| By Patricia Roppel The sounds of boat engines, the clatter of machinery, the shouts
of working men echoed along the narrow channel in front of the cluster of buildings which
made up the Waterfall Cannery. Another salmon packing season had begun. Every person and
every machine was attuned to one single theme putting out the season's pack of salmon.
Like most canneries in Alaska, this one in a remote location on Ulloa Channel, was a
complete, self-sufficient, temporary community, of only a few month's duration. When the
job of processing and canning was done, all but a few workers departed and the community
passed out of existence until the next summer's migration.
Each year more and more cases of salmon were packed at Waterfall until it had the
highest output in the area of Southeast Alaska.
But the first salmon processing plant at Waterfall operated on a much smaller scale.
The facility was constructed in the spring of 1912 by Oceanic Packing Company, a Seattle
based corporation. After this first year, the company was absorbed by Alaska Fish Company,
which had been organized in 1911 by Frederick C. Johnstone and Fremont King. Alaska Fish
Company was the first company to pack salmon aboard a ship. In 1911 they had started a
floating cannery on an old sailing ship, the Glory of the Seas.
The new venture of 1911 proved very successful, so the company towed the Glory of the
Seas to the West Coast of Prince of Wales Island. In 1912, the high cost of fish and the
subsequent low market price for canned salmon, reversed the company's 1911 results. As a
consequence the machinery from the Glory of the Seas was transferred to the cannery at
Waterfall.
Waterfall Cannery, from that time, began its climb toward becoming the largest, most
efficient cannery on the West Coast of Prince of Wales Island. Johnstone and King and
their Alaska Fish Company continued their innovative ideas. The company purchased a can
making machine in conjunction with another company for the 1914 season. Johnstone planned
to transport the equipment to Waterfall, make the year's cans, and move the machinery by
company seine boat to another cannery. This plan apparently did not work, because the
company still had crews making cans in 1923.
Johnstone was not the only creative thinker in Alaska Fish Company. His partner,
Fremont King, came up with a scheme to improve communications between the remote cannery
and Ketchikan. At a time when few boats carried wireless radios, King purchased in Seattle
a number of carrier pigeons, sending half to Waterfall. King explained his communications
system to a Ketchikan newspaper like this: "During the summer the operating of the
company boats between Waterfall and Ketchikan are quite frequent. To guard against any
long delay or possible loss of life or property, each boat on leaving Ketchikan or
Waterfall will have one of these pigeons as a passenger. In case anything goes wrong on
board, the aerial mail carrier will be released and in less than one hour, it will be
known at either the plant or in Ketchikan, depending from which place the boat
started."' Descendents of these pigeons may well be perched on Tongass Trading
Company building in Ketchikan today!
Mild curing of king salmon began to play a big part in the salmon industry around 1913.
Mild curing meant that salmon were put up in lightweight brine. New York City and European
markets purchased mild cure salmon which was later smoked. Waterfall was conveniently
located near the king salmon fishery and in 1913 a mild cure plant was built there by
Engelbr Weise, Inc., the leading company engaged in Alaska's mild cure business. Over
2,000 tierces, the largest pack of the company's plants, were put up that year. One day 70
tierces were processed.
The European war began to affect the mild cure market about 1915. As the war continued,
the chief market, Germany, declined. Engelbr Weise, Inc., dissolved in the spring of 1916,
and its business was transferred to Pacific Mild Cure Company. This company continued to
operate the Waterfall mild cure plant, but the market was very unstable. Pacific Mild Cure
Company, with eight Alaskan plants including Waterfall, withdrew from the industry in
1920. Mild curing at Waterfall ceased.
The year 1920 not only saw the closure of Waterfall's mild cure business, but the
closure of the cannery. Johnstone's partner, Fremont King, passed away and Johnstone
turned his attention to settling their business relationships. The cannery did not reopen
in 1921, in a large part due to unsatisfactory markets.
After the close of World War I the outlook brightened. In 1922 Alaska Fish Company
reopened with W E. Epperson in charge. Epperson had been with the company since the days
of the Glory of the Seas, and served as corporate secretary as well as cannery
superintendent.
A major change occurred at Waterfall Cannery at the end of the 1923 season. This
independently operated cannery was sold to a major, national corporation, Atlantic and
Pacific Tea Company, which owned a chain of grocery outlets, the A & P Stores.
Included in the purchase were: the company store, the outlet for the Standard Oil Company,
the floating equipment, the cannery tender Frederick C., smaller tenders Slavin and
Seaketch as well as scows and a piledriver. The A & P Products Company organized Nakat
Packing Corporation, a subsidiary company in 1925 to operate its salmon operations in
Alaska. The cannery at Waterfall was operated by Nakat for the next 43 years. It was the
new corporation which changed the method of salmon harvest at Waterfall Cannery to
floating traps. The cannery had not always been dependent upon traps for their fish.
During the Alaska Fish Company operations, the majority of the salmon were taken by seine.
Only one p le trap at the mouth of Klawak Inlet was originally used to capture fish. Later
an additional pile trap was driven at Sukkwan Narrows, south of Waterfall. Most salmon
canneries had depended upon independent gillnet and seine fishermen until 1912, the year
of a major fishermen's strike. Traps, particularly the efficient floating traps, made the
cannery men independent of the whims of fishermen.
