In 1880s, salmon were the “most dangerous catch”

0:00Good morning, Oregon. I'm Finn J.D. John, FJ at OffbeatOrgan.com. Your host for today's Offbeat Oregon History Podcast episode. Thanks for downloading, and I sure hope you enjoy it. This story was first published on June 24th of 2012 under the headline in 1880s, salmon were the real most dangerous catch. Here we go. There were plenty of dangerous ways to make a living in 1880s Oregon. Loggers could get crushed, sailors could get drowned, and mill workers could get parts amputated. And did every day, but when it came to the risk of death, nothing came close to salmon fishing at the mouth of the Columbia River.

1:03The year 1880 was probably the worst year of them all. Quote, some assume that as many as 350 fishermen lost their lives this season on the Columbia, the San Francisco Chronicle reported in September of that year. The lowest estimate is furnished by William Johnson, who puts the number of victims at 200. To put that into perspective, there were total of about 1,500 fishing boats working the river at that time, each with a crew of two men aboard. A fisherman starting out in May of 1880 had it best, a one-in-fifteen chance of not surviving the season. Not even the clumsiest sawmill worker took a chance like that. So what made the river so deadly? In the 1880s, and it was a combination of things, here's how the fishermen ordinarily worked. They'd put out onto the river in one of those 1,500 boats I was talking about just before low slack tide. The boats were 24-foot double-enders, each gaff rigged with a small triangular sail and oars for the men.

2:06Although there were steam launches, small steam launches out on the river in 1880, none of the fishing boats actually had a power plant aboard. They wouldn't need a power plant, if all went according to plan. Plan was, the fishing crews would put their nets out and drift with the river's current, which would take them out to the very mouth of the river, close to the bar. They would time it so that they'd get as close to the bar as possible without having yet entered it. When the tide would start coming back in, bringing their nets back toward the boat, and then they would haul in their nets, deploy their oars and sails in, helped along by the incoming tidewaters, head for Astoria and safety. So far, this sounds pretty simple, but here's the part that made it such a deadly proposition. The closer you got to the bar, the better the fishing became. So fishermen had every incentive to get as close to the bar as they dared. The bar, as you likely know, is the notorious graveyard of ships at the mouth of the river. At the bar, the river got very shallow.

3:06The bottom got sandy and clean, and the current got considerably faster. So what happened if a fishing crew misjudged the tide and ended up on that bar? Well, that's where things got really ugly. Remember, these guys were relying on the incoming tide to help push them inland, but the incoming tide is also the force that raises mammoth freighter-killing breakers on the bar when it crashes into the Columbia's powerful current moving in the opposite direction. So if a boat timed it wrong, and the tide didn't start to turn in time to help it return to port, its crew members would find themselves in a desperate struggle, trying to muscle a heavy 24-foot fishing boat upstream against a current of eight miles an hour. Sometimes the crew's exhaustive exertion would slow the boat drift enough that the tide could save them. And sometimes it wouldn't. If it didn't, the little boat would be swept into 40-foot breakers, amid which rescue was impossible and survival, unlikely. A gripping eyewitness account of exactly this scenario was given in the sidebar to this story,

4:09which I'll read to you at the end of the column. A few fishing boats sucked into the bar did escape by pulling for the open sea, but not all of them survived the subsequent grueling and thirsty attempt to reach a beach. What made 1880s such a special year was the particularly heavy snow melt runoff in the spring. This made the tide tables almost useless. Essentially what happened was the ebb tide was extended for an extra half hour each day, because so much more river water was coming down. Even cautious fishermen would drift, seward, and sometimes get caught in that year, the tide would turn and they'd still have to pull for their lives to get free of the suction of the bar, because there was just so much more water coming down the river. In cautious fishermen, of course, had not a chance. And then there was the storm on May 2nd of that year. That storm was largely forgotten today, but it cast a horrible shadow over a story for decades afterward. It kicked up suddenly when the boats were still drifting seward with nets in the water

