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Funter Bay History – Drugs, Labor, & The Company Store

May 18, 2013

Beachcombing the low-tide regions near old canneries will sometimes reveal tiny glass bottles and fragments of masonry jugs. These relics are reminders of some of the darker social issues of cannery development: drugs and alcohol, often provided by employers to keep workers in debt to the company.

The tiny bottles held opium, and the masonry jugs held rice wine, both available for purchase at the company store. Opium was common in the Western US, where large populations of Asian migrant workers served mines, canneries, and railroads. Although supposedly banned early in the 20th century, in reality it could be readily purchased and distributed with a special tax stamp. Federal prohibition on Opium went into effect until the mid 1920s, but afterward there were still licensed dealers who paid only a small fee.

The opium bottles from the cannery appear to have held small amounts, and are generally unmarked (I’m not sure if they originally had any sort of paper label). The designs vary, including round and square. The glass tends to be very thick, with a small channel in the center which held the drug. Many of the tops are smashed or broken, I have heard that these were often sealed with a blob of glass, and to open them you would simply break the neck of the bottle.

Neck from a rice wine jug:

What an intact rice wine bottle would have looked like:

In the early 20th century, drugs and alcohol were part of the typical cannery’s business plan. The cannery owners had a captive market in their seasonal labor, and workers were already on the hook for room and board, and possibly for transport in the case of migrant workers. Drugs and/or alcohol were another way for the company to recover wage expenses. They held a monopoly on the recreational substances, and could sell them to the workers at a high markup. A report from 1924 details some of these labor abuses, including unsanitary transportation, overpriced food, paycheck scams, etc, which could leave employees in debt to the company at the end of the season. The report also mentions other drugs distributed by cannery bosses, including cocaine and marijuana.

Here is a photo of a bunch more opium bottles, similar to the ones found at Funter.

Pat Roppel has a good article on Opium use. She mentions a case where someone attempted to smuggle Opium via the mail boat Estebeth, a boat which called at Funter Bay and which has been mentioned previously.

One of Roppel’s articles reports the following seasonal supply for a cannery with 238 employees (from 1890):
90lbs of opium at $13.50/lb
40lbs of low grade opium at $7.60/lb
20 cases of Chinese wine
38 cases of gin

This article mentions the “medicinal” use of Opium: with 12-16 hour days of heavy manual labor, it was valuable as a painkiller to keep the workers moving.

While opium and rice wine are often associated with Chinese cannery crews, the workers were not always of one nationality. Canneries employed local Tlingit natives in various positions (in fact, native employees dominated this cannery in the early years). Canneries later brought in Asian laborers from the lower 48 (Chinese, Japanese, and sometimes Korean immigrants). By the 1930s, Filipino and sometimes Mexican employees were more prevalent, along with some Puerto Rican and South American immigrants, often with Chinese managers or labor bosses. The casual racism of the period is obvious from reading contemporary documents and wage scales, white (European) employees received the highest pay and were usually in management positions, Asian laborers received less, and Tlingit workers were paid the least.

Even after officially-sanctioned drug use declined, room and board at company towns was still costly for employees. Another article by Pat Roppel mentions a large amount of traditional Chinese food shipped to Alaska by canning companies, which was paid for out of workers paychecks (further details in this document). The expense of company meals could be mitigated somewhat by fishing and hunting. A 1933 report on Admiralty Island bears complained that cannery workers “seem inclined to kill every bird and wild animal they see”. A law, specifically aimed at cannery workers, banned hunting and nonresident gun ownership without a permit, supposedly as a game-protective measure. Companies employing seasonal workers were probably quite happy to support this law.

Despite modern advances in labor laws and workers rights, recently a law was passed allowing canneries to again deduct room and board from employees pay, even if the resulting paycheck falls below minimum wage.

3 Comments | Alaska History, Funter Bay History | Tagged: Alaska, Cannery, Funter Bay, Funter Bay History, History, Opium, Southeast Alaska | Permalink
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Funter Bay History: Fish Buying Station

May 17, 2013

Independent fishermen in Funter Bay needed a place to sell their catch and buy supplies (fuel, fresh water, and ice). The local cannery would sometimes buy troll-caught fish, but probably paid a low low price since their own traps produced fish nearly free. Trollers were better off selling salmon which would go iced and fresh to Juneau grocery stores and markets. However, the range of the small fishing boats, and the distance from town where the fish were most often found, usually prevented the fishermen from running directly to Juneau to sell.

To support these markets, various fish sellers and middlemen operated buying stations in locations near the fishing grounds. The station at Funter Bay was probably associated with the Juneau Cold Storage, where they brought fish for storage and sale, and procured ice for sale to fishermen. Packers would run the fish in to the cold storage on a regular basis to keep them fresh.

Unloading fish at the Juneau Cold Storage, 1930s:

Courtesy of Alaska State Library, Elite Studio collections, P294-020

Another reason for third-party buyers was fish piracy; fishermen would sometimes steal fish from the cannery traps. Canneries banded together to boycott fish from certain “known pirates”, but independent buyers with their own scows and packers quickly sprang up who would take fish from anyone.

Salmon buyers also operated from floating scows (barges). Today, salmon buying stations usually operate (probably with fewer pirates) from scows, packer boats, and occasionally from docks at small communities like Elfin Cove.

Scow (barge with structure on it) and cannery tender at the Thlinket Packing Co dock, 1942:

Courtesy of Alaska State Library, Butler/Dale collection, P306-1093.

