Iñupiaq men in qayaqs, Noatak, Alaska, circa 1929. Edward S. Curtis Collection, Library of Congress Digital Collections.
Crossing the Chilkoot Pass, circa 1898. Courtesy Candy Waugaman and Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.
The Gold Rush boomtown of Nome on the Seward Peninsula, 1900. Courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey Photographic Library.
Photos, text and audio production by Anjuli Grantham.
The Waterfall Resort on Prince of Wales Island is a busy place in the summer. Dozens of guests at a time occupy the old cannery, turning a place that once produced canned salmon for the marketplace into a place that caters to sports fishermen eager to feed themselves. But if you venture to this historic cannery in the spring, you will only find a skeleton crew of carpenters and winter watchmen, engaged in keeping the cannery in prime shape.
Babe and Wanda Wilks have worked as winter watchmen at the Waterfall Resort for ten years now. They’ve worked diligently to preserve not just the physical fabric of the cannery, but its history, as well. Below are photos snapped at Waterfall during a visit during April of 2016. Find out more about Babe and Wanda and their affection for the Waterfall Cannery by listening to this radio story, aired by the Alaska Fisheries Report. [The story is after a report about the 2 billionth salmon caught in Bristol Bay.]
Wanda Wilks in the Waterfall Cannery store.
White, red and green paint on the side of a cannery warehouse.
Babe Wilks looks through an old parts catalog in the Waterfall Cannery store.
Special packing tables for casing up salmon.
Babe Wilks holds a board stamped with Nakat’s stencil.
Herman Kurth was the son of a long-time Waterfall superintendent. He’s returned to Waterfall to visit and signed the put his signature at the same spot in the warehouse he signed back in 1948.
