the westward part of Alaska, that is for fishing and livestock and whatever farming you have eventually.

If you will notice Kodiak on the map, all of our flat maps are Mercator projections, but you will see it lies on a curve, that is a great circle curve. We are only 400 miles from the major routes taken by all steamships going into the Orient and coming out of the Orient. No development of any extent can start in the westward until Kodiak is properly equipped to take care of it.

The Congresswoman of Idaho brought up an interesting thing there about outside interests coming in and getting our fish. Actually, why that happens is that there are no suitable boat harbors in this country to encourage men that have big boats that represent anything from $50,000 to $150,000 in money to leave the boats up here in the wintertime. There is plenty of fishing the year around up here. The boats can fish 8 to 9 months a year, can be actively and gainfully employed from 8 to 9 months a year, with our crabs, clams, ground fish, and with the salmon. The great drawback is the man who has a valuable piece of property, to bring it up here when he is going to leave it in the wintertime. If we get a suitable boat harbor, we are going to have these men with high-value boats moving in here.

Kodiak is the last habitable point to the westward. We are starting the Aleutian Islands here. The further you go out, and you only have to go a short distance from Kodiak, the country turns into grass and rock. It is very productive country. This year we had two parties from the Texas Livestock Association. They came in here. They went through the islands of Unalaska and Unmak. Their plans are to bring in 500 head apiece to go on these particular islands next year to start their ranches.

One ranch in existence for the better part of 30 years is on Unalaska Island. It is being very successful. It is owned by a concern in Oregon called the Oregon Woolen Mills, and the wool is of such high grade that they use that to back the shorter fibered wools from the interior States, coastal States. They have never developed the island beyond approximately 4,000 head of sheep because they have had enough for their needs.

Mr. Bishop, whom I have known for many years, who is the owner of the concern, is not a man that has tended to develop his company at all. He has a very small and compact outfit that brings him a great return, and that is where it stands.

In the not too distant future, the cattle industry to the westward and in the Aleutian Islands is going to be tremendous, and the closest source of supply is Kodiak. This is the last point where we have twice daily airplane service in here. Steamship routes pass us at all times. It is my belief that until Kodiak has a boat harbor that will provide shelter, repair facilities, and supply facilities coming with the boat harbor, the westward will not develop, it will just be strangled, because, as I say, we are the bottleneck, we sit right on the westward development.

Mr. O'BRIEN. I would like to point out that those intangibles, those future developments, obviously are not considered in the immediate cost ratio; are they?

Mr. LOGAN. I would have to ask Mr. Coon on that, because I am not too familiar with that. What I am looking at entirely is the operation point of view on this thing.

Mrs. ProST. How much money do you need from the Federal Government for this project?

Mr. LOGAN. The last estimate we got was $1,900,000.

Mr. COON. $1,948,000.

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Logan, how many boats could be placed in that harbor?

Mr. LOGAN. They are calling for a 400-boat harbor, which is too small. I have had many fishermen express to me-and the reason of this is that for 40 years the history of halibut fishing has beenfor 40 years it has been coming out of Seattle, 1,300 miles. They bring the boats up here. They fish and usually return to Seattle to sell the pack. So you can see the accumulated costs against the highest market price. The margin is narrowing all the time, so many boats now are starting to run out of southeastern Alaska. We are getting a lot of Canadians in here. They are taking a very active part in our ground fishing. So the banks are depleted, and as the fishing moves westward the boats are going to have to follow it. The economical range for a halibut boat is really 600 miles from base. They run out 600 miles, come back and discharge and go out again. Kodiak is 600 miles from Dutch Harbor, that being on the chain splitting the fishing banks in the Bering Sea, and also the tremendous banks along the Aleutian coast, not to mention the great fishing area in and around the Shumagin Islands and the country around Sanak.

We are looking at the same amount of fishing grounds in the Bering Sea and the Aleutian Islands they have in the Atlantic from Greenland to Iceland to the Grand Banks, and you can see it hasn't been touched.

Mr. O'BRIEN. Of your knowledge, do you know whether the Canadians have been more advanced in the development of their boat harbors than we have?

Mr. LOGAN. They have.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. It should be said to you and to all other witnesses-Mr. O'Brien might have covered thisthat you will have the opportunity, if you care to do so, to submit written statements to amplify your verbal presentation.

