When and by whom salmon were first discovered in the waters of the north Pacific is unknown, but some hundred years ago the white man became commercially conscious of these slippery, shiny swimming “nuggets of gold.” When a fisherman pulled a handsome king salmon out of the Sacramento River in the days of the California grandees he did not know he had started what has grown to be one of the big industries of our western empire.
It is a far cry from the days when the little brig May Dacre loaded salted salmon for the east coast of the United States, and sailed out from the Columbia River for Cape Horn, to the present day when huge cargo carriers load their thousands of cases of canned salmon at Seattle or Bellingham or Portland, and clear for the Panama Canal, New York, Liverpool and way Ports, in a scheme of transportation as sure and as fast as man can make modern steamships.
Observe the wide field of the salmon fisheries of the west today. Begin at the Columbia River, survey the coast from Port to port—Puget Sound, British Colombia, Southeast Alaska, out beyond Cape Spencer, to Kodiak Island, around the extremities of the Alaskan peninsula up into the chilly water of Bristol Bay. Very few miles can one travel along this stretch without meeting evidences of the salmon trade a smoking cannery, a row of trap Piles, tows of barges in season, a sea full of small fishing boats off the heads. But his is a narrative not of the salmon industry but of a trip in one of the old-fashioned salmon packets that are now gone from the seas.
One day before the beginning of the World War I sat on the stump of a rotting piece of a mast down around pier 23 in San Francisco, watching a tug push an old wooden vessel up to the dock, the full- rigged ship Standard. I was green, but bravely went on board, asked for the mate, asked for a job. He looked me over, referred me to the steward, a huge fat German who panted and talked endlessly. In five minutes I was carrying supplies from shore to ship. All around me was commotion. Chinamen, Mexicans, ragged whites, negroes were hurrying back and forth across the deck with bundles of clothing, mattresses and blankets—a motley lot, talking in a wild gibberish. Longshoremen ran the winches, sending bales and boxes without surcease down into the gullet of the ship whose hatches yawned for more. There were bales of sheet tin, lumber, coal —all the needed supplies for a salmon cannery’s seasonal work. Sailors were clambering aloft finishing off some job in the rigging, reeving a clew line or furling the sails after bending, all the preparations for the sailing day.
When sailing day came I had no bedding, a private matter with the man who went to sea in that type of ship, as the company was not furnishing any. With the aid of the steward I got enough advance credit from some bloodhound of a dealer to buy a “donkey’s breakfast” or cheap straw mattress, a light cotton-goods blanket, a pillow and that was all.
The China gang (a hundred or more Chinese, Mexicans, Portuguese, Malays, negroes, and a few forlorn whites) was herded aboard when the tug at last hauled the Standard away from the dock into the stream for anchorage. They were not allowed ashore again. But none cared. Each had his advance money, and down in the forepeak had begun a gambling spree of poker and blackjack and odd oriental games which was to last for forty days. The fishermen boarded us in the stream from a tug. Most of them were drunk— sixty wild Finns from Astoria, Oregon. Each of them had a bag full of gear and clothes and most of them had a demijohn of whiskey hidden in his bag. More than 200 men sailed in the Standard that year. Those who were not fishermen or belonged to the China gang or cannery workers were mechanics, cooks, and helpers, the beach gang and ship’s officers and officials of the company.
The China gang was quartered forward in the forepeak. This was the forehold extended to the stem of the vessel, reached only through a single companion hatch which opened up through the main deck under the forecastlehead. Bunks ranged in tiers in this smudgy place, along the ship’s sides and in rows amidship, three high—as vile a hole as the dungeon of a slaver. Those who could not find bunks curled up on deck and in what nooks and comers they could find between the gamblers and piles of luggage. A watchman was stationed night and day down in the middle of this mess to keep order and prevent fires and murder. Beyond that the members of the gang were allowed freedom to do as they pleased.