Funter Bay residents Gunner and Lazette Ohman operated a fish buying scow in the area during the 1950s and 60s, buying fish for Art Berthold of the Fern II.

The land-based fish buying station at Funter Bay was located on Highwater Island, which is only an island when high tide covers the sandbar to it (apparently it is called Crab Island in some govt. docs, although I’ve never heard it called that locally). The station had several buildings on the shore, and a long dock with two ramps, circled in the 1948 aerial photo below:

This location would not have been completely ideal, as it had no streams or running water, but it was in a very sheltered location that protected the dock from most winds. Trollers would fill up on fresh water from a hose running to a stream elsewhere in the bay.

Another aerial from 1948 (on a different date), showing a boat approaching the fish buying dock (the V-shaped wake in the lower right quarter of the image):

More recently, here is a collapsing shed at the station:

A small outboard motor abandoned in the woods (I always laugh when I go to some yuppie antique store in the Midwest and they’re selling rusty stuff like this for $300, but now I’m a little worried that someone will go nab the thing and stick it on their yuppie wall):

The outhouse pit, apparently bears think the spot is a great bathroom as well, as seen by the dark pile to the right:

More “junk” in the woods, bottles and trash from the 40s and 50s:

As mentioned before, there is a wrecked boat on the island adjacent to where the dock was sited. It’s locally known as a steam tug, assumed to be a cannery tender, although I’ve not yet been able to find any details on it.

Coil of cable on the beach, either from the wrecked tug or the fish buying dock:

1 Comment | Funter Bay History, Funter Bay People | Tagged: Alaska, Boats, Cannery, Fish Trap, fishing, Funter Bay, Funter Bay History, History, Southeast Alaska | Permalink
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Funter Bay Fishermen

May 15, 2013

As mentioned once or twice before, my Dad, Phil Emerson, began hand trolling in Southeast Alaska in the early 1970s, after building a small boat at Funter Bay. Donna, my Mom, fished with him for a few years (he had upgraded to a larger boat by then). Dad’s uncle Robert Emerson also lived at Funter Bay and fished for many years, as did his son Joe. Dr. Joe Riederer also fished around Funter and built a cabin there when I was younger. Our Neighbor Joe Giefer also trolled.

Compiling a full list of people who fished commercially in and around Funter Bay over the past decades is likely impossible, but there are a few fishermen I’ve been able to find reference to. One great source are the notecards left by Captain Lloyd “Kinky” Bayers. His extensive material on SE Alaska marine history fills multiple collections at the Alaska State Library, some of them can be found here. My parents also provided some of the information, passed on from other residents of Funter Bay at the time they moved there. The Merchant Vessel registration lists are again helpful in determining vessel and ownership details.

Funter Bay serves as a convenient harbor for fishing the junction of Lynn Canal, Chatham Strait, and Stevens Passage. Geologist John Mertie reported around 1919 that Funter Bay was a busy harbor where many fishing boats took refuge during the sudden gales and heavy fogs characteristic of the area. Capt. Bayers himself took shelter at Funter on occasion while working on the Estabeth and later while running the mail boat Forester. Hand trollers who fished from small open boats in the summer would often stay in tents or small cabins on the beach in Funter Bay. Those with larger boats would live on board, anchoring or tying to one of the docks during bad weather.

Salmon troller at Funter around 1920 (Winter & Pond):

Some of the people listed below lived at Funter permanently. Some may have been part time or summer residents, and some may have merely passed through. Hand trollers are especially hard to find, because their small boats often had only numbers like T-105, rather than names, and did not have commerce dept. registry numbers. I have provided what details I can find.

Alvin Weathers fished around Funter before 1920 and through the mid 1930s. I believe this was the same Al Weathers I previously mentioned, who was arrested for fish piracy with his brother Ike Weathers in 1919.

The “Weathers Boys” came to work in the Treadwell mines around 1915, and a 1916 article in the Daily Alaska Dispatch mentioned that they were looking for an island to homestead and trap. They seem to have turned to piracy soon afterward. In July of 1918 Al and Ike were charged with robbing a trap south of Point Retreat. The trap watchman, F.C. Wright, was accused of aiding them, but was cleared. The brothers managed to get off that time due to lack of evidence. After being convicted of the July 1919 cannery tender attack, Al and Ike were sentenced to 4 years in Washington state. Their boat in 1919 was the 37′ Diana, it was purchased by Chas Goldstein after their conviction. Ironically, by September the Diana was being used as a cannery tender.

In 1934, Al had the 32ft vessel Ace. In 1935 he bought the Al Jr, a brand new (built 1935) 40′ fishing boat with a 35hp diesel and a crew of 3 (per Merchant Vessel registry). Al may have owned a house on Fritz Cove Rd around 1935.

Another local fisherman and occasional fish pirate was “Humpy Nils” Landin, who had the 41ft vessel North Shore in 1935, fishing between Juneau and Hoonah. He and Nels Ludvigson of the vessel Pilgrim were sent before a grand jury for fish piracy in July of 1919.

The trial transcripts and appeals court documents from some of these cases are a wealth of information. In a 1920 appeals case, the US attorney cross-examines O.E. Bennett, a local fish buyer accused of aiding pirates. Bennett admitted that he had moored his fish buying scow at “Pirate Cove” near Swanson Harbor, but denied that he was specifically buying from pirate boats or that he knew which boats were pirates. Some of the commonly known pirate boats listed by the attorney were; The Diana, the Thalia, the Juneau, the May, and the Pilgrim.

