Contributed by Richard Estelle, Palmer Museum of History & Art
This month’s photo presents a group of men just returned from a successful fishing trip with salmon to share among families of the Matanuska Colony. Colonist Chris Anderson stands at left displaying two trophies of the trip. Reverend Bert Bingle leans on the pickup next to Chris and young, “Colony kid”, Gene Bailey stands front and center. The other men are not yet identified. Boxes containing other salmon can be seen in the back of the truck.
The new Colony families quickly learned to take advantage of the wild game, berries and fish to reduce their government subsistence debt while they got their farms established and productive. Salmon were abundant, readily available in many Valley streams and nearby Cook Inlet. They were fairly easily harvested and limits were generous.
The Alaska Rural Rehabilitation Corporation, the agency managing the Colony, acquired several gill nets to be available for use by the Colonists. Bert Bingle was in charge of scheduling their use by those wishing to fish by this method and tried to ensure nets were properly maintained and stored after use. Gill netting was most often done at the end of the single lane, rutted road leading to the tide waters of Goose Bay in Cook Inlet. The nets were anchored to the shore at one end and strung out into the water where the other end was anchored. A float, usually an empty 55-gallon gas barrel, would be attached there to hold the top of the net at the surface. Smaller wooden floats on the top “cork line” stayed on the surface while small lead weights attached to the bottom “lead line” assured that the net would hang like a certain in the water to intercept the fish. Users who had a small boat could “pick” the fish from the net while the tide was still in. Most folks didn’t have a boat and would have to wait until the tide receded, allowing them access to the net with its captured fish lying exposed on the slippery gray, boot-sucking mud of the beach.
Those not wishing to use the gill nets had other means of catching large quantities of salmon. In those days it was legal to snag fish rather than wait for them to bite a lure. A large treble hook, weighted with lead, would be attached by a suitable length of stout twine to a hefty birch pole. The weighted hook would be hurled far into the salmon stream and then retrieved by strongly jerking it several times through the schooled fish, with the intent of hooking a fish. Since this was often an enterprise of several families working together, a division of labor was usually established to efficiently process the bounty. The “catchers” would hook the fish and drag them ashore. The youngsters were responsible for subduing the fish before they could flop themselves back into the water and then drag them to the cleaning station. The “cleaners” would gut the fish and load them into tubs, barrels or boxes for transport. At home, the participating families would gather the next day to process the bounty--some to be canned for later consumption, some to be brined and smoked, some to be cooked and consumed on the spot.
Other photos in our collection show residents using homemade dipnets to scoop fish from local streams. This month’s photo doesn’t hint at how the men in this case caught the salmon they display, but whatever methods were used in most cases involved group outings, often including several families, cooperating to harvest what nature provided for their subsistence as they sought to establish their new lives in their new home.