Mr. LOGAN. Thank you.

Mr. BARTLETT. Are there further witnesses on the boat harbor! (Discussion off the record.)

Mr. BARTLETT. Fisheries is the next subject to be taken up. Mr. Brunstad.

STATEMENT OF KARL BRUNSTAD, KODIAK, ALASKA

Mr. BRUNSTAD. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Karl Brunstad and I am a resident of Alaska for about 30 years.

I am in favor of statehood.

I am chiefly here as an individual to ask for control of our own fisheries, Territorial control of our fisheries.

I will try to explain briefly what we are up against on our Federal bureaucratic setup, the Fish and Wildlife Service.

I have a brief here and I have some statistics in there, a good deal that will support what I have to say.

Mr. BARTLETT. Without objection, the brief presented by Mr. Brunstad will be incorporated in the record and the statistical material referred to will be made a part of the file.

(The statement referred to follows:)

Hon. LEO W. O'BRIEN,

KODIAK, ALASKA, September 24, 1955.

Chairman, Subcommittee of the Committee on Territories and Insular
Affairs, Kodiak, Alaska.

GENTLEMEN: Under Federal control our main resource, the salmon fishery, has become deplorable. No one knows how this resource would fare under Territorial control, but if we (the Territory) could not do any better we would have only ourselves to blame.

Why must we have a remote (Federal) agency to make a mess of it for us? Why not let us make our own trials and mistakes?

In 1906, 47 plants operated in Alaska and a canned pack of around 24 million cases of salmon were put up. The number of plants increases from year to year. The seasonal pack rose to an average of about 7 to 8 million cases.

Since 1941, the salmon resource has diminished until the case pack is now down to about where it was in 1906. Approximately 100 plants are now operating in Alaska. The following appeared in the Kodiak Mirror on August 20,

1955:

"Nineteen hundred and fifty-five was one of the poorest salmon seasons in a century, according to W. C. Arnold, who just returned to Seattle from an Alaskan survey.

"He forecasted the catch this year was not more than 24 million cases. 'I'll be greatly surprised and elated if pack goes above that figure,' he said."

Unless statehood or control of our own fisheries is around the corner, I plead that you gentlemen sponsor a congressional investigation of the administrative setup of the Alaska salmon fisheries.

By reading this letter, I hope you will come to realize why I feel such an investigation is needed. We have had numerous hearings by congressional fisheries committees, in which the coastal population has expressed its grievances. Volumes have been printed, but nothing corrective has come of it. The powerful "salmon trap" interest has always managed to block all remedial

measures.

I am sure that when Congress passed the White Act they had in mind that only gear of fair competitive nature should be permitted in the salmon fishery, thereby granting all parties the right to participate in the game of fishing on an equitable basis. Therefore, it is the duty and the responsibility of the Fish and Wildlife Service to safeguard this intended uniformity by permitting only gear of such nature that can be operated at large in a democratic manner and method.

The following part of the White Act gives my reason for this contention : "Provided, That every such regulation made by the Secretary of the Interior shall be of general application within the particular area to which it applies, and that no exclusive or several right of fisheries shall be granted therein ***." To set aside specific sites on the shoreline for erection of the unlimited structures (the salmon-pile trap) is-to my conviction-entirely contradictory to what Congress had in mind when they passed and made the above quotation a part of the White Act.

The White Act reads further:

"Under this authority to limit fishing in any area so set aside and reserved, the Secretary may (a) fix the size and character of nets, boats, traps, or other gear to be used therein ***."

While all gear used at large, in accordance with the first quoted part of the White Act, is limited in size and character, no such limitation whatsoeveras to size and character-is imposed on the salmon-pile trap.

The Fish and Wildlife Service divides Alaska into three statistical districts: Southeastern, central, and western Alaska. (See attachments I and II.) For regulatory purposes the Fish and Wildlife Service divides Alaska into areas. There are several such areas within each statistical district. For instance, within central Alaska district we have Kodiak area, Cook Inlet area. Prince William Sound area, Chignik area, etc. (See attachment III.)

There are 20 privileged sites set aside in the Kodiak area for use by gear of extreme size and character.