Kinky Bayers’ notes mention many other names of pirates operating in the Juneau area, as late as 1940. Much of the information implies that convictions were hard to get, except in extreme cases like the Weathers’ where shots were fired at cannery personnel. He mentions that in 1924, at least 30 boats were known to be pirates, and multiple canneries had agreed not to buy fish from any of them.

In September of 1919 a 40′ gas boat named Sandy sank in Juneau, the owner was reported to be at Funter Bay (As previously mentioned, there was another Sandy built at Funter in 1919, which also sank in Juneau while smuggling moonshine in 1928). One of these may have been a fishing boat.

In October of 1924, Peter Hobson of the Myrtle pulled two trollers off the rocks outside Funter Bay; The Skip Jack, with Matsu Samato, his wife and 5 children, and the T-115, with two unnamed men. Damage to the boats was minor.

J. Kikuchi, a Japanese fisherman, was reported missing and feared drowned in July 1926, after his troller was found circling aimlessly off Funter Bay and towed in by other fishermen.

In December of 1927, many Juneau boats were reported storm-bound at Funter for 9 days, including the Pacific and the Alpha. The T-203, also known as the Buster, drifted into Funter Bay with owner A. Waara missing. (A different Buster than the cannery tender which sank the previous year at Funter).

The troller Gloria (probably a 39′ boat from Sitka) was operating around Funter Bay in 1928, when the crew rescued Dr. W.F. Good of the Anna Helen (a traveling dentist’s office, which caught fire outside the bay).

Emil Samuelson of the halibut boat Dixon operated around Funter Bay. He rescued the crew of the cannery tender Anna Barron when she sank at Point Couverden in 1930, and brought them back to Funter Bay.

Fred Patrick of the vessel Fearless lived in Funter Bay in the 1930s. He was a fairly unlucky fellow.

Harold Tipton may have been a Funter Bay fisherman, he has the distinction of being shot in the foot by Fred Patrick in 1931. He may be the same person mentioned here.

“Funter Bay Pete” (Pete Brynoff or Brynolf), owned the troller T-3802. In August of 1934 his boat broke down off Rocky Island, and Al Weathers towed him to Swanson Harbor. In the 1940 census there is a 72 year old Peter Brynolf listed as living at Fritz Cove Rd in Juneau, born about 1868 in Sweeden. He died in 1943.

The Fremont was listed as fishing around Funter Bay in the winter of 1936.

Geo Ford had a troller which sank at Funter Bay in 1938.

A.F. Bixby homesteaded at Funter Bay in the 1930s. This may have been Al F. Bixby whose family is mentioned in the Bayers notecards, his wife died in July of 1939. I am not sure if they fished or not.

Hal Hibbs lived at Funter Bay in the 1940s, and owned the F/V Mary Ann.

Elmer P Loose who owned the Nimrod and the Sally Ann, lived at Funter in the 1960s.

Ray Martin fished out of Funter Bay in the 1960s with the vessel Vermont, he and his wife Marge were the prior owner of our house.

Wilfred A “Bill” Young. owned the troller Lollypop in the 60s and early 70s. He and his wife Wanda lived next door to our house, and my Dad originally came to Funter to help work on Bill’s house.

Harold Hargrave owned the vessels Janet, Merry Fortune, and Selig No. 1 in 1955. He later had the Mattie W. He was also the postmaster at Funter for some time, and lived near the cannery with his wife Mary. I will probably detail them more later.

James Hay had the vessel Janet and lived at Funter in 1945. From 1948 to 1951 the boat was listed as belonging to Anna Hargrave, then Harold Hargrave in 1952.

Gunner Ohman and wife Lazzette lived on the East shore of Funter in a log cabin that Gunner had built. He worked various jobs around the bay, including hand trolling (more on them later).

“Screaming Jack Lee” was a Funter Bay fisherman (probably a hand troller) who lived in a tent or vacant buildings in various places around Funter Bay. Harvey Smith’s description of him (via my Dad) was that he talked to himself a lot and you could hear him yelling all over the bay, screaming at his tools or his firewood for “fighting” him. A 1945 National Geographic article mentions some nicknames of Alaskan fishermen, and describes a “Screaming Jack” who got the nickname because he was always mad.

A fellow nicknamed “Shorty” had a log cabin and was supposedly building a fishing boat at Funter Bay, but forgot to leave room for the propeller shaft and left when someone pointed this out (photos of his cabin are in this post).

The Keelers (Floyd and George?), possibly an uncle and nephew, had a cabin near Clear Point. There were apparently several cabins here which were used by hand trollers. The Keelers might also have had a cabin near Hawk Inlet, and were also involved with logging. Part of one cabin by Clear Point was still standing in the late 90s and still showed some of the red paint.

Excerpt from a 1947 National Geographic article mentioning Funter Bay:

I may come across more information in the future and make an additional post or update this one. As always, if I have omitted or mistaken anything, please feel free to email me and let me know!

3 Comments | Funter Bay History, Funter Bay People | Tagged: Alaska, Boats, fishing, Funter Bay, Funter Bay History, Southeast Alaska, trolling | Permalink
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Funter Bay History: Shorty’s Cabin

May 14, 2013

Hiding in the woods near Second Creek is this tiny log cabin, locally known as “Shorty’s Cabin”

Obviously “Shorty” was a smaller fellow, the cabin is barely 6′ high. It had a single window (now boarded up), a door, a stove, and the remains of a bed. Between the stove and the bed, nearly the entire floor space would have been taken up.

