The Cordova daily times., 1922-12-29

flying; fishes bright scarlet in color,
 mottled, black, blue and green; eels
 sinuously moving like water snakes,
 wolf fish with the faces of leering
 Orientals, and having double rows of sharp teeth, and they not only have
 the teeth, but they are very ready and
 willing to use them. Many luckless ] fisherman has received lacerated
 hand or foot from these savage fish,
 for they are ready to bite at anything
 in reach and their strength of jaw
 is such that they will bite through a
 rubber boot All of these, salmon, | trout, cod halibut, seals, and suHdry,
 are dumped promiscuously into the
 tender and taken to the cannery,
 where they are separated, the salmon
 being sent up to the cannery floor OH
 an endless belt and the others thrown
 overheard.
 In the cannery the work of cleaning;
 and canning goes on at furious pace.
 twenty-four hours to the day in twelve
 hour shifts, for the Reds run only
 a month and they must be taken while the opportunity exists. The iron
 Chink," an ingenious piece of mechan- ism, does most of the work much more rapidly and with almost as much in
 telligence and efficiency as the hand
 workers. A steady stream of fish is fed into the machines, to come out at the other end of the line packed in cans and ready to be placed in the
 retort for cooking. It is not uncom- mon to pack thirty or forty thousand
 fish in day
 7, And then when the season is over, after the last fish has passed through the jaws of the iron Chink, the nets f are dried and placed in the net house. The boats are drawn up on the ways, 3 the thousands of cases filled with
 cans replaced in the hulk, the cannery
 placed in shipshape for the winter, and :. the fussy tug takes the hulk in tow , and starts on the long trip back to l its home port, leaving behind only the t watchman, who looks forward through 5 long, dreary winter to the time when V the spring season shall open up again. 3 Different parts of Alaska produce $ different kinds of salmon. The Yukon 3 River produces a variety of king, , enormous in size and rich in food r value In the Boring Sea some kings g are taken, but the great run is of ' "sockeye" or fred" as they are com : monly called The Prince William g Sound section produces kings, reds E pack of Southeastern Alaska is large n ly of pinks. The pinks or humpbacks as they are called, are wholesome and Z. palatable, but do not bring the high e prices of the reds owing to the color S People eat with their eyes. It is said s that an enterprising canneryman ir g the Juneau section, in an attempt tc e make the pink fish sell labeled his e product Finest Alaska Pink Salmon e Warranted not to turn red in the d can"
 ; During the past season about
 four and one-half million cases of sal mon of the value of approximately '' forty million dollars, were taken iron II the waters of Alaska. Most of these W are reds. This means more than fifty " million fish. The question natural. ' arises as to the future of the industry N The Fraser River once the greates
 "red'' stream in the world, has be . come entirely depleted, it's banks being
 lined with decaying canneries. Puge v Sound is not packing ten per cen of its former output. The histor, - of the salmon industry has been his :, tory of waste, of the profligate grab ' ping for the present dollar withou
 regard for future operations. In spite
 Of the enormous pack Of 1922 there 1! 1. a steady decline in Alaska. Fishing i.
 more intensive. The present laws art
 entirely inadequate to protect tn,
 spawning salmon and to insure al N adequate escapement to the spawning beds. The Bureau of Fisheries a
 Washington D. C., is so far away tha
 little can be done by them and tn, . whole matter of protection of the fisl . Is in the hands of that bureau, fo by the Enabling Act, the Territoria . Legislature is prohibited from pass . ing any laws with regard to the fish cries. There are three or four hatch cries in the Territory where ther,
 l~L~ T l.. I III