The Bristol Bay double-ender also known as the Bristol Bay gillnetter is a 29’ 6’’ (8 meters 80 centimeters) long, 4’deep and 9 ‘ 2’’ (2 meters 70 centimeters) wide wooden sailboat used in the world’s greatest commercial salmon fishery in southwestern Alaska on the Bering Sea.. The boat is painted “Libby’s orange,” a butterscotch hued color that was unique to the Libby’s salmon cannery, Graveyard Koggiung, in Bristol Bay. This is where the boat worked in the first half of the twentieth century as a fishing boat. There are block lettering and numbers in black on the hull stern and bow, port and starboard, and allowed for identification at a distance. The boat is located about 100’ (26 meters) from the Visitor Center at Lake Clark National Park and Preserve in Port Alsworth, Alaska. The double-ender is on permanent display in a 20’ by 37’ (12 meters by 6 meters 17 centimeters) boat shed where it can be viewed by park visitors. The boat shed is about 40’ from the Trefon cache. Immediately west of the boat shed a small steam engine and boiler are exhibited detailing another industrial artifact from the Bristol Bay commercial salmon fishery that was brought to Lake Clark by dog team in the mid-1930s and adapted for reuse to power the region’s first sawmill.
Park managers sought to restore the double-ender to its formative or most significant period demonstrating its original purpose as a commercial salmon fishing sailboat circa 1914 through 1951. It was part of the Libby, McNeill& Libby, Graveyard Koggiung cannery fishing fleet. Libby’s was second only to Alaska Packers Association as the largest salmon canning company operating plants throughout the coastal territory of Alaska in the early twentieth century, with five or six in Bristol Bay alone. Each boat had a Roman numeral incised in the forecastle on the port side of the mast ring. The park’s boat number is XXIII or No. 23. Each salmon cannery in Bristol Bay had a unique paint scheme for their respective fishing fleets and in the case of Libby’s Graveyard cannery boats it was “Libby’s orange.”
The bow and stern of the double-ender boat are shaped similarly hence the name double-ender. Libby’s No 23, like all Libby’s double-enders, was according to fisherman Al Andree, sharp in the bow and sharp in the stern. They were good seaworthy boats that could pack a load of fish, frequently 1,500 or 2,000, five or six pound red salmon, and very occasionally 3,000 fish. [Al Andree and Jim Rearden, “I Sailed for Salmon in Bristol Bay,” Alaska, July 1986, 34]
It is an open boat, carvel-built (planks meeting at the end rather than overlapping), with centerboard. The boat has bow decking forward 4’ 9’’from the mast and only 20’’aft decking. It has a washboard running along both the port and starboard sides, but only the bow deck is covered with canvas. It appears when the boat was actively engaged in commercial fishing it washboards were also covered by canvas. A 3’’coaming runs along the inside edge of the washboards and the decked parts fore and aft, resulting in the inside of the boat being oval. It has four thwarts, and two oarlocks on each side. Oars were carried and used only when fishing the gill net or if the sailboat was becalmed. The boat has a single mast and it is stepped in the forecastle just aft of the fore deck, on which a spritsail was employed.
The sailboat was constructed from a variety of woods which were identified in a materials list written by an employee of the Alaska Packers Association probably in the 1920s or 1930s. [Anon., “Materials Required For One Only Columbia River Fishing Boat,” Alaska Packers Association Records, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington] The keel was made of Australian Spotted Gum Eucalyptus maculate. The stem, rudder, apron, centerboard, floors and frame clamps were made of Indiana white oak Quercus alba. The coaming was made of Southern red oak Quercus borealis. The boat frames or ribs were made of Indiana bending oak, which is likely white oak. Most of the boat planking was Port Orford white cedar Chamaecyparis lawsoniana, with the exception of the top strake planking which was clear spruce, perhaps white spruce Picea glauca. The centerboard case, mast, thwarts, beams, mast step, boom and sprit were all made of Douglas fur Pseudotsuga menziesii. It is thought that No. 23 is made of the same species of wood, as described above but it is possible there were some slight variations in species based on availability etc. For example, in a two part article entitled “I Sailed for Salmon in Bristol Bay” by Al Andree as told to Jim Rearden in the July and August 1986 issues of Alaska Magazine, the author states the frames were “Vermont steaming oak (white oak), planks were Port Orford cedar. Bowstem, keel and sternpost were usually iron bark [Eucalyptus wilkinsoniana].” [Al Andree, “I Sailed for Salmon,” Alaska Magazine, July 1986, 34]
The history of Libby’s No. 23 during its formative period of significance began in 1914 when it was reported to have been built in a shipyard somewhere between San Francisco Bay and Puget Sound for the Libby, McNeill & Libby Company, whose corporate office for its Alaska salmon canning operations was in Seattle. The sailboat would have been transported from Seattle on sail square rigger, possibly the Abner Coburn, to the ship’s channel off the mouth of the Naknek River and then lightered into Libby’s Graveyard Koggiung cannery near the mouth of the Kvichak River in 1914 or 1915. From that point on the boat would have been part of the cannery salmon gillnet fishing fleet each year between June and July and assigned to a captain and boat puller for the season. The boat was owned by Libby’s and the two-man crew fished the boat actively from about June 25th to July 15th-July 20 delivering their catch to Libby’s scows at anchorage in various parts of Kvichak Bay. [John B. Branson, The Canneries, Cabins and Caches of Bristol Bay, Alaska, U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 2007, 27]
It would be wise at this juncture to offer a first hand account of a typical sailboat fishing year in Bristol Bay as chronicled by John Lundgren, Sr. who began fishing in sailboats just like Libby’s No. 23 in 1934. Lundgren’s father was a cannery machinist and winter watchman at the Nornek cannery in Naknek starting in the early 1900s. John Lundgren was interviewed in 1980 at his home in Naknek, which is only about 12 miles south of Graveyard cannery. The following are direct quotes from Lundgren’s interview documenting fishing a Bristol Bay double-ender.