TRAP SITE

SHORELINE

I fail to see why these specific sites should be open to titanic barricades more than the rest of the shoreline, and why such monstrous permanent structures should not be prohibited on these spots of the shoreline as well as anywhere else on the shores of the Kodiak area. (See attachment IV.)

If some fishermen place their seine in a temporary imitative miniature, trap formation, he is subject to arrest. Fishermen have on several occasions been convicted for operating their seines in the manner of a trap. How can it be justifiably right to set aside spots of the shoreline for gear of extreme size and character, if it is morally wrong to place ordinary gear in an imitative miniature temporary trap formation elsewhere in the vicinity where fishing is conducted at large?

These are some of the actions I feel the Fish and Wildlife Service should account for to an investigating committee. In order to hush up the strong demand by the coastal population of Alaska for a stop to permitting the use of salmon traps the Fish and Wildlife Service distributed a circular under the heading "Relation to Fish Trap Controversy." (See attachment V.)

I ask your committee to carefully compare this circular with the following part of the White Act:

"Under this authority to limit fishing in any area so set apart and reserved, the Secretary may (c) make such regulation as to time, means, methods and extent of fishing as he may deem advisable ***"

In my opinion the Relation to Fish Trap Controversy is entirely contradictory to the last quoted part of the White Act.

I maintain that it is within the authority of the Fish and Wildlife Service to avert all fishing by salmon traps. I can find no part of the White Act making it mandatory to open up specific sites for gear of extreme or extraordinary size and character.

On many occasions in the past, certain trap sites have been closed and other sites opened up catching fish on the same migratory route. I have particularly in mind the case of Mr. Lee Wakefield, at the time a multiple-trap owner. Mr. Wakefield owned and operated 28 traps. The Bureau of Fisheries (now Fish and Wildlife Service) closed all sites used by Mr. Wakefield, while other sites in the same vicinity, applied for by other parties were opened up. This action alone very well demonstrates the power and authority of that Bureau, rather than what is related in Relation to Fish Trap Controversy.

Several years ago, just prior to the trap vote, the trap interest very forcibly brought out that the Fish and Wildlife Service has full power and authority to end salmon-trap fishing, and maintained that if the Fish and Wildlife Service had deemed it advisable (to stop salmon-trap fishing) they would certainly have done so. The trap interest even stressed that the aboriginal Americans used traps before the arrival of Europeans. (Of course, they did not mention how those traps compared in size and character with the present-day salmon trap.) In spite of the utmost propaganda by the trap interest, for votes in favor of trap retention, the people of Alaska voted almost 9 to 1 in opposition to traps. The Fish and Wildlife Service has ignored this expression by ballot. But they still come around every fall and hold hearings in the pretense or guise of finding out what we want in line of regulations.

The conduct by the Fish and Wildlife Service does not create the public respect directly needed by all regulatory and enforcement agencies. On the contrary such attitudes and practices by a Governmental agency is detrimental to patriotic morale.

I am not opposed to limiting the size of seines, nets, and boats. In fact. I am very much in favor of it. Nor am I opposing the prohibiting of using seines as traps. But I am strictly opposed to the setting aside of special sites for use by gear of extreme or extraordinary size and character.

Statehood or control of our own fisheries would end this malpractice in short

order.

Fishermen from Puget Sound freely tell about the quick change of attitude and the harmonious relation that came about between the fishermen and the fishery authorities after the salmon traps went out in the State of Washington. I feel that the same will take place in Alaska. But until then. No.

I am stressing the term "salmon trap" because we have other types of traps, used for capture of other species-crabs, shrimps, etc. These traps are of a different nature and character and are used at large on a fair competitive basis. These traps have nothing in common with the gigantic salmon traps. I am mentioning this because the trap interest is very prone to confuse the issue by bringing out that traps are used elsewhere in America and the world. We are not against everything that is called a trap.

We do not mean that the use of this sort of trap should be prohibited. There is no comparison between traps of this character and the Alaska salmon trap. Perhaps a congressional investigation would unearth some very interesting correspondence and manipulations regarding how some of the choice trap sites happened to be opened up.

The maximum length of purse seines on the Kodiak area is 200 fathoms (1,200 feet). The maximum length of set gillnets is 150 fathoms (900 feet). This meets with our approval. However, a salmon-pile trap extends from the beach and offshore as far as the physical contour of the ocean bottom permitsthe longest available pilings being used.