Norwegians in the Pacific Coast Fisheries

Abstract

by SVERRE ARESTAD 4 Norwegians in the Pacific Coast Fisheries FOR pated MORE in than many a branches century Norwegians of the fishing have industry participated in many branches of the fishing industry from California to Alaska. Norwegians have been dory fishermen, harpooners on whaling vessels, cannery workers, salmon-trap constructors and attendants, crews on fishing vessels of all sizes, owners and superintendents of salmon canneries, managers and owners of shore stations, owners and builders of fishing boats, ship chandlers, owners and operators of factory processors , and prominent members of international fishery commissions. The gradual development of Norwegian participation will be traced in this essay from, so to speak, infancy to maturity, and some attempt will be made to moderate certain overstated claims about the importance of Norwegians in the founding and early years of the Pacific Coast fisheries. This study will deal with cannery owners, station managers, superintendents, and boat owners, as well as those who performed the grueling physical work. The treatment of the fishermen themselves leans primarily 96 PACIFIC COAST FISHERIES on published material, but some of it is based on personal experience. In January, 1943, the author published in The Pacific Northwest Quarterly an article bearing the same title as this one, which covered the first sixty years of Norwegian activity. The article was based on extensive research and on numerous interviews with knowledgeable men in the industry. Most of it has been reproduced in the first part of this study, with several changes and a few additions. The changes include elimination of the footnotes, incorporation of several of the original footnotes into the text, and alteration of tenses where necessary. The original version, heavily documented, is readily available. A few Norwegians were fishermen on the coast from California north to Washington, on Puget Sound, and in British Columbia as early as the 1860s. The first entrepreneur on Puget Sound was John Brygger, sometimes written Bryggot, who established a salmon saltery at Salmon Bay, six miles north of Olympia, Washington, in 1876. A few other Norwegians were also successful, but their activities were minor in relation to the whole salmon industry in the 1870s. The salmon industry was established relatively early in the nineteenth century, with stations in California and Oregon, and somewhat later in Washington. It was not, however, until the introduction of the canning process that the salmon industry began to attain a dominant position in the fisheries of the Pacific Coast and Alaska. Americans and Canadians organized the fishing companies, built the canneries, acquired the valuable trap sites, and constructed the traps. While Norwegians were not among the early developers of the salmon fishery, several soon became important figures in the Alaska salmon industry. The most noteworthy of 97 Svetre Arestad these was Peter Thams Buschmann, who organized several canning concerns and built at least five canneries , and for whom Petersburg was named. Several of Buschmann' s five sons, all of whom were born in Norway , were active in the salmon industry before 1900. Egil Buschmann, for example, was general superintendent of the Naknak Packing Corporation. In 1905, L. A. Pederson was manager of the Bristol Bay and Naknak packing companies, and in the same year Sofus Jensen was manager of the Altoona Packing Company. By 1918, Norwegians were even more evident. In that year a man named Hawkinson managed the Carlisle Packing Company , and Martin Lund and Chris Tjosevig were owners of the Eyak River Packing Company, both in the Prince William Sound area. Others of importance were O. C. Mehus, Hans D. Sorvik, Einar Beyer, and his nephew Haakon B. Friele. Einar Beyer of Bergen, Norway, visited Seattle in 1906 and returned in 1914 to settle there. Haakon B. Friele was born February 3, 1897, in Bergen and completed a course in liberal education at Bergen Katedralskole in 1914. Two years later he received a certificate from the Bergen School of Commerce; he arrived in Seattle in December of the same year. Beyer was the principal organizer and first president of the Wise Packing Company. Friele worked for his uncle until 1918, when the company was sold, and continued to work for two successive owners until he went to Copenhagen in...