The fishermen berthed in one huge compartment or deckhouse built on the main deck, covering the area between the main and the mizzenmasts. The steward, his cook, and helper slept in a single room forward of the galley. The galley, typical of sailing vessels, extended across the forward house, a door opening on either side, so that there was always a lee door. Abaft the galley was the donkey-engine room, and next to this a compartment with six bunks in it wherein lived what was known as the beach gang. On each side of this housing were bolted large oblong wooden fresh water tanks, padlocked; at intervals during the day water was issued in limited quantities for drinking and cooking.
Abaft the mainmast stood the ship’s pump. For half an hour out of each four hour watch the watch on deck pumped the bilges—this much did the vessel leak. Then came the fishermen’s quarters. We have now arrived at the heel of the mizzenmast, housed in varnished panels, which we will scratch on the foremost side as we whistle for wind and good luck, as the old captain would say, then open the door and pass into the cabin proper, an elegantly appointed room considering the ship and the trade (the Standard had the blood of the clipper in her soul, had traded round Cape Horn in the early days, and carried passengers). There were rooms for “Mr.” Smith the cannery superintendent and, last, Captain Kissel, master of the vessel. Thus we have peopled the old hulk with men who were to make her a living thing, raked her fore and aft, shall we say, a proper nautical term, though perhaps from the angle of rank and courtesy the captain should have headed the list.
One windy April morning the Standard by the help of her donkey engine got her anchor out of the muddy waters of the bay, catheaded it, fished it, and lashed it to the forecastlehead deck, secure for sea. Two hundred unkempt faces peered down over the bow and from the bulwarks in the waist at the tug which backed in under the jib boom to take our line. The vessel began to skim through the tide rips off Goat Island, the tug paid out more line; Meigg’s wharf, Alcatraz Island, Fort Point came abeam, then seemed to move back from us as we passed. Beyond Mile Rock the swells of the bar began lifting us. The ship had taken new life. The mates began shouting a series of (to me) strange orders about “loose the tops’l,” “tops’l halyards,” haul away, port braces,” “belay,” and a score of other such. The fishermen, who were the sailors of the ship, began climbing aloft, taking stations at the braces, the halyards, the sheets and tacks. Aloft the foretopsail fell loose from the yard, was sheeted home; the jibs, to the tune of many voices and hilarious shouting, rattled up the stays and bellied out in the wind. There was the rattle of blocks, the hum, the chorus of the men, still drunk from the night before; the yards swung round in a mighty arc, carrying the now happing sails with them till they too took the wind, bulging forth in a white surging glory all their own. The Standard was, in fact, close-hauled on the starboard tack, steering a southwesterly course, picking up speed each moment, stiffening and showing added zest as each sail in turn was loosed and took in the fresh breath of the heavens. We were free at last.
The unfathomable joy (or otherwise) of going to sea is a matter of viewpoint. Sea terms, sea atmosphere, sea experience fascinate me. The history of the trade, the episodes of sea life are like facets of a gloriously cut gem. But only if one makes it so. I am aware that the sea and its vagaries may be only drab and nauseous annoyance to others. As a beginner I would stand at the rail with a picture in my kind’s eye of some oilskin-coated ancient Mariner, leaning over some phantom bulwark, and with this as a background contemplate the bounteous spectacle before me of ropes and sails, masts and curving hull and deck, dancing before the wind on the swell always rising.
I think on these occasions I must have annoyed the captain who had been trained in the hard practical school where boys, especially in ships, should always be working, for one day as I gazed in such a mood I felt a tap on the shoulder. The captain handed me a green-coated bulkhead lamp. ‘Clean it,” he growled.
There was a certain entrancement for a boy in the stinking, fog-smoked forepeak among the China gang, though the ship was a week out of San Francisco before I could stand the odors enough to go below and watch the life that was down there. Dim lanterns cast their rays about, now and then fluttering on the yellow cheek of some gaunt Oriental, the uncombed head of some greasy Mexican, or an occasional countenance of an Anglo-Saxon who looked and acted like a strange animal in an unknown jungle. In small groups the men clustered in corners and passageways, a candle sometimes to help the insufficient lanterns. There was the clatter of dice, snap of fingers, the rattle of the bones on the wooden decks, the sharp clipped words of disappointment or anger. There were groups where cards were the medium, blackjack, poker. There were young men and ancient Asiatics. Many of these oldsters had traveled for years to the salmon grounds. They were old and crafty gamblers. Silently they squatted or lay in the corners of the hold, gaming without ceasing day after day, night after night, seldom speaking except to promote the game, never moving except with their hands to deal the cards. Meal time came and passed. The Chinese cook from above screamed his weird “Chow-Low!” They stirred not. But though night followed day and day night the glory of the heavens above saw them not—only the glum smoking light of the smelly hole and the tense feeling of the game was theirs.
