The Cannery Boom: Salmon, Chinamen, and the Gold Rush of the Columbia

THE COLUMBIA FISHERIES.

A correspondent of the Albany Press furnishes that paper a very valuable and thorough-going report of this great business which has run up along the banks of the Columbia during the past few years.

We learn that there are 20 companies engaged at the several points of Astoria, Cascades, Rainier, Westport, Ilwaco, Clinton, Woolsey Island, Tongue Point, Beansport, Begley's, Waterfall, Cathlamet, Big Gun Club Fishery, Brookfield and Pilot Rock.

A goodly number are in our own Territory. They have facilities for putting up this year, provided the run is sufficient, a total of 1,135,000 cases or 227,000,000 fish per case, the price of last year, which is below the present quotation, would represent $90,800,000 gold coin.

The largest are those of the Messrs. Cook, at Clinton; Booth Co., and Kinney & Co. Astoria; J. Hume, Eagle Cliff, and Megler Co. Brookfield, —each having a capacity of 60,000 cases. The others range from 35,000 to 50,000.

The sailing fleet of the river now comprises a thousand smacks and the stream is said to be a maze of fishing boats for a distance of 100 miles.

The process is thus graphically described by the writer above mentioned:

"The proprietors of the several canneries are not fishermen, but rather contractors and bankers. They furnish the fishing boat, net, etc.—and hire experts to take the fish, paying for them this season fifty cents for each fish delivered by them at the cannery. The fishermen are mostly sailors, and are of almost every known nationality, not all of them being complete models of purity and sound morals. The waters of the Columbia, habitually muddy, are remarkably clear this spring, compelling the fishermen to do their work at night.

The character of this work is indicated by the following. A fishing boat, or smack, is put in charge of each fisherman, who employs an oarsman to manage it for him. To each boat is attached a net, or seine, variable in size, the average being 100 to 200 fathoms (600-1,200 feet) in length, by 18 feet in depth. The meshes of the nets are large enough to admit the heads of the salmon, to a point behind the gills, but too small to allow the body to pass through. It is between two lines, the upper one supported by corks or floats, while the bottom line is provided with leads to sink and hold the net in perpendicular position.

The smack being provided with an oarsman, sail, anchor, line and ballast, the fisherman, about sunset, moves out into the river, and sets his net on a line across the current, by which it is borne down the stream many miles, perhaps 10 or 20, before the coming morn. The fisherman, during the night, passes back and forth along the line to release his net from snags, and remove to his boat any fish he may find entangled in its meshes. At daylight the nets are hauled aboard, and all the boats belonging to each cannery gathered up, and with their lowage attached to a steamer, they are towed up the river to their respective quarters, when they discharge the catch of the night.

The fish, on reaching the cannery, are, by a process of bakery and cookery, quickly transferred to the cans, hermetically sealed and packed in four dozen car cases, ready for shipment to any part of the globe.

The cost of the building and machinery at the Brookfield establishment cannot, I think, fall below $70,000. Fifty fishermen smacks rigged complete at $300 each, with as many nets costing the same —$30,000; steam tug 'Edna,' of Brookfield, just launched, at $50,000.

Than passing over the heavy outlay for plate tin, packing cases, salt, etc., we note the wages of 50 Chinamen at one dollar per day each, can makers, and 250 Chinamen employed in the packing-house, at the same rate. There are also employed at this cannery 150 white men, including fishermen.

The above relates to but one of the twenty-nine establishments on the river."