The cabin had a layer of tarpaper over the wooden roof, which helped waterproof it, but tarpaper is easily torn by falling branches or hail, so it would not have been a very permanent solution. The roof is already half gone.

Window, bedframe (on floor), and tarpaper:

Some more views of the cabin:

Close-up showing the axe and saw work on the logs:

Closer close-up showing worm trails in the logs where the bark has fallen off:

As the story goes, Shorty was a cook at Hawk Inlet (either the mine or cannery there), got tired of his job, and quit to become a fisherman. He moved to Funter Bay and built the cabin, then began constructing a boat. He was well along in the boat building, when a visitor stopped by and remarked that the boat had no shaft alley (the trough or groove where the tail shaft would run from the engine to the propeller). Shorty gave up in disgust at his shoddy design, jumped on the next mail boat to Juneau, and was never heard from again.

What appears to be part of a boat hull, perhaps Shorty’s failed project:

Other artifacts and debris scattered around include some metal drums, one may have been a barrel stove:

Shorty’s kettle:

Shorty’s boots:

Here’s Dad in front of Shorty’s cabin in the ’70s, when the roof was in better condition!

I am not sure who “Shorty” really was, there were a number of people with that nickname in the area in the early-mid 20th century, including a dairy farmer, a butcher, and a suspected bank robber. So far I’ve been unable to find anything more on the “Shorty” of Funter Bay.

3 Comments | Boatbuilding, Funter Bay History, Funter Bay People | Tagged: Alaska, Boats, Funter Bay, Funter Bay History, History, Southeast Alaska | Permalink
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Funter Bay History: Dick Willoughby’s Exploding Raven

May 13, 2013

Richard “Uncle Dick” Willoughby (1832-1902?) AKA “The Professor”, was apparently quite the local character. Known for various pranks and tall tales, he left a lasting impression on the history and geography of Southeast Alaska (he has both a street and an island named after him).

Dick had a cabin at Funter Bay and did some prospecting in the area, locating several claims around the bay in 1887 and even starting a small mining company. An apparently successful prospecting method was to carry a metal rod with a carbon tip. Willoughby would prod through the mossy muskeg layer covering much of Admiralty Island, hoping to find shallow bedrock. After some practice, he claimed to be able to tell the difference between quartz and other rocks by feel. Even after selling many of his mining claims, Dick spent much of his later life at Funter Bay.

Willoughby also prospected and explored around Glacier Bay and other parts of Southeast Alaska. Around 1885, he claimed to have photographed a “phantom city” above Muir Glacier. He made some money selling copies and guiding tours to see this supposed mirage (which no one else ever glimpsed, and was later revealed to look remarkably like Bristol, England). The ever-reliable and never-sensationalist Popular Mechanics magazine swallowed the bait with a full article in 1897, although most people list it as an obvious fake. As late as 1928, cruise ship passengers were still looking for the phantom city!

An 1887 Juneau Free Press article claims that Dick Willoughby had dug up “The Devil’s Skeleton”. Willoughby was occasionally mentioned in the papers as finding “monster bones”, as well as various mammoth skeletons, often around Glacier Bay. He apparently had a “museum” in Juneau where you could “see the elephant” for 50 cents admission.

To get back to the title of this post, below is an anecdote from his time at Funter which appears (with slightly different details) in several period newspapers:

A slightly different version is mentioned here, in which Dick’s cabin at Funter falls victim to the nefarious bird. Who knows how much, if any, truth this story contains!

Chapter 7 of the 1909 book Through The Yukon and Alaska is devoted to Dick Willoughby.

A fairly comprehensive obituary of Mr. Willoughby is here.

Leave a Comment » | Funter Bay History, Funter Bay People | Tagged: Alaska, Dick Willoughby, Funter Bay, Funter Bay History, History, Mining, Old Timer, Raven, Southeast Alaska, Tall Tale, Yarns | Permalink
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Funter Bay History – Cannery Ruins

May 11, 2013

Again I must mention that most of these buildings (including the tumbledown ones) are privately owned. Locals are watchful and not enthusiastic about trespassing. Please respect private property.

Following are some of my photos of the remains of Funter Bay cannery buildings in the 1990s and 2000s. I sometimes refer to Funter as a ghost town, and the remains certainly have that feel. The cannery was actually large enough to earn a designation as a small town, albeit a company town with mostly seasonal population.

I’ll start out with the overview map of the property, as surveyed in 1964 (large file!):

Most maps call the cannery “Funter”, as this was the location of the post office through much of the 20th century. I find it odd that the inset location map on the above survey has the name “Funter” moved away from the cannery and towards the area between Nimrod and Second Creeks. There even appears to be a small square marked (which could just be a compression artifact). That spot would be “Shorty’s Cabin” (which I’ll detail in another post). It would be strange to show the location of the town being the smallest building in the bay, unless it’s some kind of surveyor’s joke!

Onward to the photos!

Below is the remains of one of the large two-story bunkhouses at the cannery. This one was the Filipino house shown on the map.

A building on the West side of the property. I’m not actually sure what this was originally used for, but it seems to have been lived in at one point (there was a stove and a supply of firewood) and it had become a storage warehouse later on:

Inside the warehouse building is a random collection of “stuff”. Barrels, old fishing gear, etc (no, American Pickers fans, there’s nothing *really* old left…

…Except for the wallpaper, which is old newspapers!

These old papers coat the walls and ceiling of this building. The dates are around 1919, and publications include Colliers and The Saturday Evening Post. The wallpapering was probably done to help keep out drafts, and maybe to make the interior look more interesting?

