CHAPTER XXXIII

Our progress up Karluk River in the barge was so leisurely that we seemed to be "drifting upward with the flood" between the low green shores that sloped, covered with flowers, to the water. The clouds were a soft gray, edged with violet, and the air was very sweet.

The hatchery is picturesquely situated.

A tiny rivulet, called Shasta Creek, comes tumbling noisily down from the hills, and its waters are utilized in the various "ponds."

The first and highest pond they enter is called the "settling" pond, which receives, also, in one corner, the clear, bubbling waters of a spring, whose upflow, never ceasing, prevents this corner of the pond from freezing. This pond is deeper than the others, and receives the waters of the creek so lightly that the sediment is not disturbed in the bottom, its function being to permit the sediment carried down from the creek to settle before the waters pass on into the wooden flume, which carries part of the overflow into the hatching-house, or on into the lower ponds, which are used for "ripening" the salmon.

There are about a dozen of these ponds, and they are terraced down the hill with a fall of from four to six feet between them.

They are rectangular in shape and walled with large stones and cement. The walls are overgrown with grasses and mosses; and the waters pouring musically down over them from large wooden troughs suspended horizontally above them, and whose bottoms are pierced by numerous augur-holes, produce the effect of a series of gentle and lovely waterfalls.

It is essential that the fall of the water should be as light and as soft as possible, that the fish may not be disturbed and excited--ripening more quickly and perfectly when kept quiet.

These ponds were filled with salmon. Many of them moved slowly and placidly through the clear waters; others struggled and fought to leap their barriers in a seemingly passionate and supreme desire to reach the highest spawning-ground. There is to me something divine in the desperate struggle of a salmon to reach the natural place for the propagation of its kind--the shallow, running upper waters of the stream it chooses to ascend. It cannot be will-power--it can be only a God-given instinct--that enables it to leap cascades eight feet in height to accomplish its uncontrollable desire. Notwithstanding all commercial reasoning and all human needs, it seems to me to be inhumanly cruel to corral so many millions of salmon every year, to confine them during the ripening period, and to spawn them by hand.

In the natural method of spawning, the female salmon seeks the upper waters of the stream, and works out a trough in the gravelly bed by vigorous movements of her body as she lies on one side. In this trough her eggs are deposited and are then fertilized by the male.

The eggs are then covered with gravel to a depth of several feet, such gravel heaps being known as "redds."

To one who has studied the marvellously beautiful instincts of this most human of fishes, their desperate struggles in the ripening ponds are pathetic in the extreme; and I was glad to observe that even the gentlemen of our party frequently turned away with faces full of the pity of it.

A salmon will struggle until it is but a purple, shapeless mass; it will fling itself upon the rocks; the over-pouring waters will bear it back for many yards; then it will gradually recover itself and come plunging and fighting back to fling itself once more upon the same rocks. Each time that it is washed away it is weaker, more bruised and discolored. Battered, bleeding, with fins broken off and eyes beaten out, it still returns again and again, leaping and flinging itself frenziedly upon the stone walls.

Its very rush through the water is pathetic, as one remembers it; it is accompanied by a loud swish and the waters fly out in foam; but its movements are so swift that only a line of silver--or, alas! frequently one of purple--is visible through the beaded foam.

Some discoloration takes place naturally when the fish has been in fresh water for some time; but much of it is due to bruising. A salmon newly arrived from the sea is called a "clean" salmon, because of its bright and sparkling appearance and excellent condition.

There is a tramway two or three hundred yards in length, along which one may walk and view the various ponds. It is used chiefly to convey stock-fish from the corrals to the upper ripening-ponds.

When ripe fish are to be taken from a pond, the water is lowered to a depth of about a foot and a half; a kind of slatting is then put into the water at one end and slidden gently under the fish, which are examined--the "ripe" ones being placed in a floating car and the "green" ones freed in the pond. A stripping platform attends every pond, and upon this the spawning takes place.