One morning we saw Smoky Moses (Mount Sheshaldin) and Ragged Jack standing coldly snowcapped above the low clouds on the horizon, the entrance to Unimak Pass and the Bering Sea. On one side lay Unimak Island, on the other Ugamak Island. Between the two we shaped our course, sailing on. Running into a calm belt, the sails fell flat. As we lay helpless we saw other ships sail up from the southward, briskly before a smart breeze till they ran into the calm spot when their canvas fell useless—till we had thirteen square-rigged sailing vessels within a small area, wallowing around, waiting for the wind to change. The current set the little bark Emily Whitney down on us, and only by hauling the yards could we avoid running afoul of each other. At last a breeze puffed up from the eastward. We could see it take the sails of the more distant vessels. Soon the water began to ripple near the Standard, the wind caught our sails, the wheelman began to con the vessel as it sluggishly fell off before the light airs. It freshened, we gathered way, faster, faster.
“Brace her up a little, Mr. Larson,” from the captain.
The rattle of blocks, the shouting of men, the clatter of running feet, the plump of the coils of rope as they hit the deck, thrown off the pins by eager men. A joyous feeling; we were going through the pass, in an hour we would be in the Bering Sea.
Three days later was a lazy Sunday. The fishermen had been celebrating all day. We were approaching the fishing grounds. Forty days had built up deep feelings and moods. There was whiskey on board, plenty of it, from the interior of those gear bags. Now came one Hjalmer, fisherman, stumbling up on the poop deck, to confront the scowling captain. Song was in Hjalmer’s heart, but the bottle made his approach blunt.
“Captain, you’re running in too close. Better stay off.”
“H’mph, what do you know about it?”
Hjalmer stiffened. What did he know? He had fished many years in Alaska. He knew the lay of the land. He said:
“See that dark streak, Captain? That’s the land. See this water-muddy. It’s shoaly. I know. I’ve fished off here. You’re running in too close, Captain. Stay off the land.”
“Get forward. You are a fisherman. I will navigate the ship.”
Hjalmer spun on his heel and swayed forward. That was at 2:00 p.m. At 5:00 p.m. the Standard hooked her keel on the shoal which makes off from Cape Constantine and sent 200 men into a panic. Imagine 200 desperate men suddenly struck with the idea that the ship they were in was in danger of breaking up, land 20 miles away, night coming on, wind uncertain. Each swell lifted the Standard and let her fall with a thump on the bottom. The wheelman held manfully to the wheel. The mate dashed here, there, everywhere, shouting. The captain stumbled up out of the cabin hatch. The sails were clewed up, the pressure taken off the masts. The China gang clustered in a chattering mass forward. A few tried to help the fishermen, till they had to be driven out of the way. The shoe of the keel was ripped off as we skidded over the shoal and drifted away. Finally we emerged into deep water. Down went our anchor after much noisy preparation and we swung safely in deep water again. Our seams had been badly sprung. Two feet of water filled the holds. All night the pumps were kept going. And thus we lay till next day when a boat was sent up the river and arrangements made for a tug to come down and get the Standard.
Life at the Nushigak cannery in Bristol Bay was hardly comparable with the ship life we had lately experienced. The captain who had been lord of the ship stepped ashore to the lowly status of boss of the beach gang, in charge of renovating the dock piling, driving a few spikes, moving lighters, launching the two little tugboats the company had hauled out for the winter. Sneaky Tigerson, the third mate, a mere fisherman, became the captain of the larger of the two tugs, and while towing barges around the river during the summer was in the strange position of giving orders to the captain standing on the slippery deck of a fish barge.
