Zoya's dad was a king crab fishermen back in the heyday of the industry in the 1970's. Back then, King Crab ruled the docks in Kodiak, but by the late 1980's the crab population had crashed and the Kodiak fishery had completely shut down. Today we still have the Crabfest celebration every May in downtown Kodiak, but still no King Crab fishery.
Funnily enough there was no King Crab industry prior to the late 1950's either. People just did not bother with them. The Prehistoric Alutiiq peoples did not even eat them (no crab parts have ever been found in a prehistoric midden). The Alutiiq did not eat crabs because crabs fed on drowned people.
One of the first people to realize the potential of the King Crab industry was Lowell Wakefield who opened up the Port Wakefield cannery to process crab on Raspberry Island. After the 1964 Earthquake the cannery moved to Port Lions.
In this photo from the late 1960s crab biologist Pete Jackson holds up a 20 pound king crab. Pete and Louise Jackson built the house we live in today. Pete's signature is on our mantlepiece (he was obviously proud of his work).
1 comment:
Nice photo of "old" Kodiak, and nice story.
Post a Comment