Parks Cannery is located in Uyak Bay on the west coast of Kodiak Island, 24 miles (39 km) south of Shelikof Strait, 8 miles (13 km) south-southeast of Larsen Bay, and 61 miles (100 km) southwest of Kodiak, Alaska. The bay was named after the Aleut village of Ooiatsk by Captain Yuri Lysianskyi in 1805 and recorded as the ‘Bay of Oohiack.’ In 1852, Captain Mikhail Tebenkov of the Imperial Russian Navy charted it as Zaliv Uyak, later transcribed by the US Coast and Geodetic Survey as Uyak Bay. Uyak Bay is a deglaciated fjord extending 40 miles (64 km) south-southeast from Shelikof Strait into the mountainous interior of Kodiak Island. The region is underlain by a vast accretionary complex formed over the past 200 million years. Major accretion episodes occurred in the Early Jurassic, Late Cretaceous, Paleocene, and Oligocene. The most significant events—in the Late Cretaceous and Paleocene—produced the Kodiak and Ghost Rocks Formations. The bay lies within the Kodiak Formation, a belt of argillite and graywacke turbidites 37–44 miles (60–70 km) wide and nearly 1,243 miles (2,000 km) long, with deposits exceeding 16,400 feet (5,000 m) in thickness. During the Paleocene, the granitic Kodiak batholith and its satellite plutons intruded this formation. At the Last Glacial Maximum, alpine glaciers, island ice caps, and piedmont lobes covered much of the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Archipelago. These glaciers began retreating between 23,000 and 14,700 years ago, though an ice-free marine corridor likely became habitable only around 13,000 to 12,000 years ago.

Archaeological evidence shows human presence along the Pacific’s north coast dating back about 10,000 years. By 3,800 years ago, the Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Islands experienced significant population growth. Dozens of sedentary villages emerged, supported by offshore cod fishing, large sea mammal hunting—such as sea lions, fur seals, and possibly small whales—and mass salmon harvesting. Around this time, regional cultures diverged from the original Ocean Bay tradition. The Kachemak tradition developed in the Kodiak Archipelago and Kenai Peninsula, marked by diverse subsistence adaptations, from riverine fishing to coastal harvesting. Labrets and other forms of body ornamentation became widespread. When Russian, British, and American explorers arrived after 1740, they encountered nearly 50,000 inhabi­tants with striking cultural diversity: two languages, 10 Aleut dialects, and at least two Alutiiq dialects. These societies exhibited extensive warfare, trade, and marriage alliances—unusual for hunter-gatherer cultures—all enabled by the ocean-going kayak. The kayak and baidarka were essential adaptations that allowed people to thrive in one of the harshest climate regimes in the modern world, where their descendants still hunt, fish, and participate in the global economy. As early as 1875—just eight years after the US acquired Alaska—the Alaska Commercial Company began fishing operations at Karluk Spit, salting its catch. In 1882, Smith & Hirsch built the first cannery at Karluk, reorganized in 1884 as the Karluk Packing Company. By 1893, several canneries had been built at the river mouth, but all were dismantled that year by the Alaska Packers Association, which consolidated operations at Larsen Bay. Salmon were caught almost exclusively with beach seines and purse seines launched from up to 70 boats.

In 1921, Ottar Hofstad, originally from Herøy, Norway, moved to Kodiak Island to manage the Katmai Packing Company at Ouzinkie. The company purchased salmon from purse seiners and beach seiners operating off Afognak Island and in the Karluk River district. In 1924, Hofstad bought the auxiliary schooner Esther and spent the next three years salting herring. In 1927, he founded North Pacific Fisheries and converted the Esther into a floating cannery, buying salmon from local gill netters, purse seiners, and beach seiners. By 1932, the vessel was leaking and had to be beached in Uyak Bay. As competitors began acquiring fish trap sites, Hofstad filed for locations at the mouth of the bay. In 1934, he constructed traps at Cape Uyak and Cape Ugat. That same year, Herbert T. Dominici brought equipment from Seattle and built a small cannery on Uyak Bay. By mid-May, he had installed a can-forming machine, a mechanized fish-butchering line, and repurposed the Esther’s 50-horsepower gasoline engine for power. The cannery’s salmon supply came mostly from Hofstad’s traps, which intercepted Karluk-bound salmon. These traps generated resentment from purse seiners and beach seiners working off Karluk Spit. On some days, the traps caught more than the combined take of 65 fishermen. Dominici introduced an automated sorting system that eliminated peughing (or pewing)—a practice that damaged fish and reduced product quality. In 1938, the operation was reorganized as the Great Northern Packing Company under Nick Bez. In 1940, James W. Parks of Aberdeen, Washington, bought the facility and launched the Parks Canning Company. The cannery packed salmon intermittently until 1968. In 1970, it was acquired by Whitney-Fidalgo Seafoods, which operated it until 1983, when the machinery was removed. The buildings now serve as a hunting and fishing lodge. Read more here and here. Explore more of the Parks Cannery and Uyak Bay here: