Commercial Salmon History
3000 Years of Heritage!

The Kenai Wild Alaskan Salmon Story
By: Elizabeth Chase, Historian/Kenai Wild Fisherman

Since the Dena'ina Indians began their annual harvests over 3000 years ago, the return of Cook Inlet salmon has played a major role in the survival of the people who call the Kenai Peninsula their home.
From the first European explorers of the region, to the tourist who visit us today, not many go away without encountering a salmon or taking a memory picture of the pure untouched land that produced it. John Muir's visit in 1890 described an Alaskan stream this way: "As we neared the mouth of the well-known salmon-stream where we intended making our camp, we noticed jets and flashes of silvery light caused by the startled movement of the salmon that were on their way to the spawning grounds.....The stream was so filled with them there seemed to be more fish than water in it, and we appeared to be sailing in boiling, seething silver light marvelously relieved in the jet darkness. A dozen fish were caught in a few minutes...food to last a month or two may be procured in less than half an hour is a striking illustration of the fruitfulness of these Alaskan waters."

Salmon, talk of salmon, and salmon fishing boats are the most vivid impressions of a visit to Alaska in addition to the staggering beauty of the land. In almost every port, trollers, seiners, and gill-netters crowd the waterfronts in summer. You cannot sail in Alaskan waters anywhere during the summer without encountering fishermen. Commercial fishing is the number one private employer in the State. In the month of July, when fishing is at its peak, one out of every six working Kenai resident's is employed in the fisheries. Salmon and the businesses it supports is our mainstay and have been since the time of the Dena'ina. Proper management of this renewable resource is our collective responsibility today so that generations to come can also benefit from this pure resource far into the future. But it has not always been so....
In 1867 the United States purchased the territory of Alaska from Russia for 7.2 million dollars. East and West coast fishermen had a strong lobby in support of the purchase due to the declining fish resource in the Atlantic and Pacific waters.

1872, five years later, the first salmon saltry came to the Kenai River in Cook Inlet, officially starting our commercial salmon industry. Ten years later in 1882, Cook Inlet's first cannery was built at the mouth of the Kasilof River by the Alaska Packing Company of San Francisco, making it the second cannery in the territory of Alaska. The industry grew rapidly despite the remoteness of the territory and the difficulty of transporting supplies, workmen, and equipment by sea from Seattle, Portland, or San Francisco.

Harvesting methods in those early days consisted of sailboats with gill nets and beach seines. In 1885, the trap method of harvesting salmon came to Alaska with the construction of the first stationary trap in Cook Inlet. Because of the cost to construct the yearly traps, canneries owned and operated them, leaving the independent fisherman very little of the resource to make it profitable. Before the end of the nineteenth century the canning industry had become established, luring many people who had made fortunes on rivers now destroyed in the lower 48.

Packers from the Columbia River, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Fraser River, Tacoma, and even from Europe came because there were numerous rivers capable of being tapped without restraint by government. In 1889 there were thirty-seven canneries statewide that produced 720,000 cases against a total of 478,000 cases in California, Oregon, and Washington combined. A half-century later there were 156 canneries. Waste of fish was often enormous since there was no limit on the number that could be taken. When Congress passed a law in 1896 requiring weekend closures, it was generally ignored. There were very few government inspectors to execute this or any other conservation legislation.

The exploitation of the salmon stocks had finally had enough abuse, in 1936 an all time record harvest was established in the territory of Alaska when 129 million fish were harvested and 8 million cases produced. The runs began to decline, canneries closed, and jobs were lost. Alaskans were ready for a new page in their future.

The fate of the Alaska salmon fishery was associated with the struggle of the people to gain control of their resource. Large-scale corporate enterprise used their political power to stop any controls on their over harvest activities. J.P. Morgan-Guggenheim, for example, which owned 12 canneries along with other packers achieved their goals by persuading congressmen either to kill fishery conservation legislation or when such laws were passed to deny appropriations for adequate enforcement. The history of Alaska fishery administration before statehood shows that the packers fought nearly every conservation proposal submitted to the Congress and conceded to compromise only after bitter struggles. Making trap fishing in Alaska illegal became the unifying force in the fight for Statehood. 1958 was the last year traps were used.

In 1959, the people won their case making Alaska the 49th State of the Union. After 87 years of trap abuses by the canneries, salmon stocks struggled to return to their healthy numbers. In 1961, President Eisenhower declared the Alaska fisheries a national disaster to financially help the struggling industry. It was the first time in U.S. history that a declared national disaster was man made. The newly formed Alaska Department of Fish and Game had a huge job ahead of it in managing the resource. In Cook Inlet alone management is complex involving predictions of how many adult salmon are likely to return to spawn, deciding how many mature fish can be harvested and how many must be allowed to escape the nets to spawn, adopting regulations setting fishing periods and limiting gear efficiency, enforcing the regulations, and checking actual escapement and spawning success.

