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The sounds of boat engines, the clatter of machinery, the
shouts of working men echoed along the narrow channel in front
of the cluster of buildings which made up the Waterfall
Cannery. Another salmon packing season had begun. Every person
and every machine was attuned to one single theme -- putting
out the season's pack of salmon. Like most canneries in
Alaska, this one, in a remote location on Ulloa Channel, was a
complete, self-sufficient, temporary community of only a few
month's duration. When the job of processing and canning was
done, all but a few workers departed and the community passed
out of existence until the next summer's migration.
Each year, more and more cases of salmon were packed at
Waterfall until it had the highest output in the area of
Southeast Alaska.
The first salmon processing plant at Waterfall, however,
operated on a much smaller scale. The facility was constructed
in the spring of 1912 by Oceanic Packing Company, a
Seattle-based corporation. After this first year, the company
was absorbed by Alaska Fish Company, which had been organized
in 1911 by Frederick C. Johnstone and Fremont King. Alaska
Fish Company was the first company to pack salmon aboard a
ship. In 1911, they had started a floating cannery on an old
sailing ship, the Glory of the Seas.
The new venture of 1911 proved very successful, so the
company towed the Glory of the Seas to the West Coast of
Prince of Wales Island. In 1912, the high cost of fish and the
subsequent low market price for canned salmon reversed the
company's 1911 results. As a consequence, the machinery from
the Glory of the Seas was transferred to the cannery at
Waterfall.
Waterfall Cannery, from that time, began its climb toward
becoming the largest, most efficient cannery on the West Coast
of Prince of Wales Island. Johnstone and King and their Alaska
Fish Company continued their innovative ideas. The company
purchased a can-making machine in conjunction with another
company for the 1914 season. Johnstone planned to transport
the equipment to Waterfall, make the year's cans, and move the
machinery by company seine boat to another cannery. This plan
apparently did not work, because the company still had crews
making cans in 1923.
Johnstone was not the only creative thinker in Alaska Fish
Company. His partner, Fremont King, came up with a scheme to
improve communications between the remote cannery and
Ketchikan. At a time when few boats carried wireless radios,
King purchased in Seattle a number of carrier pigeons, sending
half to Waterfall. King explained his communications system to
a Ketchikan newspaper like this: "During the summer, the
operating of the company boats on leaving Ketchikan or
Waterfall will have one of these pigeons as a passenger. In
case anything goes wrong on board, the aerial mail carrier
will be released, and in less than one hour it will be known
at either the plant or in Ketchikan, depending from which
place the boat started.¹" Descendents of these
pigeons may well be perched on Tongass Trading Company
building in Ketchikan today!²
¹Footnotes:
Progressive Miner, Ketchikan, March 4, 1916, p.1.
²Johnstone started Tongass Trading Company in 1900
in Ketchikan. |
Mild curing of king salmon began to play a big part in the
salmon industry around 1913. Mild curing meant that salmon
were put up in lightweight brine. New York City and European
markets purchased mild cure salmon, which was later smoked.
Waterfall was conveniently located near the king salmon
fishery, and in 1913 a mild cure plant was built there by
Engelbr Weise, Inc., the leading company engaged in Alaska's
mild cure business. Over 2,000 tierces, the largest of the
company's plants, were put up that year. One day 70 tierces
were processed.³
³Footnote: Mild
cure salmon were placed in stout casks of fir or spruce bound
with galvanized rings. Each held 800 pounds of clean fish, but
with the brine, the tierce weighed over 1,100 to 1,220 pounds.
The European war began to affect the mild cure market about
1915. As the war continued, the chief market, Germany,
declined. Engelbr Weise, Inc., dissolved in the spring of
1916, and its business was transferred to Pacific Mild Cure
Company. This company continued to operate the Waterfall mild
cure plant, but the market was very unstable. Pacific Mild
Cure Company, with eight Alaskan plants including Waterfall,
withdrew from the industry in 1920. Mild curing at Waterfall
ceased.
The year 1920 saw not only the closure of Waterfall's mild
cure business but also the closure of the cannery. Johnstone's
partner, Fremont King, passed away and Johnstone turned his
attention to settling their business relationships. The
cannery did not reopen in 1921, in a large part due to
unsatisfactory markets.
After the end of World War I, the outlook brightened. In
1922, Alaska Fish Company reopened with W.E. Epperson in
charge. Epperson had been with the company since the days of
the Glory of the Seas and served as corporate secretary as
well as cannery superintendent.
A major change occurred at Waterfall Cannery at the end of
the 1923 season. This independently operated cannery was sold
to a major national corporation, Atlantic and Pacific Tea
Company, which owned a chain of grocery outlets, the A & P
Stores. Included in the purchase were the company store, the
outlet for the Standard Oil Company, the floating equipment,
the cannery tender Frederick C., and smaller tenders Slavin
and Seaketch as well as scows and a piledriver. The A & P
Products Company organized Nakat Packing Corporation, a
subsidiary company, in 1925 to operate its salmon operations
in Alaska. The cannery at Waterfall was operated by Nakat for
the next 43 years.