Some of the small houses shown on the map behind the bunkhouses. These were probably for married workers who did not stay in the bunkhouses:

These quonset huts were not original to the cannery, but were put up during WWII by the US Army to house evacuated Pribolof islanders. The quonset huts were of poor quality and have deteriorated faster than the original buildings.

The remains of some slightly larger houses farther East. I believe these may have been the “Native Cabins” shown on the 1962 map (these could either be from the WWII Aleut internment, or earlier housing for Tlingit employees).

A house that has collapsed flat, leaving a table exposed and showing part of the stovepipe:

This appears to be a chicken coop and fenced pen at one of the houses. Perhaps one of the managers or their family kept chickens? I would be dubious of the survival rate; between the weasels, otters, mink, marten, and all varieties of raptor, chickens would be a tasty snack for much of the local wildlife. We raised ducks when I was younger, and even with the ocean to flee to, they still got picked off frequently by local predators. There are also reports that someone raised fox, mink, or rabbits at the cannery in the 1950s.

A more intact building, not marked on the map:

This one seems to have been larger once, or possibly moved and/or rebuilt from a larger structure. One wall is cut away and re-boarded, and the roof sticks out over a missing piece of building:

As you can see from the amount of decay and collapse, nature quickly reclaims artificial structures in Southeast Alaska. The high humidity and salinity, heavy wet snow, and punishing winds will all chip away at a building. Spruce trees drop tons of cones and needles, which soon form a layer of soil on roofs where more plants can grow. Second-growth trees like Alders grow quickly, with limbs and roots pushing at walls and foundations. Eventually the roof is gone or the walls are breached, and once water gets inside, it’s a quick progression into a pile of moldy wood. Eventually there’s just mound of moss and small plants in the bare outline of a building, with maybe an area of younger trees showing where a clearing once was.

1 Comment | Funter Bay History | Tagged: Alaska, Cannery, Funter Bay, Funter Bay History, History, Southeast Alaska | Permalink
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Funter Bay History – More Fish Traps & Fish Pirates

May 8, 2013

This began as a dry discussion of trap types, and ended up with gun fights, legal battles, piracy, and everything else that goes with Alaskan fishing!

As mentioned before, the Funter Bay cannery operated mainly with fish traps (vs fishing boats). These traps were designed to intercept salmon as they returned to spawning streams, penning them in large fixed nets until they could be scooped out.

There were two types of fish trap used in the Funter Bay area. “Pound Nets” hung from fixed pilings driven into the sea bottom. Many of these pilings had to be replaced each season, as the winter storms would knock them loose. “Floating Traps” had nets hung from a latticework of floating logs, and were used in deeper water or locations with rocky bottoms. These traps were towed into protected coves for winter storage. Both types of trap would be located a few hundred feet offshore, with a “leader” strung towards the beach (and sometimes a “Jigger” extending seaward) to intercept passing salmon. This page has some more explanation and diagrams.

Pound Net:

Floating Trap:

These images show one of the Thlinket Packing Co’s pound-type traps near Funter Bay (Trap #7):

My first post on Funter Bay History shows Trap #6 at the Kittens (islands), also of the pound type.

Here is an example of a floating trap. The structure on top is the watchman’s shack:

As mentioned, watchmen on the traps were an attempt to prevent trap robbing or “Fish Piracy” at remote traps, which was quite common. Independent fishermen hated traps, which they (correctly) felt were taking too many salmon. Many fishermen felt that fish in a trap were fair game, and that trap robbing did not “cost” anything to the trap owner. In fact, the pirates would often sell the stolen fish to the same company that owned the traps! The problem became so bad that the governor of Alaska dispatched surplus navy boats to combat pirates, and the Thlinket Packing Co hired WWI veterans to serve as armed guards.

In July of 1919, the Weathers brothers, Al and Ike, along with Ernest Stage, were charged with assault and attempted robbery in a fish piracy case. The trio were accused of using the gas boat Diana to attack Hoonah Packing co’s tender Forrester near Funter Bay. Captain Alfred Knutson testified that his boat came under fire by the trio. Thlinket Packing Co trap watchman Ted Likeness was a witness. Earnest Stage was initially arrested for stealing $10 worth of fish from Funter Bay. Al Weathers was found guilty and given 4 years in jail, with the jury recommending clemency due to his young age.

Info on the USS Marblehead.

Photo of a WWI sub chaser in Alaska.

Fish piracy was reduced by 1925 after several canning companies joined together to patrol the area.

“Fish piracy, or the robbery of fish traps, which in previous seasons was bitterly complained of by salmon canners in southeastern Alaska, was reduced to a minimum during the season of 1925. This was accomplished chiefly through the maintenance of a patrol organized by the larger canners and operated under the supervision of deputy United States marshals. A number of cruising boats were engaged in this patrol and covered waters in the vicinity of Icy Strait, Niblack, Street Island, Behm Canal, Kanagunut, Rose Inlet, Dall Head, Hidden Inlet, Union Bay, and the west coast of Prince of Wales Island.” From Bureau of Fisheries report, 1926.

Some more information on fish piracy can be found here (restoring a patrol boat), here (the story of a miner turned pirate), and here (mentioning the piratical family history of Ketchikan’s mayor).

