2
THE CHEMAWA AMERICAN
The cooked smelt are ground in large sausage machines operated by
electricity.
One quart of mush is added to 46 quarts of cooked smelt and enough
water added to make it semi-liquid.
"All of our machines as well as our lighting system are run by elec
tricity generated hereby water power," explained Mr. Wilson.
"There are nine men employed constantly. Beside myself there is
J. T. Noreen, the bookkeeper; D. J. Griffin, head feeder; Joe Smith,
food preparer, and five workmen. We work under R. E. Clanton, who
is the master fish warden. The Columbia Highway crosses Tanner
creek on our property.
"We liberate the fry, as the small fish are called, in the creek, as we
find they do better there than in the ponds. Conditions are more near
ly natural in a running stream than in a pond."
From the pond house we went to the head of the flume on Tanner
creek. In a distance of 800 feet from the dam to the lower screen in
the natural channel of Tanner Creek, there were 1,750,000 Salmon fry.
If you can remember the thickest cloud of gnats or mosquitoes you
ever saw and multiply that by 10 you will have some idea of the densi
ty of the schools of salmon fry in the pools. If you can imagine Tan
ner creek as a blood vein then the salmon fry, with their ceaseless activ
ity, would represent the corpuscles in the blood.
You can hardly stick your finger in the stream without touching a
fish, "isn't the stream pretty well crowded?" I asked. "Oh, no. As
soon as all danger from high water in the spring freshets is over we will
liberate 4,000,000 more fry in this 800 foot stretch of Tanner creek. It
can easily accommodate 6,000,000 fry. We will keep them here till
next July.
"By that time they will be about five inches long. Some time dur
ing July we will lift the screen and let the Chinook fingerlings swim
out into the Columbia. If we let them out too soon they would be eaten
by the fish ducks, trout or white fish. When they are about five
inches long about the only enemy they need tear is the seal.
"At the end of each month we dip out a hundred fry to see how they
are doing and to ascertain if they are gaining weight as they should.
These little chaps you are looking at on an average weigh about 15
grains each.
"Right now we have 21 ponds beside this stream, or about four acres
of water surface. Later we will add two or three acres more."
As we walked past the various ponds Mr. Wilson explained the meth
od of caring for the fish.
"This is pond No. 14," he said. "It is 20x60 feet, has four feec of
water in it and at present contains 400,000 salmon fry. This next pond,