The young fish, from one to two years old, before it has gone to sea, is called by a dozen different names, chief of which are parr and salmon-fry. At the end of ten weeks after hatching, the fry are fed tinned salmon flesh,--"do-overs" furnished by the canneries,--which is thoroughly desiccated and put through a sausage-machine.

When the fry are three or four months old, they are "planted." After being freed they work their way gradually down to salt-water, which pushes up into the lagoon, and finally out into the bay. They return frequently to fresh water and for at least a year work in and out with the tides.

The majority of fry cling to the fresh-water vicinity for two years after hatching, at which time they are about eight inches long. The second spring after hatching they sprout out suddenly in bright and glistening scales, which conceal the dark markings along their sides which are known as parr-marks. They are then called "smolt," and are as adult salmon in all respects save size.

In all rivers smolts pass down to the sea between March and June, weighing only a few ounces. The same fall they return as "grilse," weighing from three to five pounds.

After their first spawning, they return during the winter to the sea; and in the following year reascend the river as adult salmon. Males mature sexually earlier than females.

The time of year when salmon ascend from the sea varies greatly in different rivers, and salmon rivers are denominated as "early" or "late."

The hatchery at Karluk is a model one, and is highly commended by government experts. It was established in the spring of 1896, and stripping was done in August of the same year. The cost of the present plant has been about forty thousand dollars, and its annual expenditure for maintenance, labor, and improvements, from ten to twenty thousand. There is a superintendent and a permanent force of six or eight men, including a cook, with additional help from the canneries when it is required.

There are many buildings connected with the hatchery, and all are kept in perfect order. The first season, it is estimated that two millions of salmon-fry were liberated, with a gradual increase until the present time, when forty millions are turned out in a single season.

The superintendent was taken completely by surprise by our visit, but received us very hospitably and conducted us through all departments with courteous explanations. The shining, white cleanliness and order everywhere manifest would make a German housewife green of envy.

At this point Karluk River widens into a lagoon, in which the corrals are wired and netted off somewhat after the fashion of fish-traps, covering an area of about three acres.

Fish for the hatcheries are called "stock-fish." They are secured by seiners in the lagoon opposite the hatcheries, and are then transferred to the corrals. As soon as a salmon has the appearance of ripening, it is removed by the use of seines to the ripening-ponds.

In the hatching-house are more than sixty troughs, fourteen feet in length, sixteen inches in width, and seven inches in depth. The wood of which they are composed is surfaced redwood. The joints are coated with asphaltum tar, with cotton wadding used as calking material. When the trough is completed, it is given one coat of refined tar and two of asphaltum varnish.

In the Karluk hatchery the troughs never leak, owing to this superior construction; and it is said that the importance of this advantage cannot be overestimated.

Leaks make it impossible for the employees to estimate the amount of water in the troughs; repairs startle the young fry and damage the eggs; and the damp floors cause illness among the employees. The Karluk hatchery is noted for its dryness and cleanliness.

The setting of the hatchery is charming. The hills, treeless, pale green, and velvety, slope gently to the river and the lagoon. Now and then a slight ravine is filled with a shrubby growth of a lighter green. Flowers flame everywhere, and tiny rivulets come singing down to the larger stream.

The greenness of the hills continues around the bay, broken off abruptly on Karluk Head, where the soft, veined gray of the stone cliff blends with the green.

The bay opens out into the wide, bold, purple sweep of Shelikoff Strait.

Every body of water has its character--some feature that is peculiarly its own, which impresses itself upon the beholder. The chief characteristic of Shelikoff Strait is its boldness. There is something dauntless, daring, and impassioned in its wide and splendid sweep to the chaste line of snow peaks of the Aleutian Range on the Aliaska Peninsula. It seems to hold a challenge.

I should like to live alone, or almost alone, high on storm-swept Karluk Head, fronting that magnificent scene that can never be twice quite the same. What work one might do there--away from little irritating cares! No neighbors to "drop in" with bits of delicious gossip; no theatres in which to waste the splendid nights; no bridge-luncheons to tempt,--nothing but sunlight glittering down on the pale green hills; the golden atmosphere above the little bay filled with tremulous, winged snow; and miles and miles and miles of purple sea.