5:09and turned the mouth of the river into a mini-bar. Those who survived did so by cutting their nets loose and pulling for shore immediately. The next day the storm continued, but then abated just in time for the fishing tide. And the quote, treacherous law convinced many of the fishermen who had escaped the dangers of the preceding night to venture again upon the deep and cast their nets, as the Oregonians' story a correspondent put it. Before they were aware, the storm recommenced and another night of horror for the poor fisherman had begun. On both nights, a little steamship called the SS Rip Van Winkle just happened to be ready to rush to the rescue, but it could only save boats that hadn't yet drifted onto the bar. About 60 fishermen drowned in those two nights alone, and dozens of boats were lost. Survival for a salmon fisherman got a lot more likely a few years after this, when the canneries started using small steamships to tow their fishing boat fleets out and retrieve them afterward. But even so it was dangerous, once a boat was drawn into the breakers in the bar,

6:12it usually couldn't be reached by rescuers. A real measure of safety wouldn't come for the bar fishermen until around the time of World War I, when the gasoline-powered bow-picker boats, with enough power to buck the current, were developed. Today we think of commercial fishing as a somewhat dangerous way to make a living, especially for the folks fishing for crab up in Alaska. But compared with how it was in Astoria, Oregon, 130 years ago, today's most dangerous catch is a sunny day picnic. I'll read that sidebar to you now. It's an excerpt from the daily Astorian, May 30, 1880. It's a headline. Another fisherman lost. His companion tries in vain to save him. Here it goes. On Thursday morning last, Lewis C. Weber and Tom Johnson, who fished with him for a booth in company's cannery, drifted down with the tide with their net out until they had reached a point in the North Channel a considerable distance beyond the Cape, far out on the bar, and near the western curve of the middle sands.

7:14They allowed the net to drift on out, expecting the turn of the tide to drift it back toward them, and then as usual, they would commence to take up and remove the salmon to the boat. At about 10.45 am, Thursday the 27th Weber being at the tiller and Johnson handling the net, the latter suddenly exclaimed, Lewis, we must get out of this, the fish are striking. The salmon, touching and striking the ground in their struggling, caused a peculiar tugging on the net, showed Johnson that they were getting into showle waters. They were then in about three fathoms. Weber said, oh, let her stop here! Almost immediately afterward they heard a low moaning noise, and Weber sung out to his companion, who had let go of his net and seized the ores, headed for the breaker, which by this time had assumed shape and was rapidly nearing their boat, gaining in size and strength and rapidity as it approached. In attempting to turn the boat to the now coming breaker that she might meet at head on, one of the ores broke in Johnson's hands, a morseless wave struck broadside of the boat, lifting it onto its crest, turning it over and over as if it had been a cork,

8:15leaving both men to struggle for life's breath in the seething waters. Weber was washed out first. Johnson tried to maintain his hold of the boat, but owing to its rotary motion he was compelled to let go. The breaker, having spent its force, the surface of the water to which both men had arisen, became comparatively smooth. He then saw the boom they used for their sail, floating toward Weber and told him to seize it, and soon one of the Columbia Canning Company's boats, which was making toward them, would pick him up. This boat soon reached Johnson, but he told the men in it not to mind, but to go for Lewis, who is farther in the breakers than he was. Just then a second heavy breaker was fast-coming, rolling relentlessly along toward the struggling man, and it would have been at the risk of almost certain death themselves had the newcomers approached the spot sooner. They could only wait to see if the poor fellow would be allowed one more chance for life after being engulfed the second time. They could do nothing more just then. They saw the cruel wave, rear its crested head, and drawing the now helpless man in with its undertow,

9:15it lifted him and then broke over him. After this they saw him no more, and it is probable that this is the last of Lewis's sea Weber, until the sea shall give up the dead that are in it. Mr. Weber had been married but a few short months, and the sincerest sympathy of the community is extended to the widow in her sad bereavement. Key sources in this story have included works by Lisa Penner and archive issues of the Portland Morning Oregonian, Daily Historian, and San Francisco Chronicle from the year 1880. That's our show for today. Thanks again for listening. This podcast is part of Offbeat Oregon History, a public history resource for the state we love. Offbeat Oregon, by the way, is a division of public productions, a boutique publishing house about which more can be learned at pulp-lip.com. In addition to Offbeat Oregon books, podcasts, and audiobooks, we also publish book and audiobook versions of collections of what you might call street literature.

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