“You had to rig all your boats up. You didn’t have any kind of winches or anything back then to load your nets onto the boat. You had to do it all by hand or pack it by hand trucks…. You had a roller that was in the stern of the sailboat. One pulled the lead line and one pulled the cork line. It was all by hand. … It was all linen nets, with cotton cork lines. Generally you went through three nets a season. By the end of the season they were pretty rotten. Once or twice a week you had to bluestone them. You had to salt them down anytime you let them lay very long to keep them from rotting. … You went with the current generally, unless there was a strong wind. You made one drift and very rarely you got up and made the second drift. When it was calm you had oars, 14 foot oars to row. … There was no radio. The only way you got help was to put an oilskin up on an oar. If you were in shallow water, no one could come in and help you. If you were swamping, generally you should have tied your mast and boom across the boat to keep it from rolling over. But many of them didn’t, and many of them drowned. …Libby’s had good sailboats… They were all brought up with cannery ships on the decks. … Once the boats were landed, they would be stored in warehouses each winter. They had steam winches to get them to the water and some of the canneries had slips and slid them into the water on high tides. … We had a tent up on the front of the boat [forecastle] that we pitched. When you wanted to dry up you pitched the tent and put some alcohol on the floor and it dried all the water up. You had a kerosene stove on the boats for cooking and heat. … Most of the time in the later years you fished from 6 AM Monday till 6 PM Wednesday night or 6 AM Wednesday morning. Then you went back fishing from 6 PM Thursday night till 6 PM Saturday night. You had 36 hours off on Sundays and 24 hours off Wednesdays. … Generally, the superintendent hired a captain on a boat and most of the time allowed him to pick his partners. He had to approve who was the partner. Each man received the same pay. And it was men in those days, women weren’t allowed. You didn’t have to pay anything for the boats. You were an employee of the company. … They lost a lot of lives some years. There was 17-18 fishermen drowned one year. Other years there was only two or three. A few fishermen drowned during the season and most of the time they were old timers because they took more chances on the flats.” [Artie Johnson and Randy Zimin, “Flat Bottom Skiffs and Double-Enders,” interview with John Lundgren, Uutuqtwa, Bristol Bay High School, Naknek, Alaska, 1980, 58-62].
Libby’s 23 is about 96 years old.[Allen Woodward, interviews 1976 to present] The history of the boat was mostly passed down from the family of the first owner, John Coray, after its commercial fishing days were over. The second owners were the father and son, Earl and Allen Woodward, summer residents of Lake Clark. According to Coray’s son Craig No. 23 fished both at Libbyville and Graveyard Koggiung canneries on Kvichak Bay in Bristol Bay until the early 1950s. John Coray purchased No. 23 from Libby’s Graveyard cannery about 1953. He then mounted a small outboard engine on a transom and motored up the 60 mile long Kvichak River and across Iliamna Lake to the small Dena’ina village of Pedro Bay where he and his wife, Claudine, were the first school teachers. [Craig Coray, interviews 1976 to present]
However, there are two more specific bits of the history unique to Libby’s No. 23 extant that connect particular individuals who were long time Euroamerican residents and life-long Alaska Native residents of Bristol Bay with the boat. The first piece of documentation is a copy of a “Boat List, Koggiung 1937” that was donated to a contract historian for Lake Clark National Park and Preserve in the mid-1980s. [Anon., “Boat List, Koggiung 1937,” in the Cultural Resources Files at NPS, Port Alsworth] It lists Libby’s 1937 Graveyard Koggiung cannery double-ender crews and their assigned boats. There were 70 boats fishing for the cannery in 1937 and No. 23 was fished by Naknek residents Emil Gustafson and Gust Jonsson. Both Gustafson and Jonsson were typical Swedish immigrant fishermen who made up the large portion of the Bristol Bay fishing fleet, but they rather typical of the numerous fishermen who put down roots in bay communities and established new lives in Alaska. During the 1930s Jonsson trapped for several years with Sig Lundgren and Axel Erling at Brooks Lake in Katmai National Monument.
The other piece of evidence linking a Dena’ina Athabascan to Libby’s No. 23 is the signature of Charlie Trefon (1923-2000?) and the year 1946 written in pencil under the bow deck in the forecastle. There is another name near Trefon’s and seems to be associated with it but it is illegible. In addition, “19 -7” written near Trefon’s signature and the number “30,000” appears twice. It is not clear if the writer was referring to 30,000 salmon or 30,000 pounds of salmon or what specific date was meant. Trefon was born at Tanalian Point, now know as Port Alsworth, and was also a trapper and subsistence hunter and fisherman who was an example of a Native Alaskan who was deeply involved in the world’s greatest commercial salmon fishery in Bristol Bay.
Gustafson and Jonsson and Trefon are examples of foreign born and Native individuals being united in their common occupation as commercial fishermen in Bristol Bay. The fishery was and remains the dominant renewable economic activity in the Bristol Bay region and these three men with their varied backgrounds are documented as having fished Libby’s No. 23, thereby connecting known individuals with the commercial fishery and with the boat on exhibit.
