Category: Alaska’s Historic Canneries

Sun, June 01, 2014

History in a Can

By: Steve Henrikson, Curator of Collections at the Alaska State Museum (Note: This article was republished from the Alaska State Museum's Bulletin 41 with the permission of the author.) Though famous for our isolation and uniqueness, the scattering of Alaskan material culture around the globe shows the extent of our engagement in the world economy. Years ago I was in Manhattan, on the “museum crawl,” and took a few minutes to browse an antique mall in the Garment District. The... (Read More)

Wed, April 09, 2014

Canned Salmon: Alaska’s Superfood

By: James Mackovjak The late Bob Thorstenson, one of the founders of Icicle Seafoods, once told me his favorite seafood was canned pink salmon. Bob had good taste. Canned salmon, which has been produced in Alaska since 1878, is the most nutritious and consumer-friendly of all of Alaska’s seafood. While the product is often considered poor cousin to skinless, boneless salmon fillets, canned salmon is by far the more nutritious of the two. Yes, both canned salmon and salmon fillets... (Read More)

Wed, December 18, 2013

Alaska Canneries Resource Guide from the Anchorage Museum

By Sara Piasecki Earlier this year, when the Alaska Association for Historic Preservation announced the state’s Ten Most Endangered Historic Properties for 2013, they included “Historic Canneries (Statewide)” as location number 10. Responding to this call, the Bob and Evangeline Atwood Alaska Resource Center of the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center tasked its summer interns with creating a guide to historic photographs of Alaskan canneries held in the Museum’s archives. The resulting 16-page document has already been updated three times... (Read More)

Wed, November 27, 2013

Canned at Karluk

It is remarkable that the artist more-or-less depicts Kodiak Alutiiq inthis label. Note the bifurcated bow ofthe kayak, the gutskin kamleikas, andthe conical-shaped hats.Kodiak Historical Society. (Note: This is republished from the Baranov Museum's blog, www.blogspot.com/baranovmuseum)By: Anjuli GranthamI admit it. I have lusted over this Alaska Improvement Company can from the moment I read that Kodiak resident Nick Troxell had purchased it on e-bay. In fact, I went so far as to save a place for it in the fisheries exhibit that we... (Read More)

Fri, July 19, 2013

The Funter Bay Cannery

By: Gabe Emerson(Note: Visit Emerson's website for much more information about the history of Funter Bay.)Construction of a salmon cannery began at Funter Bay in 1902, but its story starts a few years earlier. In 1899, a Portland businessman by the name of James Thomas “J.T.” Barron organized the Thlinket Packing and Trading Co. His initial cannery locations were Santa Anna and Point Gerard near Wrangell [1]. Salmon packing was a popular investment opportunity at the start of the 20th... (Read More)