In addition to battling pirates, salmon packing companies were also fiercely competitive with eachother, vying for the same salmon runs, the most desirable trap locations, and the best land for canneries. An extreme example of this was “trap jumping”, similar to the phenomenon of mine claim jumping where one prospector would steal the land or resources of another. More details shortly…

Pound net traps often had a watchman on shore, vs floating traps with their onboard housing. As I previously noted, the Thlinket Packing Co acquired land via the homestead act from which to base their traps (although the person filing for the homestead would usually not be the one living there!). I showed a survey of cannery owner J.T. Barron’s “homestead” in this post. Below is a survey of the “homestead” at a trap site south of Funter:

This homestead (located at Lizard Head point just South of Funter) was fairly openly a front for cannery development, being transferred very quickly to T.P.Co owner James Barron. Barron had previously held a lease from the Alaska Packers Association for a trap they installed in 1908 at Lizard Head, and was moving to acquire the shore and upland to support this site.

“…On or about the first day of March, A. D. 1911, for value received, the said V. A. Robertson conveyed by good and sufficient deed in writing the above-described tract, lot or parcel of land embraced within said U. S. Nonmineral Survey No. 804 aforesaid to James T. Barron.”

However, before the Thlinket Packing Co could finish building their trap, Clarence J. Alexander, AKA “Claire Alexander” of the Tee Harbor Packing Co swooped in and installed his own, thus “corking off” Barron. He had previously worked on the pile-driving crew for the Alaska Packers Association, and knew exactly where the trap should go. Alexander even used some of the pilings that Barron had already driven! Barron sued, and some of the court documents are online (part 1 and part 2).

Perhaps Mr. Alexander’s “opportunity” was when Barron left the state?:

Claire Alexander’s fish trap shown in front of Barron’s Lizard Head property, from court documents:

Barron’s initial letter to Alexander:

In the court case, Barron testified not that he planned a trap (as indicated by his letter and other testimony), but that he wanted to use the site as a temporary mooring for boats. He mentioned that it was too hard to tow loaded scows to Funter Bay against a North wind. He complains that Alexander’s trap blocks his water access. Alexander claimed he had no knowledge of Barron’s so-called homestead and didn’t notice any development at the site (despite incorporating Barron’s pilings into his trap). The court found against Barron and ruled that Alexander’s trap did not block Barron’s access to his property.

Some 1911 photos from the Lizard Head trap site, including the beginnings of the T.P. Co. watchman’s cabin:

Claire Alexander would go on to found the Hoonah Packing Co a few years later, and his trap at Lizard Head was still in place, in the same configuration, in 1948.

Laws regarding fish traps tended to fluctuate. Traps were originally fairly unregulated, and canneries would often place them directly in stream mouths, intercepting the entire spawning population until the “run” of salmon was destroyed. Later regulations placed limits on where traps could be located, when they could operate, how long the jiggers could be, etc. By the 1940s, the salmon population had declined so much that trap catches were fairly low, but the price of salmon had risen enough to keep traps cost-effective. When Alaska became a state in 1959, traps were outlawed entirely, leading to the closure of many canneries (other methods of fishing were not efficient enough for the size and type of these operations).

The Thlinket Packing Co (and later owners of the cannery) occasionally ran afoul of fish and game regulations.

“During the season of 1926, four salmon traps were seized in south-eastern Alaska for illegal fishing during the weekly closed period. … A trap of P. E. Harris & Co., near Hawk Inlet, and one of the Alaska Pacific Fisheries, near Funter Bay. were seized on July 11. On trial the watchmen were found not guilty, but the traps were still in the custody of the United States marshal at the end of the season.” Bureau of Fisheries report, 1927.

I came across a set of 1948 aerial photos of Funter Bay while looking for another map (from http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/). The original is linked in my post on Funter Bay maps, below are a few excerpts showing fish traps around the bay in 1948.

A trap outside the south shore of Funter Bay (possibly pound net trap #7) Note the wake of the boat, possibly a cannery tender, leaving the trap:

C.J Alexander’s pound net style trap at Lizard Head in 1948, looking a little worse for wear. The trap has the same approximate layout as shown in the 1911 diagram (inset), but the line of pilings for the lead going to shore has vanished.

A number of traps seem to have been abandoned by the Thlinket Packing Co at this point. There is no sign of Trap #6 at the Kittens in the 1948 aerials. Several of the floating-style traps are also sitting on the beach or drawn up in shallow coves where they would go dry at low tide. More traps are visible operating and in place along the shore between Funter and Hawk Inlet, but I’m not sure which companies were operating these.

Fish trap on the beach in Crab Cove:

Crab Cove trap logs outlined to be more visible:

You can see the shadow of the watchman’s shack, this might have been the shack that became the entry of our house, as mentioned in an earlier post. Our neighbor Harvey Smith also had a few sheds that were the right size to be trap watchman’s shacks, I might detail those later on.

Floating trap in place along the Admiralty Island shore south of Funter Bay, with buoyed lead net going to shore:

Down at the other end of the bay, we can see a jumble of pickup sticks on the estuary between Ottesen and Dano creeks, near the sandy beach. A few hints of the outline of a trap are visible, this might be one or more damaged or disintegrating traps:

Here is the cannery site and Scow Bay with the scows visible on slipways:

And finally, back to the present day: here’s a trap log washed up at the sandy beach, probably from one of the traps seen above. You can see various bolts and hardware that connected the trap logs together:

8 Comments | Funter Bay History, Funter Bay People | Tagged: Alaska, Cannery, fish pirates, Fish Trap, fishing, Funter Bay, Funter Bay History, History, piracy, salmon, Southeast Alaska | Permalink
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Funter Bay History: Trails and Boardwalks

May 7, 2013

Before outboard motors, walking and rowing were the two main ways to get around Funter Bay. You got to choose between an upper body or lower body workout! I’ve already shown a few remaining rowboats (at the end of this page), so now I’ll talk about some of the walking trails around the bay (Translation: get ready to see a lot of brown and green, the official colors of the coastal rainforest!)