In 1954 the Coray’s were teaching school at the Dena’ina village of Nondalton on Six Mile Lake near Lake Clark. John Coray had his double-ender hauled on a trailer over the Newhalen Portage road from Iliamna Village to the upper Newhalen River and then he motored into Sixmile Lake. Later the Corays moved up Lake Clark to the Charlie Denison homestead near Port Alsworth and still later they moved further up Lake Clark to Portage Creek village. The double-ender was used around Lake Clark to haul the Coray’s and their three sons and belongings as they traveled on the lake. Mr. Coray died in a plane crash in 1960 and Mrs. Coray sold the double-ender to Earl Woodward soon after.[Claudine Coray Wright, interview, 5-22-98]
In the 1960s Earl Woodward first used a 7hp Evinrude outboard and later an 18 hp Evinrude outboard engine on the stern. Earl Woodward apparently cut the original rudder in half lengthwise and used quarter inch steel cable on a pulley from the steering wheel to the rudder to steer the boat. Later Earl Woodward removed his first black plastic steering wheel and replaced it with a wooden wheel. According to Al Woodward, during the early to mid-1960s his father Earl also removed three thwarts and the centerboard housing from the center of the boat to make it more spacious for hauling cargo on Lake Clark. [Allen Woodward, telephone conversation, 11-2-10] While the Woodwards owned No. 23 they also painted it a light green color. Each summer Allen and Earl Woodward launched No. 23 and used it on Lake Clark and every fall the Woodward’s winched the boat up onto the shipway for winter storage. After about 1981 No. 23 was never again used on Lake Clark.
The Woodward’s used the double-ender for freight hauling, hunting, firewood hauling and recreational trips during the 1960s and 1970s. The Woodward’s stowed No. 23 under tarps on a log shipway off Hardenburg Bay near their two cabins at Port Alsworth. The boat was pulled up on the ship way with a 5-ton Beebe Bros. of Seattle hand winch, circa 1925, that was originally used at Nakeen Cannery across the Kvichak River from Libby’s Graveyard Koggiung cannery. The winch also had a reversing cable mechanism whereby an anchor and pulley system was used to launch No. 23 from the shipways each summer. On one occasion in 1977 Earl Woodward loaned the boat to David Barnett, a long-time summer resident of Lake Clark, to haul freight from Port Alsworth to Portage Creek. Mr. Barnett documented the occasion by photographing No. 23 on Lake Clark. [Allen Woodward, telephone conversations, September 2 and 3, 2010]
Allen Woodward said Gust Griechen (1880?-1970?) who was living with his daughter, Mary Alsworth, at Port Alsworth in the 1960s, told him No. 23 was built for Libby McNeill & Libby Company in 1914. In 1913 Libby’s purchased the Graveyard Cannery from the Alaska Fisherman Packing Company. Graveyard had previously been a salmon salting station owned by Olsen&Co. before it was converted to a salmon cannery. [1950 Annual Report, p 60] Griechen was a long time winter watchman for the Alaska Packers Association cannery at the Pilot Point Diamond U cannery, having first arrived at Nushagak in Bristol Bay in 1906. Griechen would be considered an expert when it came to commercial fishing in Bristol Bay and if he said No. 23 was built in 1914 then it would have to be considered true. [Allen Woodward, interviews 1976 to present]
By the early 1980s old age, illness and death altered the Woodward family summer vacations at Lake Clark. No. 23 was permanently stowed under tarps on the log shipway in front of the Earl Woodward Cabin. It remained on the shipway gradually decaying until 1997 when Allen and Marian Woodward donated the boat to Lake Clark National Park and Preserve. Park staff hoped to restore the boat to its sailboat fishing days and possibly even sail it on Lake Clark as a living history and interpretative display. Park managers were motivated to preserve and restore the sailboat was because of its close association with Bristol Bay commercial salmon fishing industry. One of the main reasons Congress and President Jimmy Carter selected the Lake Clark region as a national park was to help assure the preservation of the Bristol Bay salmon spawning grounds for future generations of Americans. When the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act became law in the waning days of 1980 it stated, “The park and preserve shall be managed for the following purposes, among others: To protect the watershed necessary for the perpetuation of the red salmon fishery in Bristol Bay… and to protect habitat for populations of fish…” In short, the sailboat is worthy of preservation because of the direct link between the reason Lake Clark National Park and Preserve exists in law and the inescapable fact that the boat has been on Lake Clark since 1953 or 1954 and is therefore an integral part of the park’s mandate. [Alaska National Interest Conservation Act, Title II, Section 201 (7) (a)]
During the winter of 1997 park employees moved the boat from Hardenburg Bay to an outside storage area on park property. At the new location the aluminum conduit and chicken wire frame canvas canopy was removed from the bow deck nearly back to mid-ship. Debris such as broken plastic bailers, pieces of rotten canvas, leaves and rotten tarps were removed. The boat was thoroughly cleaned and fully aired out and dried before being covered with new tarps. These procedures stabilized the boat while a restoration plan was produced. The boat was in this situation for two years, 1998 and 1999, covered from direct exposure to rain and snow but certainly not in a completely dry shed.
In 2000 the National Park Service purchased a weather port to store the boat inside while the double-ender was surveyed and a restoration plan was written. In 2001 Lake Clark National Park and Preserve contracted former park maintenance foreman Jack Ross to build a boat cradle that stabilized the boat and allowed for worker safety while boat restoration proceeded. During the years 2002 to 2004 two layers of paint were analyzed and found to be lead-based. Therefore before any restoration work could proceed the lead-based paint had to be removed from the interior, the original “Libby’s orange,” and from the exterior, the light green painted over the original orange by the Woodwards. In the fall of 2003 a contractor removed the 1960s era light green paint and much of the original orange paint.
