BACK IN TIME

by Jan Hrutfiord

Today salmon are caught with nets in the commercial fishing fleet, but in the first years of fishing in the Blaine area, salmon were caught in traps. In 1877, legislation was passed which forbade traps to cut off more than three fourths of a spawning stream.

These fish traps became rather sophisticated catching devices, and were located where the fish would run during spawning season. There were traps located on Boundary Bay, South Shore, and two were off of Birch Point, but the largest concentration was off of Point Roberts.

A trap was v-shaped, divided into five parts, with the first or lead part being up to a half mile long. It was made with wire netting, including a bottom, attached to pilings driven into the bottom of the sea, leading to a final chamber called the spiller, made of fish netting which was designed to be opened to remove the milling fish which were held in the fourth chamber, called the “pot” or gathering place. There is a complete model of a fish trap at the Semiahmoo Museum.

The larger traps included a house, perched in pilings alongside the trap, for the trap tenders or workers to live in or to stay in during their shift. These traps caught thousands of salmon during the season, and were emptied daily, sometimes having more than 35,000 fish at a time in the trap. The traps were emptied onto barges or tenders which visited each trap every day and then delivered the fish to the canneries.

Other fish which would be trapped along with the salmon were thrown out, as scrap fish. These included true and ling cod, which were thought at the time to be of no value.

Hannes Westman remembered very well working two seasons, 1928 and 1929, on salmon traps owned by Alaska Packers Association, offshore from Point Roberts. At that time, APA owned 13 traps off of Point Roberts, and there were also traps there owned by other canneries.

The salmon season started the first of June, and ended on Labor Day, taking the pick of the sockeye run. Hannes worked a trap on the west side of Point Roberts, right next to where the Tsawwassen ferry dock is now, on the U.S. side of the border. He lived in a 16-foot square house on pilings at the trap, which was about a mile out to his trap where he was the night watchman. There was a “house,” about six foot square, with no lights, heat, or other amenities, on pilings there for him to stay in during the night.

Each trap was furnished with a rifle and ammunition to shoot the seals which would follow the salmon into the traps and then couldn’t get out again. A seal could make a big mess in a trap, eating parts of hundreds of fish as well as causing problems with the trap itself. (Another use for the rifle or the shotgun, which was sometimes furnished, was to protect the fish from “pirates.”)

During the years of 1930-34, Hannes ran a tender which took salmon from various traps each day to the canneries. He said that a few traps were opened early, about May 1, to catch King Salmon. He and his “lifting crew” would collect these kings, mostly from traps in the San Juans, ice them down and run them to Seattle to be sold on the fresh fish market.

One day, going to pick a San Juan trap of kings, he found it full of sockeye instead and had to call the owners to let them know he would be taking the fish to a cannery in Anacortes. In those days, sockeye were for canning, and only kings were used for fresh fish markets. This was the earliest that sockeye had been found in that area. He delivered over 20,000 sockeye salmon, which had been trapped that one night.

Eythor Westman started fishing in the summer of 1932 on the cannery tender Radio, with his brother Hannes. They got salmon in Puget Sound, mostly from fish traps, although in the late summer they did get some salmon from seiners. They worked seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and earned $45 a month, from which they had to pay board. He also worked tending traps off of Point Roberts.

I have heard colorful stories about fish “pirates” who would empty a trap before the tender could get to it, at least one of whom would later give the trap tender or owner the money for their share of the fish. This was an “honest” pirate.

In 1934, fish traps were declared illegal by the legislature, and were closed down, except for a few which were owned by Indians and under different jurisdiction. From then on, the commercial salmon have been caught by purse seiners, gillnetters, and reef nets in Puget Sound and the Straits of Georgia.

Hannes Westman, the oldest son of Icelandic immigrants John and Rannveig Westman, was born in Canada in 1910, and emigrated to the U.S. with his parents about a year later. His family settled in Point Roberts at that time, and a babysister was born there, who only lived a few hours.

As there was no cemetery at that time on Point Roberts, she was buried in the family garden. Two years later, in 1914, a brother, Eythor, was born, and the family moved to Montana when he was three months old. The hardest part of leaving Point Roberts for their mother was leaving the gravesite of her baby girl. (Many years later, Eythor tried to find the grave to have the body removed to the cemetery, but it was impossible to find.)
Their sister Doma was born in Montana, before the family moved on to Saskatchewan. They returned to Blaine 11 years after leaving Point Roberts, and both Hannes and Eythor worked many years in the fishing industry. Both are gone now, but their legacy lives on in their many friends and family who are still here in the area. Hannes was my uncle, Eythor was my father. They were both good, honest and hard working men, who are missed by all who knew them.

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