Our progress up Karluk River in the barge was so leisurely that we
seemed to be "drifting upward with the flood" between the low green
shores that sloped, covered with flowers, to the water. The clouds were
a soft gray, edged with violet, and the air was very sweet.
The hatchery is picturesquely situated.
A tiny rivulet, called Shasta Creek, comes tumbling noisily down from
the hills, and its waters are utilized in the various "ponds."
The first and highest pond they enter is called the "settling" pond,
which receives, also, in one corner, the clear, bubbling waters of a
spring, whose upflow, never ceasing, prevents this corner of the pond
from freezing. This pond is deeper than the others, and receives the
waters of the creek so lightly that the sediment is not disturbed in the
bottom, its function being to permit the sediment carried down from the
creek to settle before the waters pass on into the wooden flume, which
carries part of the overflow into the hatching-house, or on into the
lower ponds, which are used for "ripening" the salmon.
There are about a dozen of these ponds, and they are terraced down the
hill with a fall of from four to six feet between them.
They are rectangular in shape and walled with large stones and cement.
The walls are overgrown with grasses and mosses; and the waters pouring
musically down over them from large wooden troughs suspended
horizontally above them, and whose bottoms are pierced by numerous
augur-holes, produce the effect of a series of gentle and lovely
waterfalls.
It is essential that the fall of the water should be as light and as
soft as possible, that the fish may not be disturbed and
excited--ripening more quickly and perfectly when kept quiet.
These ponds were filled with salmon. Many of them moved slowly and
placidly through the clear waters; others struggled and fought to leap
their barriers in a seemingly passionate and supreme desire to reach the
highest spawning-ground. There is to me something divine in the
desperate struggle of a salmon to reach the natural place for the
propagation of its kind--the shallow, running upper waters of the stream
it chooses to ascend. It cannot be will-power--it can be only a
God-given instinct--that enables it to leap cascades eight feet in
height to accomplish its uncontrollable desire. Notwithstanding all
commercial reasoning and all human needs, it seems to me to be inhumanly
cruel to corral so many millions of salmon every year, to confine them
during the ripening period, and to spawn them by hand.
In the natural method of spawning, the female salmon seeks the upper
waters of the stream, and works out a trough in the gravelly bed by
vigorous movements of her body as she lies on one side. In this trough
her eggs are deposited and are then fertilized by the male.
The eggs are then covered with gravel to a depth of several feet, such
gravel heaps being known as "redds."
To one who has studied the marvellously beautiful instincts of this most
human of fishes, their desperate struggles in the ripening ponds are
pathetic in the extreme; and I was glad to observe that even the
gentlemen of our party frequently turned away with faces full of the
pity of it.
A salmon will struggle until it is but a purple, shapeless mass; it will
fling itself upon the rocks; the over-pouring waters will bear it back
for many yards; then it will gradually recover itself and come plunging
and fighting back to fling itself once more upon the same rocks. Each
time that it is washed away it is weaker, more bruised and discolored.
Battered, bleeding, with fins broken off and eyes beaten out, it still
returns again and again, leaping and flinging itself frenziedly upon the
stone walls.
Its very rush through the water is pathetic, as one remembers it; it is
accompanied by a loud swish and the waters fly out in foam; but its
movements are so swift that only a line of silver--or, alas! frequently
one of purple--is visible through the beaded foam.
Some discoloration takes place naturally when the fish has been in fresh
water for some time; but much of it is due to bruising. A salmon newly
arrived from the sea is called a "clean" salmon, because of its bright
and sparkling appearance and excellent condition.
There is a tramway two or three hundred yards in length, along which one
may walk and view the various ponds. It is used chiefly to convey
stock-fish from the corrals to the upper ripening-ponds.
When ripe fish are to be taken from a pond, the water is lowered to a
depth of about a foot and a half; a kind of slatting is then put into
the water at one end and slidden gently under the fish, which are
examined--the "ripe" ones being placed in a floating car and the "green"
ones freed in the pond. A stripping platform attends every pond, and
upon this the spawning takes place.
The young fish, from one to two years old, before it has gone to sea, is
called by a dozen different names, chief of which are parr and
salmon-fry. At the end of ten weeks after hatching, the fry are fed
tinned salmon flesh,--"do-overs" furnished by the canneries,--which is
thoroughly desiccated and put through a sausage-machine.