In January 2004 state historian John C. Breiby of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Office of History and Archeology traveled to Port Alsworth and surveyed No. 23. In February 2005 Mr. Breiby wrote a detailed work plan entitled: “The Port Alsworth Bristol Bay Double-Ender: A Proposed Plan of Repair and Restoration for a Static Exhibit at Lake Clark National Park and Preserve.”
Mr. Breiby described the condition of the boat when he surveyed it on January 27, 2005.
“The boat still appears to have retained its as-built shape. The keel has not hogged, nor are many of the frames (ribs) broken. This type of craft tends to develop numerous broken frames at the turn of the bilge. That is not to say that the boat is in great physical condition. It shows a considerable amount of rot, especially in the forefoot of the stems at bow and stern, where some of the hood ends of the planking have rotted away (at bow) or pulled away from the rabbet (at stern). There are several places where the plank butts have pulled away from the frame, evidence of rot in the frame behind it. [Breiby, A Proposed Plan, 2]
Several of the original fittings and structure have been removed or altered. Though this boat was not converted to an inboard engine, the centerboard trunk was removed, the centerboard slot plugged, and new floors were built over the top of the plug. The mast-step has also been removed, though the remaining floors still show the cutout in the area where the mast-step once lay. Floorboards have been removed, as have bin-boards for fish bins. Three out of four heavy thwarts have been removed. The fourth (aft) thwart was evidently also removed, but probably because the sides of the boat began to spread, it was scabbed back in again. The rudder was cut in half lengthwise and a bracket was built for an outboard motor onto its aft edge. The deck canvas has been removed from both fore-and side decks. In regards to the side decks, based on the paint scheme, the canvas appears to have been missing since before the boat quit fishing.
Several non-original additions have been made to the boat, such as a winch and (probably) the anchor line chocks on the bow deck; the outboard motor bracket on the rudder; a bracket of unknown use fastened to the side deck, with wood blocking immediately below in the starboard stern quarter. A number of short pieces of modern Electrical Metal Tubing fastened to tubing clamps have been installed towards the fore end of the deck coaming. These are possibly remnants of the canvas awning put on by the Woodwards in the 1960s.”
Mr. Breiby wrote a thorough and very specific work plan for the boat. Not only did the Breiby plan identify the shortcomings of the boat but how to ameliorate them. The boat plan provided suggestions to enhance the boat cradle to better able to improve structural support for the boat. The report also dealt with a possible boat shed where No. 23 would be on static display for park visitors. The Breiby assessment was perhaps the essential step in the process of preserving the integrity of the double-ender identifying the problems and offering cost-effective remedies to the challenges facing the boat restorers as they repaired and replaced rotten wood and restored the boat to its original purpose as a Bristol Bay double-ender sailboat. The Breiby report also revealed the extent of dry rot along the keel and urged that No. 23 never be put back into the water but simply displayed as a static display. [Breiby, A Proposed Plan, 2-11]
In the late spring of 2005 craftsmen Monroe Robinson and Carl Kalb were contracted by the National Park Service to implement the Breiby boat plan. Although both men had little experience in wooden boat restoration they were both highly accomplished craftsmen skilled in wood working, including fine furniture, houses and log bridges and log cabins. Mr. Robinson had recently led the restoration work on the Richard L. Proenneke Cabin. In addition Mr. Robinson spent extensive time studying and photographing the Libby double-ender on display at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. The museum’s sailboat is believed to have been fished at Libby’s Graveyard Koggiung just like No. 23. The museum double-ender was to be the role model park staff and the restorers intended to emulate in the restoration of No. 23.
Armed with the boat plan and knowledge gained at the museum the restorers replaced the rotten planking and stabilized the other areas from furthered dry rot. They also rebuilt the interior partitions of the sailboat including the fish bins and centerboard trunk. They also rebuilt the three missing thwarts and the mast step. They also reinstalled the canvas deck covering on the bow, rebuilt the steering and net-pulling deck platform in the stern, and built a box for the bilge pump. The one omission of the Breiby boat plan was to provide for a rebuilt floor in the forecastle where the 2-man crew slept and ate.
After the restoration work was accomplished National Park Service personnel chinked the spaces between the planking and applied two coats of “Libby’s orange” paint to the sailboat. Using information from elderly Bristol Bay sailboat fishermen and original paint chips the original “Libby’s orange” color was duplicated by the Sherwin-Williams paint store in Anchorage, Alaska.
Historic photographs of other Libby’s Graveyard Koggiung cannery fish boats and elder testimonies were gathered to determine the correct hull location for the boat number and company initials. Elders who had fished sailboats were also consulted as to the correct color for the numbering and lettering on the sailboat. Stencils were made by Custom Design of Anchorage, Alaska and they were painted on both sides of the hull, bow and stern. [Martin Johnson, interviews, 6-10-06 and 1-19-07 and Melvin Monsen, e-mail message 11-24-05 and interview, 1-10-06]
During the summer of 2004 or 2005 park maintenance staff constructed a boat shed designed by architects at the National Park Service Alaska Support Office to exhibit No. 23. The shed is unheated and is illuminated by natural light through windows and skylights. The shed has large sliding barn-style doors for ease in moving the boat in and out. Occasionally No. 23 is taken out of the boat shed and the mast is stepping and the sprit sail is hoisted for park visitors. The rigging of the spritsail is informed by historian John Breiby’s research and elderly sailboat fishermen’s hands on participation. [John C. Breiby, “Rigging The Spritsail On A Bristol Bay Double-Ender, Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Office of History and Archeology, 2006]
The historic appearance of the Bristol Bay double ender, No. 23, can be separated into two distinct periods of significance and in two distinct eras. The first period of signifance occurred during its formative period between 1914 through 1951 when No. 23 was a working commercial salmon fishing boat at Libby’s Graveyard Koggiung on Bristol Bay and painted “Libby’s orange.” The second phase of its life on the water was between 1953 and 1997 when it was used as a recreational–freighter on Iliamna Lake for one summer and the rest of its active years it was on Lake Clark. The second phase of its active life had two parts, the first from 1953 to about 1981, when the Coray and Woodward families owned and used it primarily on Lake Clark. The last stage of its life began in 1997 when it was donated to the National Park Service and underwent restoration to replicate its original appearance and now is on permanent exhibit at the park Visitor Center.