Fires were started in the musty boilers of the cannery which had been cold all winter. Machinery was overhauled, oiled, started up with wheezing groans, and when at last running smoothly began the making of cans for the summer catch. Fishermen in busy gangs became stevedores, lightering supplies from ship to shore. The Standard had been towed up the river to safe anchorage. Gangs turned to on the fish nets, overhauling, mending, preparing them for the season. Boats, housed in long sheds (30 of them), were now hauled out and launched, masted, rigged, and made ready. They were 30-foot Columbia River salmon boats, each manned by two men, fitted with sails and oars. They would supply all the fish for the 4-line cannery.
When the salmon began to run in June all was ready. Out went the boats, carrying their two men each and long shackles of drift nets. They stayed out for two to four days at a time, coming in only to get food supplies. Each boat had a little coal-oil stove on which the simplest cooking was done by the fishermen while they labored. As each boat was filled its cargo was taken to the barges anchored in the river far down from the cannery, the barges to be towed to the cannery when filled, twenty or thirty miles away from the cannery the fishermen ranged at will; keen they became in finding out where the salmon ran thickest. Paid according to their catch, the more they worked the greater their stake at the end of the season. Sleep, food, rest, dry clothes—these were things which could come afterwards. Time was precious. The season was limited.
The fish began coming in to the cannery—a few at first—the king salmon, monstrous ones, then the silvers; then they got down to the major catch of the season— the reds, the pinks, the lowly dog salmon, the humpbacks. The Chinese butchers struggled bravely in the blood; the can fillers chattered and hurried; the steaming retorts began receiving their precious trays for the cooking of the fish. Other canneries operated near-by in the river and their boats mingled with ours, hundreds of small boats off on the sky line pulling and sailing as the quest for the wily shimmering salmon went on. Winds rose high at times and boats were overturned. Three men were drowned, but this was no deterrent to the others.
In the beach gang I climbed aboard the barges to pitch fish, standing waist deep in fish and slime, covered from the head down. I was thrilled to leap about the barges, to be shouted at in true sailor fashion. I worked with the captain. He knew how to handle a ship at sea, but he had never seen a cannery in operation before, and if I learned a lot from him, he learned a lot from the old-timers around him. But he gave the orders. As long as the fishermen brought in the fish we had to handle them. Some days the work ran till midnight. Sometimes we worked all night during the heat of the fish running season. Sleep and rest, as with the fishermen, could come later. It was wholesome, whole-hearted, vigorous adventure.
We had our diversions. One day a smart vessel stood up the river, bowsprit shining, yards squared, sails hanging in the bunts, while sailors in bright uniforms lay aloft making fast. It was the revenue cutter Thetis. On board it came the United States traveling district court of Alaska. The winter before a murder had been committed in the hinterland. Months later now had come this court to try the accused. The next day Red Donovan, one of our beach gang, himself an old revenue cutter man, was called for jury duty—a fisherman could not be spared. From each of the canneries came others. Thus a jury was gathered in this wilderness to try a man for a capital offense. What matter if Red himself was an Oakland wine bum, with a record as wild as a shiftless life could make, and the mentality of a sot. Sobered up and cleaned up, shaved and full of good food, plenty of bully beef, he was as good a prospect as many a professional talesman such as hang around the courts.
We visited the slatternly Aleutian village of Ekock on the bluff, whose men came down to work at the cannery during the salmon run to get a pittance to tide them over the next winter. It was a welcome help to them, for their meager ivory carvings, fox skins, mucklucks, and gewgaws which they sold to the white man were not enough. The old chief of the village died one day from a combination of age, disease, starvation, and filth. On a sleigh hauled by husky dogs, the body was paraded through the village to the little Russian Orthodox church; the natives gathered round, chanted the Catholic rites, then bore away their burden to the tiny graveyard on the hillside, where it might lie beneath the little double cross.