When the fry are three or four months old, they are "planted." After
being freed they work their way gradually down to salt-water, which
pushes up into the lagoon, and finally out into the bay. They return
frequently to fresh water and for at least a year work in and out with
the tides.
The majority of fry cling to the fresh-water vicinity for two years
after hatching, at which time they are about eight inches long. The
second spring after hatching they sprout out suddenly in bright and
glistening scales, which conceal the dark markings along their sides
which are known as parr-marks. They are then called "smolt," and are as
adult salmon in all respects save size.
In all rivers smolts pass down to the sea between March and June,
weighing only a few ounces. The same fall they return as "grilse,"
weighing from three to five pounds.
After their first spawning, they return during the winter to the sea;
and in the following year reascend the river as adult salmon. Males
mature sexually earlier than females.
The time of year when salmon ascend from the sea varies greatly in
different rivers, and salmon rivers are denominated as "early" or
"late."
The hatchery at Karluk is a model one, and is highly commended by
government experts. It was established in the spring of 1896, and
stripping was done in August of the same year. The cost of the present
plant has been about forty thousand dollars, and its annual expenditure
for maintenance, labor, and improvements, from ten to twenty thousand.
There is a superintendent and a permanent force of six or eight men,
including a cook, with additional help from the canneries when it is
required.
There are many buildings connected with the hatchery, and all are kept
in perfect order. The first season, it is estimated that two millions of
salmon-fry were liberated, with a gradual increase until the present
time, when forty millions are turned out in a single season.
The superintendent was taken completely by surprise by our visit, but
received us very hospitably and conducted us through all departments
with courteous explanations. The shining, white cleanliness and order
everywhere manifest would make a German housewife green of envy.
At this point Karluk River widens into a lagoon, in which the corrals
are wired and netted off somewhat after the fashion of fish-traps,
covering an area of about three acres.
Fish for the hatcheries are called "stock-fish." They are secured by
seiners in the lagoon opposite the hatcheries, and are then transferred
to the corrals. As soon as a salmon has the appearance of ripening, it
is removed by the use of seines to the ripening-ponds.
In the hatching-house are more than sixty troughs, fourteen feet in
length, sixteen inches in width, and seven inches in depth. The wood of
which they are composed is surfaced redwood. The joints are coated with
asphaltum tar, with cotton wadding used as calking material. When the
trough is completed, it is given one coat of refined tar and two of
asphaltum varnish.
In the Karluk hatchery the troughs never leak, owing to this superior
construction; and it is said that the importance of this advantage
cannot be overestimated.
Leaks make it impossible for the employees to estimate the amount of
water in the troughs; repairs startle the young fry and damage the eggs;
and the damp floors cause illness among the employees. The Karluk
hatchery is noted for its dryness and cleanliness.
The setting of the hatchery is charming. The hills, treeless, pale
green, and velvety, slope gently to the river and the lagoon. Now and
then a slight ravine is filled with a shrubby growth of a lighter green.
Flowers flame everywhere, and tiny rivulets come singing down to the
larger stream.
The greenness of the hills continues around the bay, broken off abruptly
on Karluk Head, where the soft, veined gray of the stone cliff blends
with the green.
The bay opens out into the wide, bold, purple sweep of Shelikoff Strait.
Every body of water has its character--some feature that is peculiarly
its own, which impresses itself upon the beholder. The chief
characteristic of Shelikoff Strait is its boldness. There is something
dauntless, daring, and impassioned in its wide and splendid sweep to the
chaste line of snow peaks of the Aleutian Range on the Aliaska
Peninsula. It seems to hold a challenge.
I should like to live alone, or almost alone, high on storm-swept Karluk
Head, fronting that magnificent scene that can never be twice quite the
same. What work one might do there--away from little irritating cares!
No neighbors to "drop in" with bits of delicious gossip; no theatres in
which to waste the splendid nights; no bridge-luncheons to
tempt,--nothing but sunlight glittering down on the pale green hills;
the golden atmosphere above the little bay filled with tremulous, winged
snow; and miles and miles and miles of purple sea.