In an Alaskan town, generations of fishers face industry’s death

Alaska’s fishing industry has faced major challenges this past year. Low fish prices and high overhead costs have led some of the industry’s biggest players to sell or shutter their processing plants, sending shock waves through the coastal communities that rely on those canneries.

Perhaps no other community has been harder hit than the small city of King Cove, near the tip of the Alaska Peninsula, 600 miles from Anchorage, the closest major city.

Its only seafood processor closed almost overnight this spring, and the city is reeling, not only from the loss of 75% of its revenue, but from the larger questions of the city’s survival.

King Cove didn’t even exist until 1911 when a seafood company, Pacific American Fisheries, opened a salmon cannery and Alaska Native folks moved in from surrounding villages to work there.

That fish processing plant grew to become one of Alaska’s largest. Peter Pan Seafood Co. employed about 700 seasonal workers at its King Cove facility during a typical summer. That meant housing 700 people in company bunkhouses and feeding those people daily.

The freezers and pantries were packed when the cannery, burdened by debt, closed just before salmon season, so the company gave the food away to the community.

Ernie Newman, 65, just retired from a lifelong fishing career. Like most folks in town, he’s a company man.

“I fished for Peter Pan all my life, tendered for ‘em,” Newman said.

He was one of about 100 residents who attended the pop-up pantry at King Cove’s old school, filling his shopping cart with canned pineapple and pancake mix.

“Peter Pan finally doin’ us a favor,” Newman said. “Oh, dandy.”

City Clerk Cora Rocili helped organize the food drive. Her parents met at the cannery, and she grew up living in company housing and hanging around the fish plant with the other workers’ kids.

“They called us the Peter Pan brats,” Rocili said.

Just about every business in town revolves around fishing. Rocili moonlights as a bartender at MC’s Bar, near the harbor. But she said the bar is empty these days.

“Everybody’s affected by what’s going on with Peter Pan. It’s sad to see. It’s definitely something I never expected to see,” she said.

Local business owner Lillian Sager runs a food truck, and she said her business has been cut in half, forcing her and her husband to make a tough decision.

“We’re moving,” Sager said. “This is our home. This is where, you know, our ancestors lived and we want to stay here, but we’re moving to Washington [state].”

Many of the folks in town are direct descendants of the Alaskan Native and European families who founded the town. That includes Mayor Warren Wilson, a third-generation King Cove fisherman who also runs a boat welding service. He said one of his welders has also moved away to find work, a trend he finds troubling.

“Once you start losing your population, you lose your school, and once you start losing your school, you lose children,” Wilson said. “Once you start losing children, you lose smiley faces, and then you don’t hear the laughter anymore. That’s when your community is going to die.”

Wilson said he hopes the city can convince another seafood company to buy the Peter Pan facility. An Alaska-based company took over some of Peter Pan’s other facilities earlier this year but didn’t purchase the King Cove plant. The town is hoping that someone comes along soon. Nobody made an offer in time for the summer salmon season, so folks are hoping it happens in time for fall.