In his report on the resources of Alaska, Major Mm. Governeur Morris writes: “Sixty thousand Indians and several thousand Aleuts and Esquimaux depend for the most part upon dried salmon for their winter sustenance.”
The Hon. Wm. S. Hodge, formerly Mayor of Sitka, states in an official report: “And additional testimony comes to us from numerous persons, that at Cook’s Inlet the salmon average in weight sixty pounds, and some of them reach a weight of one hundred and twenty pounds, and Mr. T. G. Murphy only last week brought down from there on the Newbern a barrel full, containing only four fish.” Surgeon Thomas T. Minor, who some years ago visited Cook’s Inlet, in connection with business of the Smithsonian Institution, makes statements which confirm the foregoing.
In the vicinity of Klawaek a cannery is established. A catch of seven thousand fish at one haul of the seines is not unusual, many weighing over forty pounds.
Mr. Frederick Whymper, artist to the Russian Overland Telegraph Expedition, says in his well-written and interesting account of his adventures: “The Yukon salmon is by no means to be despised. One large variety is so rich that there is no necessity when frying it to put fat in the pan. The fish sometimes measure five feet in length, and I have seen boats whose sides were made of the tough skin.”
And a writer who, if disposed to strain the truth would not do so to say anything in favor of Alaska, says in an article in Harper’s Magazine, Vol. LV. page 815: “The number of spawning fish that ascend the Yukon every June or July is something fabulous.... It would appear reasonable to anticipate, therefore, the adoption by our fishermen of some machinery by which they can visit the Yukon when the salmon begin to run, and while they ascend the river catch a million pounds a day, for the raw material is there, of the largest size, the finest flavor, and the greatest number known to any stream in the world.’”
My general views about Alaska differ widely from those of the writer, but on the salmon question, I indorse all I have quoted, excepting only the word flavor.
I do not think the Alaska salmon equal in this respect to those of the Atlantic coast, and far behind those of the Rhine; they are, however, superior to those of the Columbia River.
In speaking of the salmon, I find I have omitted to mention that in early spring, before the arrival of the salmon trout, and after their departure in fall, great quantities of fingerling salmon pervaded the streams, and bit eagerly at any kind of meat bait.
While the spectabilis were present, these little fellows kept out of sight and notice.
Since the body of this paper was written there has been on exhibition by Mr. Blackford, of Fulton Market, Yew York, a number of trout, pronounced to be the salmo irideus, one of which, weighing fifteen pounds, was sent to the Smithsonian Institution, and there identified by Professor Bean as being “Salmo gardneri, the great trout of Edgecomb Lake.”