The Daily Alaska empire Newspaper, December 24, 1949, Page 3

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1949 CHRISTMAS GREETINGS At this happy time of the year it is our great pleasure to extend to one and all sincere wishes for a joyous Yuletide. VAL and ALICE POOR Douglas Best wishes for a very merry \ and joyous Christmas and a hoppy and prosperous New Yeat) FROM | THE “"GILDERSLEEVES" Douglas Grocery B L of you are warmest! FEUSI and JENSEN GROCERIES and MEAT Up hill and down dale go our Christmas wishes to all our friends and patrons. This is the time of yéar when the cup of good cheer is its fullest, hospitality is its cheeriest, and our thoughts | So an experiment We Mean Fis The reversing quality inherent in tha femiliar little shrimp enables him to Le captured easily for cock- | tails and salads by trawlers, but | the grandiose fellows known @s “prawns” are a different story. The big boys—some as high as | nine inches long in the shell | usually live among the reefs and s, thus preventing trawlers| rcm tackling them, because their! drags would be ruined in just one | pass. is going for- ward to build “pots” to capture the delicious fellows, and is under way in Petersburg ty Earl Ohmer, | owner of the Glacier Seafood Com- | pany there, and who has been pull- ing shrimp up from the bottom | since 1917, | With him in this pioneering work {is L. G. McDonald, fishery super- | vi‘or on the staff of C. L. Anderson, | director of the Territorial Board of | Fisheries in Juneau. Attempts have been made before to capture prawns on the level bot-l toms where the “standard” variety | are abundant, but without success. | Cne day a shrimper would drag up | many, the next they'd be gone. And | while demand is tremendous for} them, because they have the Louisi- ana prawn backed off the table so far as flavor is concerned, the at-y tempts had to te abandoned. “POT"” IDEA CONCEIVED i Then George Murphy of Tenakee Inlet thought of an idea patterned | after the pot used in the Gulf state| for capture of the “big 'uns.” He kuilt one, and experiments at onc time Lrought 9C0 to the surface. The largest weigked 15 to the round. | Ohmer seized upon the idea, and! Legan further experimenting. He | loves to pioneer a new idea; in ‘fact, he came to Petersburg fresh frcm the western plains and began | drageing for shrimp when everyone | knew it was impossible—there ! wasn't any shrimp there. He proved | the popular fancy wrong, and todny] Petersburg is noted as the “shrimp, capitol” of the entire Pacific Coast. | Today some seven or eight trawl- { ers work out of Petersburg, four out of Wrangell and one from Craig. They make a three-hour trawl, with two or three sets a| day. Only time they knock off isy during the breeding season between | February 15 and March 1. | Chmer employs some 12 shrimp; “pickers” who shell from 40 to 80/ pounds each daily, receiving 24 cents a pound. He once had an; | “iron picker” which was destroyed when his plant turned; but he is; | working on a new one, and expects | to -have it in operation—with im- provements—in the future. Coupled | with this, his crab ‘“shakers” shell | come 4,000 pounds of crab each day, | receiving 11 cents each per pound. Ohmer, president of the Chamber ; of Commerce, and McDonald are working now on a new type pul[ which they believe will bring the| big koys where they're wanted—on | the consumers’ table. McDonald de- | signed a 42-inch-long pot with fun- | nel-like entrances at either end, | with the narrow opening laid up and down, rather than sideways, which was the case in Ohmer’s pots. ENTRANCE LIKE . . . The shrimp get stuck in the side- ways type opening, because they go in assuming their natural posi-! tion, and can’t get all the way. Thei newer type will forestall ‘anybody blocking the entrance, McDonald believes. Ohmer says he'll add a “one-way REEIINGS . sentiments. | To everyone whom we are | privileged fo call “friend and neighbor” go our heartfelt ex- pressions of the Season’s igy‘ous — 1 | | Ross’ Oasis DOUGLAS i sun by the Fish and Wildlife Serv- THE DAILY ALASKA EMPIRE—JUNEAU, ALASKA Who's a Big Shrimp? Er— hermen Will Go After Em Wilh Pols only” door to the pot—a hinged wire which will swing inward when the shrimp sticks his nose inside Tut will not swing outward in case he wants to make an exit. The pots will be used in water up to 80 fathoms, depending on local conditions, and will fill up in 10 minuates if shrimp are near— meaning the popular shellfish lite: ally “line up” Lefore the entrance Best bait large clams and fish offal. Seal meat is desirous, but it is hard to obtain, and fish are believed as effective. A clam she. is merely d, and the clam left alive, all cor tainer hanging {rom the top of t& contrivance. Tae shrimp go wild wien they “taste” the clam > cxuded in| this manner, and go after d - but can't get it wuse the shell | them. T d into 13, the thing Eurlap covering over the entire pot except for the entrances is consid- ered a good idea, also. NEW BANKS PROSPECTIVE | Not only are the pots looked upon to bring in the big prawns from reef areas now wide open because no trawlers can get in, tut Mec- Donald believes a bank may be fcund, such as was done off Louisi- ana when the inshore shrimps dis- appeared. Ohmer looks upon the project to aid residents of the progressive little town during “off” seasons—but said that if the pots rob the regular rrounds, and small ones are brought up in great majority, the idea will’ be dropped. Tagging of the shellfish has