Besides the boat itself, there were few original accouterments with No. 23 when it was donated to Lake Clark National Park and Preserve. The two most significant original boat parts to survive with No. 23 were the mast and boom. They had been stored under the eves at the back of the Earl Woodward Cabin and were in excellent condition. A small kerosene lamp and a small kerosene fuel can were also part of the original boat equipment to survive. Two 13 foot oars and four oar locks also came with the sailboat. The original rudder which was apparently cut in half length-wise also has survived, but it was modified to be used when No. 23 was powered by a small outboard engine and cannot be used with the restored sailboat. Mr. Woodward has the original boat anchor at his home in Anchorage and has said he will donate it to the park for the exhibit. The last original item was the bailer used to scoop up water from between the frames. Nothing else of the original sailboat paraphernalia accept some small blocks used with the rigging had survived into 1997. Other items surviving from the Woodward’s ownership of the boat include their black plastic steering wheel and their later wooden steering wheel. Everything else associated with a working Bristol Bay double-ender fishing sailboat circa 1914 to 1951 was acquired by donation, loan and purchase. A list of the accouterments, their provenience and year of acquisition follows.
Two metal dinner plates from Libbyville cannery donated by Mr. and Mrs. Carl Kalb in 2005.
One original Red Salmon cannery spritsail sold to the park by John Knutsen of Naknak in 2005.
One Alaska Packers Association rudder donated to the park by Mr. and Mrs. Mark Mullins in 2005.
One Libby, McNeill & Libby rudder and tiller donated to the park by Mr. and Mrs. Jack Ross.
Two boat anchors, a roller, 3 sets of roller brackets, one Swede stove, one pike pole, and one oar lock from Libby’s Lockanock and Libbyville canneries donated by Mr. and Mrs. Chuck Johnson of Naknak in 2005.
Seven bent oak mast rings and one Santa Maria coal stove donated to the park from the Alaska Packers Association cannery at South Naknek by Mr. and Mrs. Carvel Zimin, Sr. in 2005.
One octagonal sprit from the Columbia River Packers Association cannery at South Naknak sold to the park by John Bushell of Homer in 2005.
One fish puegh, one gaff hook, one double-ender mast donated to the park from Tinny Hedlund of Iliamna in 2005.
One five gallon Pearl oil can and one wooden Pearl oil gas box circa 1950 donated to the park by Tish Bowman of Port Alsworth.
One pair of black rubber hip boots, assorted sail rigging and one wooden mast ring donated by Melvin Monsen, Sr. in 2005.
One Graveyard cannery kedge anchor donated from Mark and Sandy Lang of Port Alsworth to the park in 2005. The anchor originally was part of another Libby’s Graveyard cannery double ender brought to Lake Clark by Fred Bowman in the late1940s.
One Graveyard cannery kedge anchor donated from the Dave Wilder Family of Port Alsworth to the park in 2005.
The Anchorage Museum of History and Art made a long-term loan of an original Libby’s centerboard and Libby’s canvas tent in 2005-2006.
Margaret Alsworth Clum of Anchorage sold John Branson 100 cedar net floats that were then donated to the park in 2006. The floats were originally obtained from Libby’s Graveyard or Libbyville canneries.
Melvin Monsen, Jr. of Anchorage purchases one Alaska Portland Packers wooden canned salmon crate and donates it to the park in 2007.
Bella Hammond of Lake Clark donates Jay Hammond’s leather Finn boots to the park in 2008.
Tim and Trudy Cook of Naknek donate an Alaska Packers Association bilge pump and boat tent frame to the park in 2008.
Robin Samuelsen of Dillingham donated one oilskin fisherman’s jacket in 2008.
In 2008 Tim Troll donates an original double-ender centerboard lever to the park that was used on a sailboat at Bristol Bay’s first cannery, Arctic Packing Company, on Nushagak Bay.
Mr. and Mrs. Carvel Zimin, Jr. donate one Swede stove from Diamond NN cannery, Naknek River, in 2008.
Peter Pan Seafoods’ Nornek cannery in Naknek donated a double-ender boat dolly used to transfer the boat from winter storage to dockside for summer launching in 2008.
Warren Hill donates a double-ender mast and some boat stencils from Graveyard cannery in 2008.
In 2009 Steve Kahn, Anne Coray and the Coray Family donated three demijohns or fresh water beakers that had originally been owned by Brown Carlson and he obtained them from Alaska Packers Association, probably the Diamond J cannery on the Kvichak River in the very early twentieth century.
In 2010 the park purchased a Libby McNeill &Libby wooden canned red salmon box from Alaskana collector Becky Mallory of Anchorage.
The Period of Significance
There are two and perhaps three periods of significance for Libby’s No. 23. The first significant period was between 1914, when the boat was built for a life in the world’s premier Bristol Bay salmon fishery, and after the conclusion of the 1951 commercial fishing season when it was no longer needed as a commercial fishing boat as the fleet became gradually motorized beginning in 1952.
The second period of significance occurred when the boat was brought upriver to the Iliamna-Lake Clark area and it was adapted for reuse as a freight hauler and recreational boat in 1953, 150 miles away from the Bristol Bay commercial salmon fishing grounds. The boat remained in this role until about 1981 when it was essentially put in storage.