Nakat Packing Corporation, by 1928, operated ten floating fish traps, and the number
stabilized at nine traps in subsequent years.
A major expansion of the cannery complex began in 1932. Many of the present buildings
at Waterfall were constructed during the next eight years of the 1930s. A big warehouse
designed by George E. Brown of Ketchikan, was constructed in 1932 by A. W Hansen and N.
Nussbaumer of Wrangell. The lumber and shingles came from the Wrangell Lumber and Box
Company. A large marineway was built in 1933 and an oil dock was erected on piles in 1934
to serve as a tank platform for storage of oil drums. A new cable house was also added to
provide storage for webbing and trap cables.
The company also built four new company seine boats and the tender Quaker Maid in 1935.
One of the highlights of this upgraded cannery was a new fish house which embodied the
latest ideas for rapid, careful and sanitary handling of fish.
During the fall of 1936 and spring of 1937, the main building which housed the canning
lines was completely rebuilt. Five separate lines of canning equipment for one pound cans
as well as one for half-pound cans were set up within the building. Each line would be run
separately.
An interesting feature of Nakat's new Waterfall Cannery was the installation of a
casing-labeling machine, the first complete installation of its type in Alaska. The cooler
tray unloader was the first of the Standard Knapp Model to be installed in a salmon
cannery. Additional outbuildings were built including: another two-story warehouse with
loft, a two-story store and office building with living quarters above for the bookkeeper,
foreman and office help, plus a new machine shop and storage room. Other new construction
included a mess hall and bunkhouse for the inside hands, and another for the mechanics and
other white help. Overhead passages were enclosed between the cannery loft and both
warehouses. A new dam and new power lines throughout the plant, completed the major
expansion program.
When finished, the cannery and outbuildings were considered the finest in Southeast
Alaska and cost the company nearly $145,000. Other additions were made between 1937 and
1940 including fifteen native cabins. It was necessary to replace 1,200 feet of 10-inch
wood stave pipe with new wood pipe between the dam in Waterfall Creek to the cannery.
Waterfall Cannery, by the 1930s, was recognized to be one of the big producing plants
in Alaska. It put up over 220,000 cases in 1936, which was believed to be at that time an
all-time record for any single cannery.
The pack of Waterfall Cannery, from the very beginning consisted largely of pink
salmon. During the first five years of Alaska Fish Company's operations the pink salmon
pack was just over half of its total pack. By the 1930s it was a little over
three-quarters pink salmon.
Then came the war years. The outstanding factor affecting the fisheries occurred from
1943 to 1945 when, by orders of the Secretary of the Interior, only certain plants could
operate. Only a relatively few of the more efficient plants were allowed to operate using
a minimum amount of critical material, man power and shipping facilities. Nakat's
Waterfall Cannery was designated to operate during the war years. In 1946 the salmon
canning industry resumed operation as normal.
About this time, 1945, 1946, Nakat Packing Corporation tried freezing fish on an
experimental non-commercial basis. The products were sent to the A & P Stores
laboratory at its Boston fish warehouse for examination and observation. Local troll fish
were used for a fillet and package process as a pre-seining season experiment. The output
in 1946 was 80 percent coho salmon, with the remainder halibut and lingcod. For some
reason the freezing operation was dropped after the 1946 season.
Operations at Waterfall were not without tragedies. A Japanese employee, Yanamura, was
killed when a steam retort (or pressure cooker) exploded. Other Orientals were killed in a
tragic fire in the bunkhouse. Not all accidents happened on land. The superintendent of
the cannery, and an employee, in 1938 drowned when their skiff overturned as they worked
on a trap.
The cannery at Waterfall continued to pack salmon each year until 1970 except for one
season in the early 1960s. Nakat Packing Corporation disposed of its salmon canneries in
Southeast Alaska, including the Waterfall Cannery, to New England Fish Company in 1968. By
this time the nature of salmon harvest had changed considerably. The big runs of the 1930s
and 1940s were over. With statehood came the abolishment of the floating salmon trap.
Canneries, such as Waterfall, had to depend upon seine caught salmon. Seine fishermen were
under heavy regulations by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
Then in 1971 fish processors and fishermen were advised that the predicted return of
pink salmon was less than needed for escapement into spawning streams. The season would be
opened if there was sufficient escapement. Processors, including New England Fish Company,
decided it was too risky to gear up for a pack. Waterfall Cannery was not opened.
Waterfall Cannery did not operate again. In 1973 the cannery and nine acres of land,
plus 25 acres of tidelands were sold to Van and Ruth Moore and their son Des and wife Pat
Moore. They converted the property to Waterfall Cannery Resort. The property was purchased
in May 1980 by Waterfall Group, Ltd.
Waterfall Resort has been in operation since 1981 and is now the site of Alaska's most
luxurious wilderness resort. This unique resort offers accommodations for 80 and also
contains conference facilities for business groups. Saltwater sportfishing is conducted
aboard guided cabin cruisers. |