Maps of Funter Bay are a bit of an inside joke to locals. When we wanted to walk anywhere, we usually used the beach at anything but high tide. Mapping companies have long been perpetuating old historic trails and marking them as if they’re still maintained. Some online maps even go so far as to show some of these abandoned trails as roads. Occasionally some hapless tourist would show up looking for the Bear Creek trail, or a lost hunter would stumble out of the woods thinking he was on the Juneau side of Admiralty Island.

Trying to follow or even find any trail on this map is wishful thinking:

Funter Bay did have an extensive trail system in the early 20th century. A trail reached all the way around the bay, from Clear Point and the Keeler cabin at the North entrance to the sandy beach and the Dana Mine at the South shore. One would think that rowing a boat across the bay would be faster, but winter weather could be nasty, and walking was sometimes preferable. Trails were usually in the woods, near but not on the beach (beach walking is easy at low tide, but high tide eliminates much of the flat ground on the shore). Keeping trails marked and cleared was an ongoing battle against nature. If nature abhors a vacumm, then Southeast Alaska abhors open ground in the woods… opportunistic ground cover, fast-growing bushes, and 2nd-growth trees will rapidly colonize any clearing made by man or nature.

Here comes the green and brown! Below is a well-defined historic trail (meaning not overgrown with berry bushes!). This may not look like much to an outsider, but to a local this is an efficient road through the woods!

Trails were marked with blazes, vertical slashes cut into trees. These also had to be maintained, as they would scar over and become less visible with time. Some blazes were painted a bright color to make them more obvious. Here are a few examples of blazes that can still be seen:

Another sign of an old trail: downed trees across the route have been cut through:

Small log footbridges over streams were common along the trails, but it’s rare to find much sign of them now:

Even more unique, this is a bridge over a vertical crevice in the ground left by a mining operation. This one actually had railings so pedestrians wouldn’t fall 30ft down a hole, you can see the uprights still in place at each end:

And here is the deluxe version of a trail, a boardwalk! If a trail is the Southeast Alaskan’s road, the boardwalk is their highway! You can do all kinds of city-style stuff with a boardwalk, like ride bikes! My sister and I had bikes when we were growing up, but we could usually only ride them when the tide was out, and only on certain mixes of not-too-squishy, not-too-rocky ground.

Some boardwalks at the cannery had electric lights along the path:

An older boardwalk, like anything else made of wood in Southeast Alaska, these need occasional repair or replacement…

…Or they start to look like this:

Bear Creek Trail:

The Bear Creek Trail, also known as National Forest 452, is the “big one”, crossing the pass towards Juneau. This was a shortcut to get to Funter, instead of traveling around Point Retreat, you could take a boat from Juneau to the mouth of Bear Creek, then hike across Admiralty Island in a few hours. Not much remains of this trail any more, there are a few blazes visible, and the remains of a few footbridges, but trying to follow it is an exercise in futility. As soon as you are forced to divert from the former path by a downed tree, thick brush, or other obstacle, re-finding the route of the trail is nearly impossible.

The Bear Creek Trail was made “official” and improved in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps, a government program to reduce unemployment. The CCC also built several trails and recreational cabins on southern Admiralty Island starting in 1934 (per Roderick). This document mentions that the Admiralty Island division had 130 men in 1934, and 245 in 1936. CCC work ended when the US entered WWII.

“Bear Creek … (28 miles) Offers fine trout fishing, good hunting. Brown bear. Trail leads 5.8 miles along stream to headwaters, then over low divide down to Funter Way on west side Admiralty Island.”

From “Juneau:a study of the Gastineau Channel area” by Juan Munoz, 1956.

The Bear Creek trail was mentioned in a 1989 land transfer, when the federal government deeded lands on Mansfield Peninsula to the State of Alaska. The BLM retained a right-of way 15 feet wide along the Bear Creek Trail. No one has bothered to do any work on it in the last 50 years or so, and it’s doubtful the BLM could even find or identify where their easement is supposed to be.

1 Comment | Funter Bay History | Tagged: Alaska, CCC, Civilian Conservation Corps, Funter Bay, Funter Bay History, History, Southeast Alaska, trails | Permalink
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Funter Bay in Maps

May 6, 2013

Here is a compilation of maps and aerial photos showing Funter Bay over more than 100 years. I wish I’d had this collection when I was a kid! They are great for seeing the rise and fall of development around the bay. The difference between high and low tide is also striking. If you’re a boater thinking of visiting Funter, take a look at some of the low-tide images before you take a short-cut, or you may be the next boat that someone has to pull off the sandbar! (Also think of the wind direction and bottom type, the anchors shown as moorage locations on the nautical charts are kind of another local joke… people end up dragging anchor if they use those spots in the wrong winds).

Some of the aerials are very large files, click them if you’d like to view the originals, but give them a few seconds to fully load (they may look grainy or pixelated at first).

