told that the communication is “confidential” but
that the “party” is the Grand Trunk Railroad.
We cannot believe that this railroad subsid
ized by the Canadian Government would write
confidential letters plotting the closing of a Ca
nadian seaport!
THE COW
Alaska in her relation to Seattle is the joint
owner of a fine milch cow We own the front
half and Seattle owns the back half. The milking
is done in Seattle.
Whenever Seattle thinks that we are almost
starved, she kindly shoots one squirt of milk at
at our mouth, and if we miss it, we are told that it
is our own fault.
The worst of this ownership is the fact that
we are compelled to feed our half of the cow. In
overcoming our resistance, Seattle has the sup
port of the federal governor, the Bureau of Fish
eries, the Bureau of Forestry, and virtually all
the federal employees, ail the public press, ex
cept the Petersburg ALASKAN and The ALASKA
FISHERMAN. Even the commercial clubs assist
Seattle.
The Tragedy of the Sockeye
(Canadian F\sherman)
The sockeye salmon fishery
of the Fraser River System was
once the most productive sal
mon fishery in which Canadian
and American fishermen engag
ed. No other salmon fishery
was so speedily developed. No
other reached such wealth of
production. No other was so
speedily destroyed. No other af
fords so promising a field for
exploitation. The restoration
of that fishery is the greatest
reclamation project in which
Canada and the United States
can jointly engage.
History Deplorable
The history of the develop
ment and the destruction of the
sockeye salmon fishery of the
Fraser River System is one of
the most calamitous fish stories
ever told. Notwithstanding that
the story is hackneyed no ver
sion of it has appeared in the
Proceedings of the American
Fisheries Society. It is the pur
pose of this paper to fill that
void.
“Term Fraser River’’
The sockeye fishery of the
Fraser River System was and is
an international fishery. The
By JOHN PEASE BABCOCK
Chairman. International Fish
eries Commission)
term Fraser River System in
cludes ail the waters in British
Columbia and the State of
Washington which are frequent
ed by sockeye salmon. The term
Fraser River System includes all
the waters of Juan de Fuca. Ro
sario and Haro Straits, the Gulf
of Georgia, and the Channels
of the Fraser River frequented
by sockeye salmon in their mi
grations.
The history of the sockeye
fishery of the Fraser River Sys
tem has been faithfully record
ed. The records of no other
fishery are as complete.
The Annual Reports of the
British Columbia Fisheries De
partment since 1901 and those
of the three International Com
missions w h i c h investigated
conditions in 1905, 1903 and
1918, demonstrate that the sock
eye salmon that formerly fre
quented the waters of the Fras
er River System in vast num
bers were hatched in the Fraser
River watershed in B. C., lived
for their first year or more in
its lake waters, then migrated
to sea where they remained un
til the summer of the fourth
year and then sought to return
through Canada and the United
States waters to that river to
spawn, and after spawning died.
“No Counter-part”
Because all the sockeye
caught in the Fraser River Sys
tem have been canned the pack
records afford a n accurate
measure of abundance. The
outstanding fact in the pack re
cords, other than that of de
pletion, is the former four-year
periodicity in abundance. From
the beginning up to and includ
ing 1913, the pack records show
an astonishingly large pack ev
ery fourth year—known as “the
big year,” and relatively small
packs in each of the three fol
lowing years—known as “the
small years,”—a condition that
had no counterpart in any oth
er waters. The Periodicity in
abundance is made plain by re
ference to the packs in the “big
years” and in the small years.
In the big years of 1897, 1901,
1905, 1909 and 1903 the pack
averaged 1,777,585 cases. The
packs in small years in the peri