Yet up this tiny water-way millions of salmon struggle every season to the spawning-grounds in Karluk Lake. Before the coming of canners with traps and gill-nets in 1884, it is said that a solid mass of fish might be seen filling this stream from bank to bank, and from its mouth to the lake in the hills.
In 1890 the largest cannery in the world was located in Karluk Bay, but now that distinction belongs to Bristol Bay, north of the Aliaska Peninsula. (Another "largest in the world" is on Puget Sound!)
Karluk Bay is very small; but several canneries are on its shores, and when they are all in operation, the employees are sufficient in number to make one of the largest towns in Alaska. In 1890 three millions of salmon were packed in the several canneries operating in the bay; in 1900 more than two millions in the two canneries then operating; but, on account of the use of traps and gill-nets, the pack has greatly decreased since then, and during some seasons has proved a total failure.
Fifteen years ago two-thirds of the entire Alaskan salmon pack were furnished by the ten canneries of Kadiak Island, and these secured almost their entire supply from Karluk River. Furthermore, at that time, the canners enjoyed their vast monopoly without tax, license, or any government interference.
Immense fortunes have been made—and lost—in the fish industry during the last twenty years.
The superintendents of these canneries always live luxuriously, and entertain like princes—or Baranoff. Their comfortable houses are furnished with all modern luxuries,—elegant furniture, pianos, hot and cold water, electric baths. Perfectly trained, noiseless Chinamen glide around the table, where dinners of ten or twelve delicate courses are served, with a different wine for each course.
Champagne is a part of the hospitality of Alaska. The cheapest is seven dollars and a half a bottle, and Alaskans seldom buy the cheapest of anything.
It was on a soft gray afternoon that the Dora entered Karluk Bay between the two picturesque promontories that plunge boldly out into Shelikoff Straits. It seemed as though all the sea-birds of the world must be gathered there. Our entrance set them afloat from their perches on the rocky cliffs. They filled the air, from shore to shore, like a snow-storm. Their poetic flight and shrill, mournful plaining haunt every memory of Karluk Bay.
Now and then they settled for an instant. A cliff would shine out suddenly—a clear, tremulous white; then, as suddenly, there would be nothing but a sheer height of dark stone veined with green before our bewildered gaze. It was as if a silvery, winged cloud drifted up and down the face of the cliffs and then floated out across the bay.
Several old sailing vessels, or "wind-jammers," lay at anchor. They are used for conveying stores and employees from San Francisco. The many buildings of the canneries give Karluk the appearance of a town—in fact, during the summer, it is a town; while in the winter only a few caretakers of the buildings and property remain.