The weekly Alaska citizen., 1918-04-01
REPRESENTATIVE OF CARLISLE PACKING COMP PANY SETS FORTH
 REASONS FOR YUKON CANNERY

The following presents the views of I. N. Stensland. who is the rep resentative of the Carlisle Packing company, for the establishment of cannery at Andreafsky, as noted in yesterdays issue of The Citizen:
 An editorial in a recent issue of Fairbanks paper reads in part as fol- lows: "The proposed establishment of a cannery on the lower Yukon river carries with it serious ques- tion for the entire Interior of Alaska. It Is of the utmost importance to every community and district in the Interior that the supply of fish be unhindered."
 Other Alaska papers also voiced more or less of protest, and in all of them there appears almost set form of objections. and these bear on stream depletion. hardships on natives and whites and the cutting off of the supply of dog feed.
 Since 1t is the desire of the Car lisle Packing company to establish a packing plant on the lower Yukon. and to that end there has already been expended large amount of labor and money, and, further, since it Is far more desirable to have the good wishes of a community rather than its ill-will. 1t may not be amiss to get the views of those who happen to be the pioneers in this particular venture, and to see if there is an actual cause for all the gloomy alarm and direful misgivings.
 There isn't any doubt at all but what many an Alaskan coast stream has been next to ruined~in fishing way-by the hoggishness of some of the salmon packers. Their aim. in early days. was to get in, get all and get out It was great game and was played beyond the limit. Gov ernment fish commissioners and other officers appointed by Uncle Sam to look after and care for the food fish of Alaska were few in numbers, and the territory they had to cover, vast. The opportunities were certainly good for the rapacious ones. How ever. times and conditions have changed and streams, even the small ones. fshed thirty years back are fishing today. Again, there were more famines among the na. tives before a white man ever gaffed salmon than there has been since Famines were more result of neg ligence or unforeseen weather condi- tions than scarcity of salmon.
 Relative to the salmon of the Yu- kon river and the river itself. there sis nothing tn the way of comparison unless we so to the Columbia river. In this we have stream varying in width from few hundred feet up in the Rockies to six and eight miles across near its mouth. For more than half a century it has been com mercially fished. and fished, too. for many years. with an abandon that not only bespoke annihilation of the more than the dozen different mem bers of the salmon family entering therein but 1t was the trial grounds of every device. lure. trap and snare. from bone pointed spear to compli- cated entanglements of web that human minds were capable of pro- ducing. From the time a salmon poked its nose towards the bar at the mouth of the Columbia until he reached the spawning grounds hund- dreds of miles inland, he was harassed, hooked, gilled, trapped, seined, dip ped and speared. and if any one i'm. agines that the river Is fished out, let him look at the registered catch of 1917, and for this same catch the people along the stream were en. riched beyond a million dollars Again. it is safe to say that for every one Indian on the Yukon there are ten on the Columbia eating fish. and they have several dogs with fish appetites also.
 It isn't possible that the Yukon will be fshed as the Columbia was. There are more safeguards provided and the salmon of the big northern waterway will have. and should have. ten to one better chance. and with this better chance will come a direct benefit to those who live along its banks.
 On the Columbia river there are, between Cello and the rivers mouth, upwards of fifty big packing and cold storage plants, Tons of fish go daily into the Portland market. and the quantity taken out of the water eastward of Cello Is also great. yet today fish are more plentiful than in the early nineties.
 The Yukon is capable. with perfect safety to all concerned, of upholding an industry superior to that of the whole Columbia Where there has been pinched poverty for man and