Salmon Canneries

During the early 1900s a number of canneries sprung up along the shores of the Wrangell Narrows, in central southeast Alaska. The Wrangell Narrows is a 25-mile long sliver of ocean sandwiched between Mitkof and Kupreanof islands. Canneries along the Narrows competed for their share of the ``lower 48'' market and many failed after just a few years. Eventually, the present town of Petersburg, Alaska won out as a good location for a cannery with a protected harbor and easy access to LeConte Glacier, which provided ice to pack halibut and other fresh fish for markets in Seattle.

One of the canneries along the Wrangell Narrows was Tonka, along the shores of Kupreanof Island. In 1901 the Pacific Coast and Norway Packing Company (financed by a Minneapolis company) built a cannery, a storeroom/cookhouse and two bunkhouses at Tonka. Subsequent expansion included a post office between 1902 and 1905. Federal records indicate a successful operation from 1901 to 1905. In 1905 the cannery packed about 35,000 cases of salmon with an estimated value of almost $112,000; not bad for the times! The workforce in 1905 reached a peak of 240 workers, of which almost half were Alaska Native people. The Pacific Coast and Norway Packing Company moved their operations to Petersburg in 1906, purchasing the cannery built by Peter Buschmann, the town's namesake. The 1908 Coast Pilot described Tonka as a ``wharf and disused cannery.'' Today the site is only recognizable by a few wood pilings on the beach.