When some of us visited the village, pried around, finally entered the church, we beheld one of the China gang, a Mexican, a man who had cut one of his shipmates in a knife squabble, now genuflect, fall reverently to his knees, and murmur his plaintive devotions. Verily the spirit of the place had more to it than the dirty walls, tottering ikons, and putrid air.
We saw the vicious husky dogs in their element; saw a mother husky stand off the whole pack which sought, beastlike, to kill and eat her pups. We saw this same pack a few moments later turn and tear to shreds the pet bulldog of the China boss, which had nosed around them in their fierce gyrations, wholly unaware of their tactics, pitifully in their merciless power. We saw hungry huskies steal cans of salmon from the cannery warehouse, sneak with them behind a ridge, tear off the tops of the cans with their fangs to get at the tasty contents.
We got to know old Captain Nelson, the winter watchman at the cannery, a squawman who had not been off the cannery site for 14 years. We were to take him out with us in the fall. But not before he took his ancient pet, a toothless husky, led him behind the shed and shot him when sailing day rolled around. A fine sentiment not to leave the poor beast to starve or be chewed to pieces by the other dogs. To his squaw Nelson only grunted, and walked away down to the landing and boarded the boat which was to take him off to the Standard. In a few short months the strenuous life of the city brought him low, sent his spirit over the hill to join that of his dog.
There comes an end to all things. The salmon ceased to run. The fishermen returned with their nets. The Standard all through the summer had been the object of controversy among the fishermen, for they had fears of the vessel’s seaworthiness. The masts had been reported started, the seams spread from the grounding in the spring. A survey party, with a fishermen’s representative, examined the ship, reported her seaworthy, and the fishermen were then told to go in the Standard or stay behind, just as they pleased. When their bluff was called they hauled in their booms, so to speak. Now the steward had been no favorite of the fishermen, and they threatened to take their spite out on him, blaming their resentment on poor food. That was enough for the fat German. How he got home I do not know. Certainly he did not come with us.
At last the 40,000 cases of salmon, the seasonal catch, were aboard. The tugs were hauled out on the ways, the cannery closed, fires put out; we, a most joyful mob, embarked again for the homeward voyage. The home-coming, the most joyous of days, the city’s lights and life, the pay off, the separation from friends and shipmates one has been with for six months—
“Meetings are only partings, friend.”
Our first meetings are the most sensitive, our first partings the most painful; our first voyage to sea seems always to be the most tenderly remembered, though rough it be. A little of the edge wears off at each succeeding trip. It is the hardening effect of experience.
The salmon fisheries bred a horde of yarn spinners excelled by no other crew of men who ever put to sea. The men were recruited from the far places of the world, and on the passages to and from the salmon grounds they had ample, time to tell their tales. The old-timers would regale us youngsters with general tales of the sea and of the salmon trade, some true, some fictitious, as varied as the imagination of man. There was the tale of the Chinaman who had died on the way home to San Francisco from the north. Preparation was made for the burial of the body at sea. A couple of yards of an old sail sewn around the body, a few chunks of coal or an old piece of iron in the foot of the package to make it sink, was all that was ceded for such an occasion. But the Chinaman’s friends objected. Their friend must have a real burial and San Francisco was the nearest place it could be had. But how? It was 2,000 miles away, many sailing days, urged the captain. The Chinamen said they would “fix him.” And they did. They asked for a barrel and plenty of salt. They rammed the dead Chinaman into the barrel, doubled him up to make him fit, poured a strong solution of brine over him, headed up the barrel, lashed it to the bulkhead forward, and thereafter went unexpressively about their business for the rest of the passage, but I have no doubt happy because their friend was going to get a suitable and proper burial.
On another occasion a Chinaman had died at the cannery at Nushagak. He had been buried on a green knoll with all the ceremony and fixings his shipmates could give him. Each night thereafter they would deposit a glass of wine and a plate of cakes on the grave. Each night the Westerners would steal and drink the wine and throw the cake away. In the morning the Chinese would come, find their cake gone and under the assumption the dead man had come back after it, put more there the next night. But night after night of this was too much. When they caught the thieves red-handed one night, they let up a shriek to the high heavens and thereafter the wine was placed on the grave no more.