The third period of significance began in 1997 when No. 23 was donated to Lake Clark National Park and Preserve and it was restored to its original purpose and is now a permanent static interpretive display of its formative period, 1914-1951, at the park Visitor Center.
The sailboat is significant under Criterion A for maritime history as associated with events that have broadly contributed to American history. The first two periods of significance of the boat, 1914-1951 and 1953 to 1981, would fall under Criterion A. They are the commercial development of the salmon fisheries in Alaska generally and Bristol Bay most particularly since Libby’s No. 23 was actively fished in the Bay for more than 60 years.
However, the second period of significance as the boat was motorized and removed from the commercial fishing context would also fit under recreation because it was used on Lake Clark in support of sport hunting and fishing and as a freight and firewood hauler carrying building materials to construct recreational cabins around Lake Clark in the latter 1950s through the 1970s during the post WWII economic boom years in the United States.
The third period of significance is 1997 to the present and would fall under Criterion A, subcategory education because as an interpretive exhibit Libby’s No. 23 offers a rare authentic view of the world famous Bristol Bay commercial salmon fishery before the fishing fleet was motorized. Therefore, the boat exhibit educates present and future generations of park visitors and is a tangible link with the maritime history of the nation, since the Bristol Bay fishery has long been considered the world’s greatest commercial salmon fishery.
There are only about 10 museum quality Bristol Bay double-enders extant in the Pacific northwest and Alaska. [Tim Troll and John Breiby, interviews, 6-10-06] From the early twentieth century to the early 1940s thousands of these sailboats were manufactured in boat yards from San Francisco to Puget Sound. During the hay day of the Bristol Bay sailboat fishery circa 1900 to 1951 each fishing season saw between 1,000 and 1,200 double-enders actively fishing at the mouths of the five great bay rivers: the Ugashik, the Egegik, the Naknek, the Kvichak and the Nushagak. Now there are no longer any Bristol Bay double-enders fishing and only three museum quality double-enders in the entire 55,000 square mile Bristol Bay region. In short, Libby’s No. 23 is a very rare intact cultural artifact informing and educating people about the history of the greatest commercial salmon fishery in the world, even though it has been away from the commercial fishing context for more than 57 years.
The fact that Libby’s No. 23 was long ago removed from its historic commercial fishing context on the Bering Sea’s Bristol Bay, should in no way detract from the significance of the boat. There is a long history of Bristol Bay double-enders and its antecedent, the Columbia River salmon boat, being removed from its original context and sailed upriver into some of the great lakes of southwestern Alaska, beginning no later than 1897.
Starting as early as 1897 prospector Hugh Rodman photographed a Columbia River salmon boat at the Dena’ina summer fish camp at the mouth of the Iliamna River about 120 miles northeast of any Bristol Bay cannery. The boat was owned by the prominent Riktorov brothers of Old Iliamna village and used for transportation on Iliamna Lake. [Hugh Rodman, unpublished journal at the Pratt Museum, 8-23-1897]
In about 1900 the Moravarian missionary, John Schoechert, sailed a Columbia River salmon boat up the Wood River from the Kanulik cannery on Nushagak Bay to Lake Aleknagik to proselytize the local population. [John Schoechert photographic scrapbook at the Moravian Church Archives]
Dillingham residents such as Butch Smith sailed Bristol Bay double-enders up the Nushagak River at least as far as Ekwok village where he had a cabin. In 1934 Hjalmer “Booty” Olson sailed a double-ender up the Nushagak River to the Chichitnok River more than 100 miles above Dillingham. Between the 1930s and 1960s Anton Johnson routinely sailed his double-ender between Dillingham and Koliganek. In addition, during the 1930s Klondike Johnson canvassed over a Bristol Bay double-ender, leaving only the stern open to the elements so he could steer and sailed all the way from Dillingham to Bethel and up the Kuskokwim River. [Hjalmer Olson, interview, 11-1210]
In 1901 prospectors Lemuel L. Bonham and Quincy Williams sailed a Columbia River salmon boat up the Kvichak River and across Iliamna Lake to Old Iliamna village where they wintered. [Lemuel E. Bonham, letter of March 10, 1901 in The Canneries, Cabins, 107-108]
Joe Kackley and O.M. “Doc” Dutton also had a Columbia River salmon boat at Old Iliamna village and transported schoolteacher Hannah Breece to the Roadhouse Portage (now present-day Iliamna) in 1911 so she could set up a summer school at Old Nondalton, near Lake Clark. [Jane Jacobs, ed., A Schoolteacher in Old Alaska, The Story of Hannah Breece, 146]
Tom Rasmusen, an early Euroamerican resident of Lake Clark, had a Columbia River salmon boat on Lake Clark by at least 1914.[Alaska State Library, George A. Parks Collection, PCA-240-580]
In the 1930s Louis A. Gjouland , a commercial fisherman at Egegik also used his Bristol Bay double-ender on Becharof Lake in support of his winter fur trapping activities. [Louis N. Gjouland, interview, 11-4-10]
Trapper Bob Jenks sailed a double-ender into upper Ugashik Lake in 1936-1936 in support of his trapping activities. [Vie Ann Hamilton, interview, 11-10-10]
In the 1950s the late Naknek elder Paul Chukan used a motorized Bristol Bay double-ender conversion to tow a regular double-ender into Naknek Lake that was used to transport 2,000 to 3,000 dried red salmon back to Naknek. When the sailboat went upriver through the Naknek River rapids it had to be pulled along the river bank by a number of men and boys with a tow rope. [Allan Aspelund, interview, 11-10-10]
Ralph Angasan recalls accompanying his father Trefon Angasan in the 1950s on fall boat trips up the Naknek River in a Bristol Bay conversion on their way to put up spawned out red salmon near Naknek Lake at Ketevik. Ralph and others had to walk along the bank of the Naknek River with a tow rope to assure the double-ender they were pulling would get through the rapids and into Naknek Lake. [Ralph Angasan, Sr. Interview, November 10, 2010; Angasan Trefon Sr., “It Was a Good Life,” interviewed by Ralph Angasan, Jr., Uutuqtwa, Bristol Bay High School, 1985, 59]
The Bristol Bay double-ender sailboat was the final and logical version of the Columbia River salmon boat. The origins of Columbia River boat apparently come from San Francisco boat builder J.J. Griffin who built this kind of boat in 1868 for a salmon fisherman. In 1869 George and Robert Hume, who created the canned salmon industry in the Sacramento River, had Griffin build them another salmon fishing boat. That same year the Hume brothers took their boat to the Columbia River and established the canned salmon industry on that river. These gillnet sailboats were developed in the Pacific Northwest and designed solely to catch salmon.
