life among the mixed Native/Euroamerican population living and working there.[15]  Hence, the place name “Eskimo Town” in Pilot Point.

In 1917, when Pete Koktelash, a Dena’ina from Nondalton, was 12 or13 years old, he worked downriver, at the Bristol Bay Packing company located at the mouth of the Kvichak River.  Ironically, Koktelash called the plant, that seemed to literally “gobble up” hundreds and thousands of Bristol Bay red salmon, “Hungry Peterson’s.”[16]  And even at such a young age, Koktelash was aware of the cultural differences at the cannery:

 “When we got to Bristol Bay,” recalled Koktelash, “there were people who had come from everywhere.  There were Chinese, Mexicans, Italians, Filipinos, Norwegians, Dutna, Eskimos from other places like the Kuskokwim River, and many others.  At that time, no Natives were allowed to fish.  The fishermen were the Italians and Norwegians.  The Dena’ina were given jobs in canneries with the Mexicans and Chinese.  Our job was to “slime” the salmon before they were cooked and canned.[17]

Besides the different people who worked at the cannery, Koktelash also remembers the segregation that separated people:

Cannery workers stayed in bunk houses with other people from their own area.  The Dena’ina had their own bunk houses.  So did the Dutna, the Eskimos, the Chinese, the Filipinos, and all the other groups.  We called the Chinese bunk houses “Chinatown,” and they had their own mess halls. 

With out doubt, canneries drastically impacted Native life in terms of increasing ethnic diversity, affecting movement of local settlements, offering wage-paying jobs, advancing systems of credit, disease, and ultimately, change in the reciprocal relationship with the salmon.  As ethnographer James Vanstone suggests, “Of all the agents of change…none had a greater or more lasting effect…than the commercial fishing industry.”[18]  And indeed, what Alaska Native ate in the messhall contributed greatly to their appropriation into an American capitalistic system.  Again, Pete Koktelash recalls eating in the cannery messhall:

The rest of the cannery workers ate together in mess halls separate from those of the fishermen.  Meals were good, and we had plenty of food served family style.  Sometimes we got homesick for our Dena’ina food, however.  The first year I went, I wasn’t used to Gasht’ana [Whiteman] food, and it tasted funny.  In time we got used to what they served us and to working with people from all over the world.[19]

WOMEN

As you can imagine, cannery work was even more restrictive for women.  Because cleaning fish was considered “women’s work,” such conditions belied the identity of Native men, the traditional fishermen.  It was also the reason why cannery employers referred to their Asian crews as members of a “feminine race.”  Moreover, although Native women held highly respected positions as the “salmon processors” at fish camp, at the mechanized canneries, the knowledge and skills wielded by Native women to preserve salmon throughout the winter went unappreciated. Indeed, Native women received the guts, but little glory in the industrialized world of the salmon cannery. 

Still, the messhall was an avenue through which many women could get a foot in the door of the male-dominated fish packing industry.  Although most cannery cooks were men, women were hired as waitress to serve in the Blue Room and to help prep by peeling carrots and potatoes.[20] At the Snug Harbor cannery, for instance, Dorothy Fribrock recalled that a woman named Linda Stout began as a waitress and later became cook after Ralph left.

In fact, the cannery messhall provided women a place to bond.  Dorothy Fribrock recalls that during the early part of the 1947 season, the waitress Inga and house keeper Florence Holt were the only other women in camp.  As a result, Dorothy often spent the time after dinner in the messhall, hemming her Swedish napkins while the women cleared and set the tables for the next day.[21] 

Claiming a “woman’s touch” in recollections, most cannery people agree that the messhall provided them a bright spot in what might be considered a cannery worker’s gloomy day.  When the first fresh fruit of the season arrived by barge everyone in the messhall enjoyed the treat.  Others remember the wild flower bouquets the waitress placed at the center of the messhall tables.  More than a few cannery romances blossomed in the messhall.  Dorothy Fribrock recalls such a story:

