Uganik Fisheries is a historic salmon cannery on the north shore of Northeast Arm in Uganik Bay about 1.3 miles (2 km) southeast of Starr Point on the northwestern coast of Kodiak Island, about 147 miles (237 km) south-southwest of Homer and 35 miles (56 km) west of Kodiak, Alaska. Uganik Bay is a deglaciated fjord that extends southeast for 8.5 miles (14 km) from Shelikof Strait. The bay was named for the Alutiiq village of ‘Oohanick’ in 1805 by Captain Yuri Lisyansky, of the Russian Imperial Navy, in command of the Neva during the first Russian circumnavigation of the world from 1803 to 1806. At the head of the fjord it splits into Northeast Arm, East Arm and South Arm—descriptive names assigned in 1897 by Lieutenant Commander Jefferson F. Moser of the U.S. Navy on the Bureau of Fisheries steamer Albatross. These fjords extend deep into central Kodiak Island, where the bedrock is dominated by the Kodiak Formation of the Chugach terrane, accreted over the past 200 million years. The Kodiak Formation consists mainly of very fine- to medium-grained graywacke and siltstone, deposited by turbidity currents in deep-sea-fan and abyssal-plain environments. Granitic rocks of the Kodiak batholith intruded the Kodiak Formation during the Paleocene—about 59 to 58 million years ago—and are exposed on the mountain slopes behind the abandoned cannery in Northeast Arm. The Kodiak batholith is a continuously exposed body of granitic rock composed of multiple plutons, primarily granite and granodiorite, that extends more than 68 miles (110 km) along Kodiak Island’s axis and ranges in width from 1 to 6 miles (2 to 10 km). During the Last Glacial Maximum, glaciers on Kodiak Island grew so extensively that all but the highest peaks and ridges were buried by ice. The ice originated locally, flowing seaward in all directions from the central mountain ridges through the present bays. It extended eastward to the edge of the continental shelf and westward into Shelikof Strait, where it merged with eastward-flowing glaciers from the Alaska Peninsula. Coastal areas were likely depressed isostatically by 330 to 820 feet (100 to 250 m) when deglaciation began about 13,000 years ago.

More than 7,500 years ago, the first maritime culture in Alaska—the Ocean Bay people, ancestors of today’s Alutiiq—migrated along the southern coast. They traveled in skin-covered boats through Shelikof Strait, established semi-permanent settlements on the Alaska Peninsula and were the first to cross to Kodiak Island. The Ocean Bay people were highly skilled mariners who hunted seals, sea lions, otters and porpoises. They quarried slate from outcrops and fashioned it into spear points. They also hollowed stones, which they filled with sea mammal oil and burned for heat and light. Other tools included clam picks made of bone, sea mammal bone hooks for deep-sea fishing and kelp fishing lines. Around 1800 BC the Kachemak tradition emerged from the Ocean Bay culture. Early Kachemak people used grooved cobble and notched pebble weights more extensively than the Ocean Bay people, probably reflecting changes in fishing techniques. The ulu—a broad, single-edged, ground slate knife—became common, and toggle harpoon heads first appeared on Kodiak Island at this time. Later Kachemak people used larger stone lamps decorated with carvings of whales, seals and humans on the bowl or the exterior. About 600 to 700 years before European contact another cultural transition occurred, likely influenced by peoples from outside Kodiak. Ceramics began to appear and the Kachemak tradition evolved into the Koniag tradition, ancestral to the Alutiiq. In 1763 Stephan G. Glotov—a Russian navigator, explorer and fur trader—became the first European to discover Kodiak Island. At the time the Alutiiq population is estimated to have exceeded 8,000, with settlements on Kodiak Island and the Alaska Peninsula. Russia formally proclaimed its rule over the territory in 1799, granting monopolistic privileges to the state-sponsored Russian-American Company and establishing the Russian Orthodox Church. The colony initially prospered from the fur trade, but by the mid-19th century overhunting and logistical challenges led to its gradual decline; most settlements were abandoned by the 1860s. In 1867 the Alaska Purchase transferred the territory to the United States.

By 1870 at least two companies—the Alaska Fur Trading Company and the Alaska Commercial Company —began marketing salted salmon from Kodiak Island. In 1879 a saltery opened on the Karluk River, about 43 miles (70 km) southwest of Uganik, and the first salmon cannery was built at Karluk in 1882. By 1888 four canneries operated at Karluk, including one run by the Alaska Improvement Company. In 1896 the Improvement Company introduced an experimental fish trap at Uganik—the first in the area—and that same year the Alaska Packer’s Association built a cannery at the head of East Arm Uganik Bay, at the Uganik River’s outlet, a key sockeye salmon spawning ground. For several years a saltery operated in a bight on the southern shore of the East Arm. The following year the Improvement Company replaced its experimental trap with a larger one extending at least 0.5 miles (0.8 km) from a point near the saltery across the arm; the two traps likely captured most of the bay’s fish. In 1922 a group of pioneering Alaskans formed the Kodiak Fishing and Packing Company, processing herring at a saltery in Uganik Bay. The venture failed, and the group lost its investment. In 1923 it obtained a permit to pack salmon and built a cannery on the north shore of the Northeast Arm of Uganik Bay. The permit allowed fishing in Uganik, Terror and Viekoda Bays and in Shelikof Strait between Cape Ugat and Raspberry Strait, with local residents providing most of the labor. In 1930 the company renamed itself Uganik Fisheries and adopted fish traps hung from piles to boost yield; nonresidents were increasingly hired for processing. By 1944 purse seines caught 52% of the fish, traps 42% and gill nets 6%. As sockeye declined, more pink salmon were needed for profit. In 1945 the San Juan Fishing and Packing Company purchased Uganik Fisheries for its trap sites and gear but idled the cannery. Read more here and here. Explore more of Uganik Fisheries and Northeast Arm here: