The Alaska Salmon Fishery: The Environment, the Attitudes

There is a haunting quality that runs through the written history of the Alaskan salmon fishery. From the early reports to the United States Fish Commission, in 1889 by Tarleton Bean and in 1899 by Jefferson Moser, through the analyses of Gilbert and O’Malley in 1919, Rich and Ball in the 1920’s, Gregory and Barnes in the late 1930’s, George Rogers in the 1960’s, and Richard Cooley in 1961, there is evidence of a constant preoccupation with the threat and, in some areas, the fact of the destruction of the resource. ¹