“Diane Strasberg replaced Inga the next year in Snug’s Kitchen.  Diane sang folk songs in her small sweet voice as she helped Ralph in the kitchen.  She lived upstairs over our quarters and painted two of the rooms, one in pastel stripes and the other with a rose flowered border.  Clem Tillion, with his derby hat who came calling much to Ralph’s annoyance.  These flirtations continued through the summer.  The third year Diane didn’t return.  Later she marred Clem and they settled in Halibut Cove.  She became a famous Alaskan artist, first with her sepia colored octopus ink drawings and later with her sculptures.  Clem went on to the Alaska Senate and became a member of the North Pacific Fisheries Commission.”[22]

FILIPINOS

Throughout the early twentieth century, Filipinos cannery workers replaced Chinese workers excluded from working in the United States.  Filipino migrants spoke English, therefore, it made it easier for them to communicate and interact with other cannery workers.  Because canneries like Snug Harbor were smaller than most Alaska canneries, lines of separation were more subtle, so much so that people on either side of the line rarely considered the social significance of their actions.  It was “just the way things were done,” explained cannery worker Barbara Kistler. “There was about thirty Filipinos, and they had their own mess.” She also added “they had the best doughnuts.”[23]

And, in spite of separate bunkhouses, messhall, even separate foremen, one thing American and Filipino workers shared equally was the Fourth of July, for the Philippines and the United States both celebrated their nation’s independence on that day.  “At the canneries in Alaska,” then “it was THE holiday.”[24] According to numerous recollections, “The Filipinos would prepare for the festivities all through June, drying fish and getting things ready for the big event. There were games in the afternoon of the Fourth, followed by dancing in the evening, with sun dried fish for all and many other foods.

Despite all the social interaction that occurred in canneries, Filipinos were still officially segregated from other groups, and at too many Alaskan canneries, they were made to feel like second class workers.[25] For the most part, they held the undesirable jobs, slept in the worst bunkhouses, and endured derogatory remarks from the Euro-American crews.  In 1982, cannery workers from Kenai and other canneries brought a class action suit against the plant’s owners, Wards Cove Packing Co., alleging employment discrimination on the basis of race. After spending years in the Court of Appeals, the case finally concluded in December, 2001.  As much as the court disapproved of employment practices that existed at the canneries, the plaintiffs could not prove that these practices violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.  Thus, the judge dismissed the complaint.[26]

CANNERY WORKER

Still, by the 1970s most canneries maintained integrated messhalls.  At Snug Harbor the Blue Room was transformed into a mug-up room for all employees.  At the cannery in South Naknek, the Filipino messhall was closed long before the law suit made most Alaskans aware of the situation.  Dorothy speculates that the cannery “apartheid system” gradually changed in Cook Inlet because, “there really wasn’t a need to be separate.”[27] Dorothy reasoned that with the abolishment of traps, the increased contact between management and fishermen, and daily interaction among workers “shooting the breeze,” gradually wore the old system down.[28] 

By the 1970s, a generation of college students began to work at canneries throughout Alaska.  Thanks to bi-pass mail, they drank fresh milk, enjoyed fresh fruit, and ate fresh veggies from the messhall salad bar on a daily bases.  And most significantly, these self-proclaimed vegetarians also sought out more integrated relationships with their coworkers than the more segregated meat and potatoes generations of the past. 

In 1981 California college student Kristen Kelly wrote about her experience in an article titled: “Cannery Workers, We Come and We Go”:

 “On the occasional night off…the egg house crew spends time in the Japanese’s bunkhouse exchanging friendly ethnic songs and sprits.  There are private parties whenever time allows, but the three recognized during the season are the Italian fishermen’s barbecue around the Fourth of July, and the Japanese and Filipino parties near the end of the season.  All three groups prepare ethnic foods and the celebrations provide a means of letting off steam as well as enhancing a feeling of camaraderie among us all.”[29]

The last time I visited South Naknek, I walked around old dilapidated buildings that comprise of China Town and I briefly entered the old Filipino messhall, which was used as storage for the main cookhouse.  Since that day, I have thought about the people who slept in the cold and cramped spaces, who shared meals together, and contributed to making of the Canned Salmon industry in Alaska.  It’s strange, but you feel as though something—or someone is watching.  Indeed, Food for Thought.