Other maritime historians say the ultimate origins of these boats might be via the Fraser River skiff, a 20 foot flat-bottomed double ender that apparently traces its roots back to the Great Lakes where William Watts designed the Collingwood boat in the 1850s. The Collingwood boat was apparently identical to the Fraser River gillnet skiff and was also used on the Fraser River. The Fraser River skiff was first built in a boatyard at Vancouver in 1888 by Watts’son, Captain William Watts, and used on the Fraser River for salmon fishing. It is speculated the Collingwood boat design might have diffused in San Francisco as the Columbia River salmon boat first built by J.J. Griffin. [Duncan A. Stacey, Sockeye & Tinplate: Technological Change in the Fraser River Canning Industry 1871-1912, “The Oar and Sail-Powered Gillnet Fishery,” Heritage Record No.15 British Columbia Provincial Museum, 1982, 13-14].
These first gillnet boats were described as open dories, 22 to 23 feet long. However, by 1890 the salmon gillnetters were narrow decked and 26 or 27 feet long. In 1890 J.W. Collins wrote a report entitled “Fishing Vessels and Boats of the Pacific Coast” in which he described the Columbia River salmon boat. “It is an open, carvel-built, centerboard craft, sharp forward and aft, the ends being shaped nearly alike, moderately concave at and below the waterline, and with rather full convex lines above the water.” [Bruce Weilepp, “Sailing gillnet boats of the Columbia River,” National Fisherman, April 1991, 44]. These boats were developed for the shallow shoaly waters of the Pacfic northwest.
As commercial salmon fishing increased on the Columbia River in the 1870s the Columbia River salmon boats were mass produced by San Francisco Bay boat builders for the salmon canneries. Soon boat builders on the Oregon coast began building salmon gillnetters to accommodate the shoaly waters of the Columbia River Bar and the boats grew in length to 26 feet with a 6 foot beam. Canners ordered large numbers of gillnetters and they were mass produced by builders. Boat builders had to balance a seaworthy design with load-carrying capacity and sailing capabilities. Having similar bow and stern design allowed the Columbia River salmon boat to stay with the drifting gill nets in rough seas. Gill nets were drifted from the stern and coupled with the current and tide tended to pull the boat stern first through the water. The Columbia River boats had shallow keels and centerboards which enabled them to drift over the many shoals and gravel bars of the lower Columbia River. [Bruce Weilepp, National Fisherman, April 1991, 45-47]
As the canned salmon industry moved up the west coast of British Columbia and Alaska culminating in the Bristol Bay region of the Bering Sea by the mid-1880s, the Columbia River salmon boat came north. The first gillnetters to come to Bristol Bay were flat bottomed and up to 25 feet in length, but over time they proved to be somewhat inadequate for Bristol Bay conditions. Tides in the Bristol Bay were as high as 30 foot and the salmon returned to the bay in greater numbers over a shorter time-frame than on the Columbia River, and therefore the gill netters needed to be bigger to handle bigger loads of fish and more rugged to handle more severe seas. By the early twentieth century the double-ender had evolved by becoming a longer and bigger, round bottomed version of the Columbia River salmon boat, while retaining its shallow draft and packing an even larger load. Between about 1904 and 1912 the canneries began bringing up the 28-30 foot round bottom sailboats, now known as Bristol Bay double-enders.[ Al Andree and Jim Rearden, “I Sailed for Salmon,” July 1986, 34 ; John Lundgren, Sr., interviewed by Artie Johnson and Randy Zimin,Uutuqtwa, Bristol Bay High School, Naknek, Alaska, Volume 5, No. 1, 1980, 60.]
Summary Paragraph of Significance
Libby’s No. 23 is an authentic icon from the heyday of the Bristol Bay sailboat fishery, the world’s last greatest salmon fishery in the world. It area of significance is maritime history. The sailboat was involved in the commercial fishery between 1914 and 1951 and during that time was one of thousands of cannery owned fishing boats manned by two man crews plying the dangerous waters of Bristol Bay in pursuit of the five kinds of Pacific salmon. Now there are only about ten museum quality double-enders in existence.
The Bristol Bay salmon fishery began in earnest in the late 1870s at Nushagak when the Alaska Commercial Company directed John W. Clark to salt salmon in wooden barrels for the company fur seal hunters on the Pribiloff Islands. [Unrau, Historic Resource Study, 250, 257] In 1883 the first cannery was built on Nushagak Bay. By the late 1880s the first Columbia River salmon boats had been brought to Bristol Bay and after salmon traps were outlawed in the bay these boats became the primary means for catching commercial quantities of salmon for the canneries. But they proved to be inadequate to the demands of the Bristol Bay fishery and a bigger version was developed by boat builders in the Northwest, the Bristol Bay double-ender.