After Alaska became a state regulations fell into one of three categories; First, to provide orderly fishing. Second, for conservation of the resource. And third, to harvest for maximum sustained yield. Which means not only protection from over fishing, but prevention of under fishing insuring our renewable resource for future generations.

By 1970, the runs had recovered but faced new challenges. The population of Alaska was exploding with the discovery of oil and anyone who could buy a net and boat could commercially fish. In 1972, voters approved an amendment to the Alaska constitution allowing the state to "limit entry" into any fishery for purposes of resource conservation, to prevent economic distress among fishermen and those dependent upon them for a livelihood and to promote the efficient development of aqua culture in the state of Alaska. Today in Cook Inlet there are only 756 set net fishermen and 534 drift boat fishermen in the region.

Another problem facing the recovering fishery was the high-sea intercept of foreign countries that had no conservation concerns. They were allowed to harvest salmon within 3 miles of Alaska's coastline. Federal officials from the Department of State ignored concerns until negotiations occurred at the "Law of the Sea" Conference in 1975. Other nations began to declare 200-mile limits. More coastal states added their pressure for extended U.S. Jurisdiction. In 1976 the Fisheries Conservation and Management Act established an exclusive fisheries management zone out to 200 nautical miles seaward of the high tide line.

1980 saw historic runs of salmon with levels never before seen in Cook Inlet. Japan was the regions best customer, paying top dollar for Alaska wild salmon. The technology for farmed Atlantic salmon was in its infant stage at this time- a fishery that fishermen thought would never become a "Real Fishery" of any consequence.

In the late 90's fishermen were waking up to the reality that commodity prices were at historic lows and might never return to "normal" as farmed salmon poured on the global markets. Canneries were closing their doors, fishermen began leaving the industry, and to cast insult to injury, the 2000 harvest was the lowest Cook Inlet had seen in 40 years. The industry was again ready for a new chapter in its history.

After attending a seminar on regional branding hosted by the World Trade Organization in December of 2000, Kenai Peninsula Mayor, Dale Bagley, brought the idea home and set to work. By February of 2001, the Mayor had an ordinance drafted to ask the borough for $30,000 to do a feasibility study for a branding program in Cook Inlet. The borough assembly, with a unanimous yes vote, appropriated the money. The Mayor then appointed Jack Brown, Manager of the Kenai Peninsula Borough, Community and Economic Development Division, to work on the project.

Respected seafood consulting firm, Seafood Market Developers (SMD), of Seattle, was hired in April 2001 to do the study. The study results were favorable and a volunteer board of local fishermen, processors, and borough appointed officials, lead by Mark Powell of Alaska Salmon Purchasers, Inc., was formed. August 16th 2001 was the boards first meeting. The Kenai Peninsula's Borough Grants Manager, Bonnie Golden and SMD applied for and obtained a Salton-Stall Kenedy grant to begin the project, so with funds in place everyone began the enormous task to develop a domestic market for our Cook Inlet salmon.

By February of 2002 all paperwork to become a nonprofit organization was filed and accepted. Cook Inlet Salmon Brand Inc. (CISB) trademarked the brand name "Kenai Wild", a logo was accepted, and labels were designed. "SureFish", a third party seafood inspection company based in Seattle, worked with Alaska Manufacturer's Assocations to establish a quality program which is now know as the Alaska Quality Seafood Program(AQS). Surefish was contract to train local fishermen in the new handling techniques which had to be implemented to adhere to AQS and to train, inspect and certified all of the programs "Kenai Wild" fish.
July 2002, was our first year harvesting "Kenai Wild" branded salmon. CISB's plan was to be conservative, producing a low volume of salmon so we could identify our weaknesses at all inspection points. Out of 69,000 pounds delivered, 23,000 pounds were certified through the plants. With that small volume, CISB was able to test its high quality product in twenty-two markets in the USA. There were 16 fishermen and 3 processors involved in the "Branding" project.

2003, our second year of production, fishermen delivered 216,000 round pounds into the program, of which about 60 percent was certified "Kenai Wild". The acceptance of 2 additional grades to the program helped raise the percentage of brandable fish. The three grades are Premium (Live bled, iced at point of capture, fresh or once frozen,) Choice and Select, (bled or unbled, iced at point of capture, can be twice frozen). Orders for our "Kenai Wild" branded salmon outweigh our current ability to produce. The goals for our 2003 season were to get as many fishermen and plants "self certified" as possible, increase production and get our business plan written. 68 Fishermen and four processors trained for the program and signed on for this season. An Executive Director of CISB, Sylvia Beaudoin, was hired in October after serving as Program Manager since June of 2003.

Now in its third year, CISB has 85 fishermen trained to program standards and 6 processors signed on. Our business plan has been written with a new marketing strategy that will take CISB to a self-sustaining level in four more years. The fall of 2004 will bring a time of reflection. Time to hone our efforts and prepare for several exciting new projects.CISB is proud to announce that it is the recipient of a grant award for icing infrastructure equipment, which will increase available ice capacity to the areas commercial fishers and community by at least 80 tons per day. The equipment will be installed and ready to go by the start of the 2005 fishing season.