Part 43 (2/2)

They are rectangular in shape and walled with large stones and cement.

The walls are overgrown with gra.s.ses 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 pa.s.sionate and supreme desire to reach the highest sp.a.w.ning-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 G.o.d-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 sp.a.w.n them by hand.

In the natural method of sp.a.w.ning, 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 ma.s.s; 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 sp.a.w.ning 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 pa.s.s 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 sp.a.w.ning, they return during the winter to the sea; and in the following year reascend the river as adult salmon. Males mature s.e.xually 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 s.h.i.+ning, white cleanliness and order everywhere manifest would make a German housewife green of envy.

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