A Packing Company Tries to Buy Point Roberts' Tidelands at $1.25 an Acre
As the Alaska Packing Association angles to lock up a fishing monopoly on cheap public shore, Governor McGraw scrambles for witnesses to prove the tide flats are worth far more than the appraisement.
Whatcom, Jan. 1 — Special. — Tomorrow is the day set by the state land commission for the hearing on the appeal from the appraisement of the Point Roberts tide lands. Senator Kerr left today to appear for Mrs. Waller and the Alaska Packing Association in support of the appraisement. So much has been said and written about the actual value of the fishing rights there, and the anxiety of the Alaska Packing Association to control the tide lands in order to strengthen their virtual monopoly of the fishing privileges, that Governor McGraw has made an earnest effort to secure evidence for the state sufficient to warrant a considerable increase in the appraisement.
But it is doubtful if the evidence will be forthcoming, because of the fact that the only persons individually interested want the appraisement to remain as it is. One gentleman, however, told the Post-Intelligencer correspondent yesterday that he would give $3,000 for almost any other location in lieu of the Waller claim, and another gentleman said he would be willing to swear that the best locations are worth $20 an acre — but neither gentleman can go to Olympia now to testify at the hearing. It will not be at all surprising if the specious arguments in support of the present appraisement, which ranges from $1.25 to $15 an acre, will prevail. If they do, it will not be because of any neglect on the part of the governor to do his best to protect the interests of the state.
“One gentleman told the correspondent he would give $3,000 for almost any other location in lieu of the Waller claim — but he cannot go to Olympia now to testify.”
Point Roberts is still an odd American exclave reachable by land only through Canada, and the fight over who may take from its waters has never really ended — from this 1895 tideland grab to the salmon wars and cross-border fishery disputes of the Salish Sea. That a packing company could buy public shore at $1.25 an acre to fence off a monopoly of the catch is the template for every later struggle over who gets to harvest the sea.
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