Every summer thousands of people came to Bristol Bay to engage in the greatest salmon fishery on Earth. The region became one of the most heterogeneous parts of the territory of Alaska with Native Yup’ik, Aleut and Indians working along side northern Europeans Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos and Latin Americans in a common endeavor of catching and processing and shipping millions of cases of salmon around the world. Bristol Bay Natives had their first exposure to a cash economy with their involvement with the fishery. Much of the cannery related material culture was adapted for re-use by up river people, particularly wooden dories and Columbia River salmon boats and even double-enders were sold to local people. Many of these sailboats were altered by local people to fill there needs upriver far from the salt water context of the commercial fishery. Beginning late in the nineteenth century and accelerating in the early twentieth century several Columbia River salmon boats were used by local people to haul their families and freight from the tidewater to their home villages up river. The fishing industry had a profound effect, for good and for ill, on the Bristol Bay Native people as it carried them into the modern world as the region’s predominant economic activity.
The development of the Bristol Bay salmon fishery represents western expansionism of United States capitalists into Alaska to exploit the rich fishery. The commercial fisheries had been the most lucrative enterprise in Alaska history until the advent of North Slope oil development in the late 1970s. Libby’s No. 23 is a part of the material culture of the Bristol Bay sailboat fishery during the first half of the twentieth century, and as such it was part of the maritime history of the nation.
Narrative Statement of Significance
Libby’s No. 23 is associated with the Bristol Bay salmon fishery during the years 1914 through 1951 as a working sailboat in the world’s richest salmon fishery. The sailboat is a prime example of a Bristol Bay double-ender, a type of boat developed on the Pacific northwest coast and Alaska for the rugged maritime environment during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Libby’s No. 23 is significant because of it role in the maritime history of the nation during it formative years 1914-1951.
In 1953 the sailboat, powered with a small outboard engine was brought to the Iliamna –Lake Clark region where it was used as a recreational boat during the post WWII years between the 1950s and early 1980s. Libby’s sold the boat to schoolteacher John Coray, but after Coray’s untimely death in the early 1960s the boat became the property of Earl Woodward and his son Allen. As such, it played a role in the settlement of Lake Clark by permanent residents of Anchorage who built recreational cabins around Lake Clark and used a motorized Libby’s No. 23 for hauling their families and building materials. By 1981 the Woodwards had ceased using the boat and kept it under tarps at Port Alsworth.
In 1997 Allen Woodward donated Libby’s No. 23 to Lake Clark National Park and Preserve and the boat was restored from a recreational boat back to its commercial fishing origins during the years 2005-2006. Libby’s No. 23 is now on permanent display in a boat shed near the Visitor Center at Lake Clark National Park and Preserve at Port Alsworth, Alaska.
Bibliography
Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA).
Andree, Al and Jim Rearden. “I Sailed for Salmon in Bristol Bay, Alaska, July 1986.
Angasan, Ralph Sr., Interview, November 10, 2010.
Angasan, Trefon Sr., Interviewed by Ralph Angasan, Jr. “It Was a Good Life,” Uutuqtwa, Bristol Bay High School, Naknek, 1985.
Anon., “Boat List, Koggiung 1937,”in the Cultural Resource Files at NPS office, Port Alsworth.
Anon. “Materials Required For One Only Columbia River Fishing Boat,” Alaska Packers Association Records, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington.
Aspelund, Allan Sr., Interview, November 10, 2010.
Bonham, Lemuel E. Letter of March 10, 1901 in The Canneries, Cabins and Caches of Bristol Bay, Alaska.
Branson, John B. The Canneries, Cabins and Caches of Bristol Bay, Alaska, U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Anchorage, 2007.
Breiby, John C. “The Port Alsworth Bristol Bay Double-Ender: A Proposed Plan of Repair and Restoration for a Static Exhibit at Lake Clark National Park and Preserve,” Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Office of History and Archeology, 2005, in the Cultural Resources Files at the NPS office, Port Alsworth.
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Coray, Craig. Interviews 1976 to present.
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Hamilton, Vie Ann. Interview, November 10, 2010.
Jacobs, Jane ,ed., A Schoolteacher in Old Alaska, The Story of Hannah Breece, Random House, New York, 1995.
Johnson, Artie and Randy Zimin. “Flat Bottom Skiffs and Double-enders,” interview with John Lundgren, Sr., Uutuqtwa, Bristol Bay High School, Naknek, Alaska, 1980.
Johnson, Martin. Interviews June 19, 2006 and January 19, 2007.
Monsen, Melvin. Interview June 10, 2006, and e-mail message November 24, 2005.
Olson, Hjalmer. Interview, November 12, 2010.
Parks, George A. Historic Photographic Collection, PCA-240-580, Alaska State Library.
Rodman, Hugh. Unpublished journal at the Pratt Museum, August 23, 1897.
Schoechert, John. Photographic scrapbook at the Moravian Church Archives, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Stacey, Duncan A. Sockeye & Tinplate: Technological Change in the Fraser River Canning Industry 1871-1912, “The Oar and Sail-Powered Gillnet Fishery,” Heritage Record No. 15 British Columbia Provincial Museum, 1982.
Troll, Tim. Interview. June 10, 2006.
Weilepp, Bruce. “Sailing gillnet boats of the Columbia River,” National Fisherman, April and May, 1991.
Woodward, Allen. Interviews 1976 to present; telephone conversations, September 2 and 3, 2010.
Wright, Claudine Coray. Interview, May 22, 1998.