Uganik Bay Canneries

There are no longer any Uganik Bay canneries in operation.  The last one at Port Obrion closed in the early 2000's.  I gather in the 1980s it was a happening place full of college students who came to Alaska for a summer job. I've talked to quite a few people who have amazing 'summer without end' memories of the place.  Today the cannery is in disrepair.  Inside the buildings the wood and floor is still solid but outside you got to watch out for rotting planks.

The other cannery in the bay is an old herring reduction plant that closed in the early 1980s.  That one is in a serious state of decay.  It is too dangerous to even enter.

What's alarming and sad is that canneries all over the island are closing.  The salmon fishing industry is in a serious state of flux.  With no local canneries salmon fishermen have a hard time getting their fish to market. The industry is rapidly changing.  I wonder if in the future there will no longer be remote canneries anywhere in Alaska.

I remember when I was in college and a bunch of my colleagues took off to Alaska to work in the canneries.  College kids stopped coming to Alaska to work in a cannery over 30 years ago.  

Patrick

The Herring Reduction Plant