---

[1] Dorothy Fribrock, Sockeye Sunday and Other Fish Tales (Kasilof: Fribrock Kistler Publishing, 1999), 159.

[2] Katherine Johnson Rigsmuth, Snug Harbor Cannery: A Beacon on the Forgotten Shore, 1919-1980 (Anchorage: National Park Service, 2004), 116.

[3] Robert A. Nash, “The China Gangs’ in the Alaska Packers Association Canneries, 1882-1935” Economic History, 257.

[4] Jack Masson, “Chinese Tongs in Alaska,” Alaskana, vol.  7 no. 3, 1979, 44.

[5] Chris Friday, Organizing Asian American Labor: The Pacific Coast Canned-Salmon Industry, 1870-1942 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994), 53

[6] Jack Masson and Donald Guimary, “Asian Labor Contractors in the Alaskan Canned Salmon Industry: 1880-1937,” Labor History, 379.

[7] August Pedersen, interview by Lisa Scarbrough, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, in Patricia Partnow’s Making History: Alutiiq/Sugpiaq Life on the Alaska Peninsula (Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2001), 210.

[8] Friday, 54.

[9] Partnow, 136-137.

[10] Jefferson Moser, “The Salmon and Salmon Fisheries of Alaska; Report of the Alaskan

Salmon Investigations of the United States Fish Commission Steamer Albatross in the 1900 and 1901,” Bulletin of the US Fish Commission 21. Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1902, 216.

 [11] Michele Morseth, Puyulek Pu’irtuq! The People of the Volcano: Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve Ethnographic Overview and Assessment (Anchorage, AK: Department of Interior, 2003), 96.

[12] Howard Kutchin, Report on the Inspection of the Salmon Fisheries Document #618 (Washington: GPO Department of Commerce and Labor, 1906), 48.

[13] Moser, 186.

[14] Huge W. McKirvill, The Salmon People (Vancouver: Whitecap Books, 1967), 57-58.

[15] Morseth, 141.

[16] Nuvendaltin Quht’ana: The People of Nondalton “Pete Koktelash Dena’ina Perspective: Memories of a Bristol Bay Fisherman” (Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), 260-261.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Vanstone, 63.

[19] Koktelash

[20] Fribrock, 161

[21] Fribrock, 192.

[22] Fribrock, 194.

[23] Barbara Kistler, interviewed by Katherine Johnson Ringsmuth, June 11, 2003.

[24] Ibid 283

[25] Thelma Buchholdt, Filipinos in Alaska: 1788-1958 (Anchorage: Color Art Printing Co.), xi.

[26] Wards Cove Packing Co., Inc. v. Atonio, 490 U.S. 642, 109 S.Ct. 2115, 104 L.Ed.2d 733 (1989); Atonio v. Wards Cove Packing Co., Inc., 275 F.3d 797 (9th Cir. 2001); Atonio v. Wards Cove Packing Co., Inc., 10 F.3d 1485 (9th Cir. 1993); Antonio v. Wards Cove Packing Co., Inc., 810 F.2d 1477 (9th Cir. 1987); Antonio v. Wards Cove Packing Co., Inc., 703 F.2d 329 (9th Cir. 1982).

[27] Fribrock, 285.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Kristen Kelly, “Cannery Workers, We Come and We Go” Alaska , 1981.