Was there danger in those voyages of the salmon ships? Still fresh in the minds of the fishermen was the wrecking of the ship Star of Bengal in 1907. The season’s pack was aboard, the tug had her in tow, headed out through the narrows from southeastern Alaska when the towline parted. Wind and sea swept the unfortunate vessel toward the land, rolled it through the breakers on a lee shore, there to break up. Gear, salmon cases, human beings came tumbling in through the surf —127 men perished in that unfortunate affair.
The toll in life and ships ran high among the salmon packets and those who sailed in them. There was the case of the Oneida in the nineties. One dark night in one of those gales that sweep the northern Pacific in the spring, this vessel was blown down on Sannak Island, as it approached Unimak Pass. A long reef makes out far from the island on which the vessel soon beat itself to pieces. Commotion, shouted orders, wailing Chinamen—we had experienced the same thing in the Standard. But unlike the case of the Standard the Oneida never slid on over the shoal. When the count was made next day more than 77 men were gone, most of them from the China gang. Their drowning was largely their own fault, said the survivors. For instead of unnesting the dories which were piled on deck for lifeboats, they threw them overboard, and the boats stuck together, cheating many a man of his chance to be saved. Good seamen would have pulled them apart, used them, saved themselves.
The ship John Currier stranded near Port Moler August, 1907, leaving her crew desolate on that distant beach till rescued by a revenue cutter. Indeed, the Standard struck the shoal off Cape Constantine again in 1915, got off a second time. But in 1917 it struck a third time—and remained there to break up. The Berlin of the Portland Packers also stranded and broke up in 1917 in lower Bristol Bay. The ship St. Francis, one of the largest of the salmon packets, got becalmed in the middle of Unimak Pass, drifted ashore near Scotch Cap, a total loss.
These are a few of a countless list which extends back to the days when first the packets took to the seas. The last to go of the salmon ships that were of sail was the Star of Falkland. This vessel had negotiated Unimak Pass in 1928 and stretched out on the long westerly tack the vessels made before hauling to the eastward up into Bristol Bay. Suddenly when Akun Head loomed up it was too late to wear away from it and the ship would not come up into the wind. The crash, the clattering gear, the falling spars, the shouting madmen followed. There were 328 people on board at the time. The anchors had gone down and the boats cleared away, such as there were of them, amid much confusion. But in this day of radio half a dozen steamers soon had the news of the disaster and stood to the rescue. Here and there the boats were picked up, drifting over the sea, and luckily no lives were lost. Today the rusting iron work of a once proud ship lies forlornly where gales and winter ice make havoc.
In 1923 the Coast Guard cutter Ilaida lay up to the lee quarter of the ship Star of Finland running by the wind in the middle of Unimak Pass. It was spring- The salmon ships were headed for Bering Sea again. We in the cutter would watch them through. Less than 10 miles away lay the rotting ribs of the old St. Francis- The captain of the packet was waving at us. Would we send a boat and a doctor? When the comparatively tidy looking boat crew climbed up over the high bulwark of the sailing ship only bewhiskered faces greeted us, dirty, unkempt decks, and grimy quarters. The ship had been out of San Francisco over a month. Three days before one of the fishermen had gone mad. He had run wildly around the deck shooting at everybody in sight and had shot his boat partner through the belly. When finally the others cornered him he crawled into the firebox of the donkey boiler and blew his brains out. They buried him at sea. The wounded man we took aboard the Haida for hospitalization.
The sailing ships go no more to the salmon grounds. Steamers have taken their places. The men live in accord with a more modern era, have contact with the world. More vessels and better ones ply the waters of Bristol Bay and the vicinity, and if a man is murdered or another goes crazy or gets sick, there soon will be a ship en route to help. If not a ship of the sea then a ship of the air. Some summers the United States marshal would go into the salmon country and bring away half a dozen crazy men—men gone mad from the desolation. I doubt if they crack as often in these later days as in times gone by. Through the years the toil has been long and hard, the price heavy. I wonder if the person who shears off the top of a salmon can and dumps the tasty bits on a dish knows the price that has been paid?