Sign Two: Seining

What should be on a sign about Seining in Sitka?

Ideas for text:

• How seining works

• History: from shore, rowboats, controlled by canneries and salteries; motors, independent fishermen; fishery dominated by Alaska Native fishermen thru 1970s; poor runs, fluctuations of industry, catches and value over time, size of fleet over time

• problem with cannery traps, how statehood issue was abolishing traps;

• Seiners in Sitka now, how many, value, product, how processed and where sold,

• Good clean healthy food

• challenges (climate, trawlers)

• Seining and Sitka culture: boat building here, the Alaska limit seiner, the shops, how boat building and fishing related to early Alaska Native Brotherhood, how boats used as transportation and for traditional harvesting

• Herring seine fishery, origin, boom and now, issues

• Salmon return to natal river to spawn

Ideas for images:

• Seiner showing how the gear works

• Pink Salmon, Chum Salmon, with Tlingit names, how they live, what they eat, where they spawn

• Historical photo of seiner

• Action shot