It is told that the cannery was built at the small Native village of Kanulik across the Nushagak River from present day Dillingham. The first commercial pack of canned sockeye produced by the cannery was only about 400 cases of 48 one-pound cans per case (about 6,000 salmon). A meager beginning for what would eventually become the world’s most productive wild salmon fishery. Trading and Packing Company purchased a saltery at Klawock and transformed it into Alaska’s first cannery. Salmon is probably Alaska’s oldest commercial export, produced now for more than 130 years.
In its second year operation the Kanulik cannery produced 16,000 cases and peaked in 1900 with 65,000 cases. However, the Nushagak River was changing course and silt accumulation at the site probably made continued operation impractical. Although the cannery built at Kanulik had a relatively short life, it foreshadowed great change for Bristol Bay.
Bristol Bay commercial fishing boomed in the first decade of the 20th century. The total pack for 1901 was 719,643 cases and by 1910 the Bay pack was 914,138 cases comprising about 40 percent of the total Alaska canned salmon pack for that year. It is said that the new canneries imported hundreds of people into the region for the short summer fishing season. European blood, primarily from Scandinavian fishermen, began to mix with the blood of Yup’ik, Alutiiq and Athabascan peoples.
One of the most curious and enduring regulations imposed on the Bristol Bay commercial fishery was a mandate that salmon could only be harvested from sailboats. However, the canneries were concerned that allowing fishermen to use their own power boats would diminish cannery dominance over fishermen. This sailboat mandate was promoted as a “conservation measure” to protect the salmon but was clearly designed to keep fishermen under the thumb of the canning industry.
Despite issues and controversies that remain over the future of commercial fishing in Bristol Bay, Alaskan’s have much to be proud of looking back after 50 years of statehood.