be- | nts | t ice, fisheries | with Daniel Bates, management agent in Wrangell, doing the job. So far no results have been obtained, Ltecause the pregram was inaugurated just re- cently. Shrimp disappear sometimes for long periods, leaving no “calling cards” as to where they go. Noth- | ing is known of their migrating Distributors of, General Paint how far they go, or why. ! Bve. SRR NNV NPNICRICEN MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL IDEAL PAINT STORE FRED WENDT, Proprietor 3ut it is known they travel exten- ively. Bates’ work will make them leave a forwarding address. The big reason shrimp trawlers meet with such success is due to an unfortunate aspect of the shrimp himself—that is, unfortunate for the shrimp. He swims backwards, and that does it. WRONG WAY When the large drag comes scraping along the bottom, most ground fish scurry ahead and to one side for safety. The shrimp gets scared too, so he starts. out. But the unsophisticated fellow just swims backwards right into the seine, and he knows nothing more until he turns up in a cocktail, or| a can. | Lots of bottom fish get in the| trawls as well, however, and Ohmer | has many specimens of horse h, | transparent sole, many nam varieties, and other He doesr know if they might e good to eat. | The man who ate the first o ster| doesn’t live in Petersburg. { McDonald laid out his pot des'gn for Ohmer to exp | proposed | nent | irther. Both men believe a ncw’i field might ke in the makiny it presp turn out. The FW3 Ssi vorking on the 2 o ‘ among the three, a new seem: in the ms for Alaska. MERCADO APPARENTLY | OUT OF DANGER AFTER AMPUTATION OF FEET D. B. “Mack” Mercado, 46, cour- agecus Juneau fisherman, is in ‘excellent shape, very cheerful, and | rently out of danger” after g both frozen feet amputated; yesterday, Dr. Joseph O. Rude snldi today. Mercado survived the sinking of | his troller, the 31A464, in which his partner, Andy Haffner, 59, is be-~ lieved to have perished. The ves-| | [sel sank December 7, and Mercado | swam ashore and walked 10 miles | over rocks, where he waited five| days before being found by B. H “Jack” Manery. | yuneau fijiermen today said | they are planning a benefit dance for Mercado and Andy Haffner's| widow. Details will be announced later, they said. GEORGE’S THRIFTY SHOP Open until midnight Christmas 385-1t | DOUGLAS INN SANTE DEGAN | weather Weatheral Alaska Poins| | i Weather conditions and temper- ' Santa Misses Arclic 1 Island; Porterhouse Steaks Anyway STONY PLAIN, Alta. Dec. 24 4 {M—Santa Claus missed Mould Bay on his trip south from the! Arctic this year, hut there'll be a Merry Christmas in that lonely station nonetheless. That was the word from Dean Hilley of Washington, radio op- erator-technician st the outpost, 1,600 miles northwest of Edmonton | on an island in the Arctic Ocean He is one of seven stationed there, | Over the “ham”sradio station of | Ray Keitges, grain elevator oper-| ator in this town 18 miles west of | Edmonton, the weathér men were| interview yesterday. Besides Hilley, stationed at Mould Bay are: Tom Joines, Auck- land, N. Z., officer in charge; Don Wigein, Denver, Colo., Executive officer; Perry Ladd, Chazy, N. Y, cook; John Warren, !iu:’]ingmnl Va,. mechanic; Bob McKay and Roy Hawyard, Toronto, radio op- erators, For days they have been expect- ing a«plane to fly over the post and parachute Christmas mail. Delayed repeatedly by bad wea- ther, a United States supply Qlane Thursday night made a final \try to reach them. Bad weather aga' forced it back to Cornwallis T land, 700 miles southeast. “I believe that’s it,” said Hilley, “Now there won't likely be a plan: ' here until January.” Ladd, the station’s cook, prom- ised a huge Christmas dinner for his mates de:=nitc the lack of par- cels from home. “We'll have a good feed,” he said, “with porterhouse steaks, cranberry sauce from dried berries, hard candy from the warehouse, and ali the trimmings.” But there will be no visitors. The nearest humans are Eskimos on Banks Island, 200 miles away. “We will try to spend Christmas just as usual,” said Hilley. “It's very warm—only 11 below.” -~ \Miss America lo Wed College Boy PHOENIX. Ariz, | Miss America PAGE THREE | Jacque Mercer, vivacious brunette | from Litchfield Park, Ariz., brezzed | in 45 minutes late last night for the { engagement party at which it was | revealed she will marry Douglas. | Cook, 20-year-old art student, on IJul,V 4, Friend on July 4 Dec. 4P| has announced her | GEORGE’'S THRIFTY SHOP itures at various Alaska points, | | ilso on the Pacific Coast, at 4:30 engagement to her high school and | Open until midnight Christmas um, 120th MertGtan Time, and | couege boy friend b Boate released Oy the Weather Bureau K ~— s FT— 1t Juneau ol w: Anchorage 10—Tee Crystals| | Barrow 13—Snow Bethel . - Clear; 1 | Cordova 6—Partly Cloudy | 4 2 Dawson 24 rSllu‘:l . SINCERE Edmonton 5—Snow | . v Fairbanks 17—Snow Haines ... 9—Partly Cloudy | }ll/ w&__ Havre k 4 cedles Juneau Airport Snow Y Annette Island now et s Two of the best joys of Christ- McGrath Clear mas are having good friends Neme Clear 1 i U e and wishing them a great deal Petershurg 24—Cloudy of happiness, Portland 39—Rain Showers Prince George 9-—Cloudy Seattle .......... 33—Partly Cloudy ]Whnehm'sc 19—Snow \ VIC POWER | Yakutat 23— Snow | - WE EXTEND TO OUR FRIENDS G L The il uasan's Grectings Douglas Plumbing and Healing Co. C. J. Smith We wish you all the joys of the Christmas season and a ve"rj-y happy New Year too! : Mike’s 'Pluce' DOUGLAS