Walking with Winter

By Katherine Ringsmuth

On the north side of the Naknek River, during the first snowstorm of the season, I walk with winter along a stony beach, struggling to hold on to the edge of the world. Bristol Bay exhales winds that heave across the mudflats, blasting Alaska's blunt western coastline. It is here, where land meets sea, that such volatile and unpredictable weather patterns form. Pulling my cap tight over my ears, I turn against the October winds, and notice my footprints filling with tiny flakes of snow.

Each summer, before the king salmon hit subsistence nets, I come to Bristol Bay.  When the last red salmon escape commercial nets and return home to spawn, I also return from where I came.  This year is different, though. Along with biologists, oceanographers, NOAA scientists and other fishery experts, I've come to Bristol Bay to attend the 1998 Fall Fisheries Conference. I've since graduated from salmon slimer to fisheries historian, and now I tell fish stories for a living.  In the hours before I'm scheduled to speak, I spend them mute on this beach, staring into the storm, watching winter come home to Bristol Bay.

The scientists gathered for the Fall Fisheries Conference watch weather too. In 1997, the famed Bristol Bay Reds disappeared somewhere between Port Moller and Egegik.  That summer, ocean temperatures reached the warmest on record, while a phytoplankton bloom the size of Kansas appeared in the Bering Sea. The fishing season was deemed a disaster, but the salmon mystery remained-- "What happened to the missing reds?"  

Everyone had a theory.  Fishermen pointed fingers at high seas factory trawlers, others blamed beluga whales.  Late night loungers with too much time and liquor suspected space aliens. But when oceanographers discovered a major oscillation shift in the Pacific, fish biologists developed their own theory. They found that historic fish catches fluctuated simultaneously with the changing climate.  In other words, the culprit causing Alaska's salmon runs to decline just might be bad weather. 

I am no expert on Alaskan weather, but I am no stranger to it either. In Fairbanks where I attended graduate school, just when sandhill cranes leave Creamers Field, frigid temperatures begin to seize the Tanana Flats. Each day, as the sun's rays strain to reach beyond the Alaskan Range, winter drains the Interior of motion, bringing it to a near halt. Rivers freeze, forests crystallize, and people stay indoors. Not even wind can bluster up the energy to penetrate Fairbank's brutal cold. 

But here on the Alaska Peninsula, it seems that winter weather is alive, like a shark that never stops moving. Bristol Bay's prevailing southwest winds continuously attack the advancing boreal forests, which extends across North America, eastward to Nova Scotia. The williwaws stunt and disfigure renegade spruce that try to occupy the tundra and the barren Aleutian Chain.  And despite my thick gloves and insulated boots, splinters of ice bit my raw fingers and toes.

Bristol Bay weather has other faces too.  It can be a primadonna, forcing anyone who goes outside to pay attention to it.  The weather never lets you forget you live in Alaska.  The weather can also be a trickster that transforms a calm lake into a cankerous slur of waves.  And it is an enigma, for even during the worst of storms, a thin, blue atmospheric light lovingly caresses this northern landscape, bringing clarity and warmth to a complex and harsh environment. I close my eyes, and imprinted on the inside of my eyelids, still burning, is the empty northern sky.

I open them to see a raven investigating me as I trespass on what surely he thinks is his beach. I eyeball him respectfully--I don't want to challenge the Trickster, thief of the sun. Many Alaska legends say Raven is also the Creator, a fickle Creator, however, one who is as unpredictable as nature and the season he controls.

Raven soars on top of thermals, surfing on the sky currents. Like the weather, raven always moves, always looks, always gazes out across his world, watching for some mischief to get into or something to eat.  Plunging and tumbling, he seems amused by this wild weather.  I wonder if Raven is making the snow fall harder now. In the beginning, Raven was as white as the snow, but when he stole freshwater from Ganook he got stuck in a smoke hole that turned his feathers black. As it turns out, we benefited by Raven's greed.  For when he flew out of the smoke hole, Raven spit drops of water to the earth that became rivers and streams. 

