Category: Alaska’s Historic Canneries

Tue, January 02, 2018

From 1962 to 2017, Listening, Watching, Living, and Writing Alitak’s History

By Rick Metzger In the spring of 1962 when I was 11, my father, Elden Metzger, announced to the family that he would be going fishing with his brother, Wayland, for the salmon season at a place called Alitak. Wayland had been a machinist with Alaska Packers Association and through that association and with his friend Don Slater they had acquired some set net sites in Alitak Bay on Kodiak Island. My father was a small contractor who moved houses... (Read More)

Mon, June 29, 2020

NN Cannery Project Discusses Community Work

Between Two Bookshelves: Humanities Organizations and the COVID-19 Pandemic On June 25, 2020, Katie Ringsmuth with the NN Cannery History Project participated in a virtual online briefing organized for congressional staffers in Washington DC that showcased how humanities organizations like hers are serving communities in distinct and crucial ways throughout the COVID-19 crisis. She represented the Cannery History Project and discussed the unifying significance of current and past essential workers, as well as the historic lessons learned from the 1919... (Read More)

Mon, December 04, 2017

The Whitney-Fidalgo Cannery on Ship Creek, Anchorage

By: Mark LaRiviere Note: The following was written in the Fall of 1976. No salmon canneries remain on Ship Creek today. Below the hustle-bustle of downtown Anchorage, at the mouth of Ship Creek, is the only remaining salmon cannery in upper Cook Inlet. At one time there were two canneries in Anchorage and three in the upper Inlet area, but the days of small, owner operated canneries in Alaska are over and only the Whitney-Fidalgo Seafoods, Inc. Anchorage cannery remains... (Read More)

Sun, December 04, 2016

Elemental and True: Glacier Bay Seafoods, 1972-1974

[caption id="attachment_4763" align="aligncenter" width="585"] Glacier Bay Seafoods in Ouzinkie, Alaska, in the early 1970s, with a Kodiak Air Grumman Goose mail plane heading to the village beach. Photo by Tim Smith.[/caption] By: Susan Morgan We were never supposed to live in Ouzinkie. That revelation from my mom blew my mind. We had never been one of those families that had meetings to discuss things, but I always assumed at least my mom knew what was happening. As it turns out,... (Read More)

Tue, November 29, 2016

Canned: The NN Cannery Project

[embed]https://vimeo.com/194408286?utm_source=email&utm_medium=vimeo-cliptranscode-201504&utm_campaign=29220[/embed] By: Katie Ringsmuth, PhD One of the most important 20th century industries on the West Coast was the canning of Pacific salmon. In its heyday the industry caught and canned enough salmon to feed four pounds of salmon a year to every man woman and child in America. Lined up end to end, these one pound tins could have circled the globe. As anthropologist Alan Boraas notes, “Canneries transformed this entire area and represent the industrial revolution of the... (Read More)