It was the new corporation that changed the method of salmon
harvest at Waterfall Cannery to floating traps. The cannery
had not always been dependent upon traps for their fish.
During the Alaska Fish Company operations, the majority of the
salmon were taken by seine. Only one pile trap at the mouth of
Klawak Inlet was originally used to capture fish. Later, an
additional pile trap was driven at Sukkwan Narrows, south of
Waterfall. Most salmon canneries had depended upon independent
gillnet and seine fisherman until 1912, the year of a major
fishermen's strike. Traps, particularly the efficient floating
traps, made the cannery men independent of the whims of
fisherman. By 1928, Nakat Packing Corporation operated ten
floating fish traps, and the number stabilized at nine traps
in subsequent years. |
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A major expansion of the cannery complex began in 1932. Many
of the present buildings at Waterfall were constructed during
the next eight years of the 1930's. A big warehouse designed
by George E. Brown of Ketchikan was constructed in 1932 by
A.W. Hansen and N. Nussbaumer of Wrangell. The lumber and
shingles came from the Wrangell Lumber and Box Company. A
large marineway was built in 1933, and an oil dock was erected
on piles in 1934 to serve as a tank platform for storage of
oil drums. A new cable house was also added to provide storage
for webbing and trap cables.
The company also built four new company seine boats and the
tender Quaker Maid in 1935. One of the highlights of this
upgraded cannery was a new fish house which embodied the
latest ideas for rapid, careful and sanitary handling of fish.
During the fall of 1936 and spring of 1937, the main
building which housed the canning lines was completely
rebuilt. Five separate lines of canning equipment for
one-pound cans as well as one for half-pound cans were set up
within the building. Each line world be run separately.
An interesting feature of Nakat's new Waterfall Cannery was
the installation of a casing-labeling machine, the first
complete installation of its type in Alaska. The cooler tray
unleader was the first of the Standard Knapp Model to be
installed in a salmon cannery.
Additional outbuildings were built, including another
two-story store and office building with living quarters above
for the bookkeeper, foreman and office help, plus a new
machine shop and storage room. Other new construction included
a mess hall and bunkhouse for the inside hands and another for
the mechanics and other help. Overhead passages were enclosed
between the cannery loft and both warehouses. A new dam and
new power lines throughout the plant completed the major
expansion program.
When finished, the cannery and outbuildings were considered
the finest in Southeast Alaska and cost the company nearly
$145,000. Other additions were made between 1937 and 1940,
including 15 native cabins. It was necessary to replace 1,200
feet of 10-inch wood stave pipe with new wood pipe between the
dam in Waterfall Creek to the cannery.
By the 1930's, Waterfall Cannery was recognized to be one of
the big producing plants in Alaska. It put up over 220,000
cases in 1936, which was believed to be at that time an
all-time record for any single cannery. ¹
¹Footnote:
Pacific Fisherman, October, 1936. A case of salmon was 48
one-pound cans. |
The pack of Waterfall Cannery from the very beginning
consisted largely of pink salmon. During the first five years
of Alaska Fish Company's operations, the pink salmon pack was
just over half of its total pack.¹ By the 1930's, it was
a little over three-quarters pink salmon.²
¹Footnotes:
1912-1917: 57% pink salmon, 24% chum, 6% sockeye, 6% king, 7%
coho.
²1930-1940: 77% pink salmon, 13% chum, 5% sockeye,
0% king, 5% coho.
Then came the war years. The outstanding factor affecting
the fisheries occurred from 1943 to 1945 when, by orders of
the Secretary of the Interior, only certain plants could
operate. Only a relatively few of the more efficient plants
were allowed to operate, using a minimum amount of critical
material, manpower, and shipping facilities. Nakat's Waterfall
Cannery was designated to operate during the war years. In
1946, the salmon canning industry resumed operation as normal.
About this time, 1945-1946, Nakat Packing Corporation tried
freezing fish on an experimental, non-commercial basis. The
products were sent to the A & P Stores laboratory at its
Boston fish warehouse for examination and observation. Local
troll fish were used for a fillet and package process as a
pre-seining season experiment. The output in 1946 was 80
percent coho salmon, with the remainder halibut and lingcod¹.
For some reason, the freezing operation was dropped after the
1946 season.
¹Footnote: 2%
lingcod
The cannery at Waterfall continued to pack salmon each year
until 1970 except for one season in the early 1960's. Nakat
Packing Corporation disposed of its salmon canneries in
Southeast Alaska, including the Waterfall Cannery, to New
England Fish Company in 1968. By this time, the nature of
salmon harvest had changed considerably. The big runs of the
1930's and 1940's were over. With statehood came the
abolishment of the floating salmon trap. Canneries, such as
Waterfall, had to depend upon seine-caught salmon. Seine
fishermen were under heavy regulations by the Alaska
Department of Fish and Game.
Then in 1971, fish processors and fishermen were advised
that the predicted return of pink salmon was less than needed
for escapement into spawning streams. The season would be
opened if there was sufficient escapement. Processors,
including New England Fish Company, decided it was too risky
to gear up for a pack. Waterfall Cannery was not opened. |
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