Watching snowfall blanket the beach I realize I have not escaped Raven's trickery.  Before, my footprints carried winter behind me, now winter strides ahead. With each step my wet boots expose the dark beach rocks. Like Raven's transformation in the smoke hole, my footsteps changed from white to black. Instead of winter, now each footstep contains hopes of spring. I can hear ka ka ka, which I think sounds like ha ha ha, as Raven flies away, into the white sky and over the river he created.  Now I am cold and alone.

Maybe it's my loneliness seeking the familiar, but the vacancy of winter makes me aware of what is no longer here. The same way an artist can see his painting on a white canvas or a writer can visualize his story from a blank page, I can see a floating city emerge from Bristol Bay's empty waters.  I see drift boats pulling nets, tenders full of fish, processors pressed against the horizon, helicopters and float planes buzzing overhead.  My minds eye sees a flurry of activity surrounding the setnet cabins that line the sloping bluffs behind me--fishermen mend nets, kids ride three-wheelers, dogs are barking, skiffs skip through whitecaps just off shore.  I hear the sound of pulsating machines rising from canneries alive with production. A gentle breeze kisses tundra flowers.  I see old friends in yellow rain gear flicking salmon eyeballs across slime lines.  I see an ageless fisherman who drowned in the waters that front me.  I see the glorious midnight sun fan its golden rays across the sky, turning the world into a silhouette.  Then, Bristol Bay sighs deeply and the cold seeps through me. I am reminded that winter yields nothing easily, and the beach is empty again. 

Still, there is something wonderful about walking with winter.  Winter makes us aware of what we desire most: the warm sun, fish in our nets, good health to our family and friends. The turning seasons give us a glimpse into the past, and probably into the future.  Just from where I stand now, I can see the path of ancient glaciers.  I know Bristol Bay was once a land bridge, and in the distance rises Katolinat Mountain, where I once found seashells embedded on its crest. I walk in winter to remind myself that nothing lasts forever.

The Yupik people who once inhabited this beachhead understood that Bristol Bay is finite.  They painted images on drums and drew designs on mudflats, only to watch their creations disappear with the beat or the rising tide.  Shamen made elaborate goggled eyed and toothy grinning masks to honor animal spirits sacrificed to the hunt. When the ceremony ended, the masks were discarded into the tundra or burned.  The artwork the Yupik created was never meant to survive—an admission possibly, to the limits of Bristol Bay.

Perhaps I need to be more like the Raven and learn to enjoy and embrace winter.  Winter was a time to slow down and celebrate for the Yupik. On the fringe between weather and landscape, native peoples adapted behaviors to fit their environment. Because salmon was their main food source, summer was the time to fish.  But when daylight grew shorter, and the salmon lay red and dying, the Yupik spent winter thanking the salmon for their sacrifice.  For giving respect, they knew the fish would continue to feed them.

Surely, the prehistoric Yupik lacked the ecologic insight to comprehend that salmon feed the land too, but we know it now. In the wake of the Ice Age, salmon populations probed the melt water rivers.  Migrating from rich ocean pastures, salmon brought nutrients to the starved soils.  Trees and plants grew, streams stabilized, bears, eagles, wolves, lynx, even Raven thrived.  Weather and salmon changed the world.  This winter, scientists gather in Naknek to discuss strategies to save salmon, not celebrate them.  But one day the weather will change, glaciers will advance, and it will be the salmon that saves us.

With numbing toes, I reach the end of my journey, but winter's journey is just beginning. The snow clouds have engulfed the alluvial plain, and move up the Naknek River towards the mountains. Taking a last look at the beach, I notice the tide lapping at the rocks. A lather of icy sea foam has washed my footprints away. In winter I see clearly; it is only in summer when I see illusions: inexhaustible natural resources, endless tundra, youthful fishermen, the arctic sunlight. My own time here exists for only a limited time.  Even the tides and salmon remain here temporarily, moving back and forth in between the land and sea.