I have collected these from several sources. The aerial photos are public domain data, produced by the Department of the Interior / United States Geological Survey. Many of these can be found at http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/

Most of the topographic maps are products of the USGS, and can be found at http://nationalmap.gov/historical/

Nautical Charts were produced by the US Coast and Geodetic Survey (later NOAA), and some can be found at http://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/csdl/ctp/abstract.htm

Funter Bay in 1905 (Nautical Chart):

1905 vicinity chart:

1914 nautical chart (essentially the same as the 1905 edition):

1921 USGS map showing some of the mining claims on the South Shore:

1948 aerial photo (click to open detailed original scale):

The 1948 aerial above is cool because it shows many of the old docks and waterfront structures that are now gone. I’ll try to highlight a few of these in a later post.

1951 vicinity map (USGS terrain-shaded topo):

1962 map by the Overseas Mineral Cooperation Association (a Japanese mineral investment group):

I have highlighted structures shown on the OMCA map in red. I find it interesting that they show the cabins near Clear Point as well as the cabin between the creeks at Crab Cove.

1979 CIR aerial, taken from a NASA U-2 Spyplane as part of the Alaska High Altitude Aerial Photo project:

We did have a framed copy of the image above when I was a kid. This is in Color Infrared or CIR, meaning vegetation is shown in false-color red, and you can discern different types of vegetation from the different shades of red (so clearcuts and patches of different trees stand out from the predominant spruce):

1982 aerial photo (Color Infrared, click to open very large original):

1985 topo map of Mansfield Peninsula:

1987 nautical chart:

1990s topo map:

1996 or 1998 aerial photo (current residents may be able to pick out their houses and cabins in this one!):

2004 satellite image (sorry, not as high-res):

And just for fun, here are a few of my own photos from various aircraft passing over Funter.

2010 oblique aerial looking South-ish over Crab Cove, coming through the pass from Juneau:

2011 oblique of Funter Bay as seen looking NW-ish, from an Alaska Airlines jet:

With commercial satellite maps, most companies have yet to include much coverage of Funter Bay. However, if you zoom all the way in on Bing Maps, you’ll get some decently high-resolution imagery (although the light balance is bad).

This site is also really cool: http://alaskafisheries.noaa.gov/shorezone/

Similar to the old California Coastline project (but hopefully with less Barbra Streisand), the Alaska Shorezone Viewer allows you to pull up images (and video) of almost the entire Alaska coast! The interface is a little clunky and takes some getting used to, but the images are amazing!

That’s all I’ve got for now. If I come across any more interesting maps of Funter Bay, I will try to post them here!

3 Comments | Funter Bay History | Tagged: aerial, aerial photo, Alaska, Alaska Life, Cannery, charts, cir, Funter Bay, Funter Bay History, History, imagery, map, maps, nasa, satellite, Southeast Alaska, topo | Permalink
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Funter Bay History: Cannery Buildings in the 1970s

May 2, 2013

Before detailing the remaining structures at Funter Bay, I would like to note that these are almost all private property. While visitors on yachts are sometimes known for poking through old buildings, this is frowned on by the owners and local residents. Any structures you see from the water are private cabins or residences (even if they look quaint or abandoned). The ramp and boardwalks at the old cannery all lead to private cabins. Residents keep a watchful eye on eachother’s properties, and are naturally curious (some Down South visitors have called us nosy) about any activity in the bay. Any unrecognized boat entering the bay becomes the immediate focus of everyone’s binoculars. If you are visiting Funter Bay, please respect private property and do not trespass on people’s yards or in old buildings. (If you want a place to poke around “old stuff”, I would suggest Scow Bay with its wrecks and steam engines).

That said, here are a few photos documenting the remaining structures at the cannery site. I’m cheating a bit, because the first photos are all my Dad’s from the 1970s, and many of the buildings shown are not, in fact, “remaining” any more. Dad came to Funter Bay on the mail boat Forester in 1972. I’ll further document more of the present-day remains in a future post.

An overview of the cannery in the early 70s, taken from the peak of Mount Robert Barron:

And a view from the water (compare with this photo from 1907 from almost the same angle):

The cannery dock with inset map showing photo location (red arrow). The mess hall is on the right, warehouse on the left:

A closer view of the mess hall, taken from the dock approach ramp:

A few views of the main warehouse buildings, which used to extend out on pilings over the bay to form a wharf:

As you can see, the parts extending over the water had suffered a lack of maintenance! The wharf and cannery were built over solid rock outcroppings, which were not good places to drive pilings. In some places you can still see shallow depressions in the rock where workers blasted out sockets to set the pilings into. These pilings were basically resting on top of the rock, held in place by the weight of the structures on top. After a few winter storms, they began coming loose. Constant maintenance would have been required to re-seat them and shore up the buildings, and as soon as that stopped happening, things started falling apart.

Shallow piling socket blasted into rock:

Next are a couple photos looking back East at the main cannery building, with the marine way next to it occupied by an old wooden boat. Mount Robert Barron is in the distance.

The boat on the marine railroad seems to have reg # 314791 marked on the bow. Unfortunately, the online copies of the Merchant Vessel Registry only go through 1965, when ID numbers were just hitting the 29xxxx range. The current USCG documentation search doesn’t have a record for that number or for any likely derivatives (swapping 7s and 1s, etc).

Here is a view from 1907 similar to the one above, looking towards the cannery from the vicinity of the Watchman’s house:

This is another view of the power house, from the early 1980s:

I’m not entirely sure which building this is, possibly the guest house or one of the managers’ cabins.

1 Comment | Funter Bay History | Tagged: Alaska, Cannery, Funter Bay, Funter Bay History, History, Mining, Southeast Alaska | Permalink
Posted by saveitforparts

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