Katmai Building in an Ashen Land: Historic Resource Study

Historic Property Summary and Recommendations

As has been noted in the above chronology, the chief federal and state fisheries agencies—the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (the USBF's successor), the National Park Service, and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game—have conducted numerous fisheries management activities, over the past eighty years, within the boundaries of present-day Katmai National Park and Preserve. Most of those research, survey, and monitoring projects have required only a minor, temporary staff presence, and as a result most structures related to fish management activities are either rude cabins, wooden outbuildings, or tents, or weirs. (Examples include the Brooks River fish weir and the Kashvik Bay fisheries cabin.) Two structures, however, warrant more serious consideration because of their size, permanence, and central role in area fisheries management. Those structures are the Lake Brooks Field Laboratory, near Brooks Camp, and the Brooks River fish ladder.

The Lake Brooks Field Laboratory, also known as the Lake Brooks National Marine Fisheries Research Station, is located on the eastern shore of Lake Brooks, just 35 yards south of the Brooks River. (It is known as NPS building number BL-3 and Alaska Heritage Resources Survey Site XMK-124.) It is situated among spruce, willow and other vegetation, approximately 60 feet back from the lakeshore. The building initially served as a headquarters, staging area, laboratory and residence for the crews involved in the Bristol Bay Investigation. Early laboratory use was related to specific salmon research in the Naknek-Brooks lake area; it then expanded to include various Bristol Bay watersheds. Personnel from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the National Park Service have lived and worked in the building over the years.

In 1938, Congress directed an investigation of the salmon fisheries of Bristol Bay, including the Naknek River system, in response to concerns about Japanese offshore fishing. The Lake Brooks area was selected as the headquarters site for the Investigation because it was centrally located in the Bristol Bay freshwater area, permitted aircraft access in most weather, it had good runs of sockeye salmon, and provided a good subject area for specialized research. (George Eicher, a former director of the laboratory, has noted that the main purpose for the Bristol Bay Investigation—one that was kept quiet for decades—was to show the effects of Japanese fishing. Somewhat later, the laboratory's primary purpose became one of providing data to buttress the U.S. position during the development of the 1953 North Pacific Fisheries Treaty. This purpose was revealed to the investigators only after the treaty had been implemented.) [30]

The Fish and Wildlife Service, in consultation with the NPS, designed this cross-shaped 59' x 29' log building. It reflects the Rustic Style that the NPS developed and used to guide park development during the 1920-40s. The Rustic Style design ethic encouraged making buildings look as it they were constructed by frontier craftsmen using primitive hand tools and using natural materials of the same scale as the surrounding landscape. To fit the Rustic Style, the Laboratory building was designed to keep in scale with the surrounding landscape, and to look as if were constructed by frontier craftsmen using primitive hand tools and natural materials. [31]

Framing lumber for the building was shipped from Seattle to Naknek on the F&WS vessel Scoter in 1941. In preparation for constructing the Laboratory, the Bureau of Fisheries employees cut outside logs from around the Mount Kelez area, and placed them to dry in 1940. That same summer, crews transported materials for building the cabin and the Lake Brooks fish weir from the old Fish and Wildlife station along the Naknek River (near today's King Salmon) to the Brooks River. To haul materials to the Laboratory, a road was developed (that continues to be used today) from the mouth of Brooks River at Naknek Lake to the cabin site.

Once the materials had arrived at the building site, summer fisheries crews worked on the laboratory in sections over time. Most of the 17' x 29' central portion was completed by 1943, although the impressive fireplace and chimney constructed in the middle of the center section was not begun until 1942. World War II slowed construction and research activities. In 1947, the agency decided that the building would begin serving as a deployment and service center for biological crews working in other Bristol Bay areas. In order to create space to process samples, therefore, work on the laboratory began again. (Recognizing the amount of time that would be needed to complete the building addition, the agency also constructed a small temporary structure, set up to the east of the laboratory building, that was used for processing samples until the north wing addition was completed.) The fireplace and chimney were completed in 1953; planned wings, measuring 14' x 21', were completed for both the north and south ends of the center section in 1957.

The fireplace and chimney, built with local rocks and stones, is a dominant feature of the laboratory. 1998 photograph taken by Janet Clemens.

Varied materials were used in constructing the laboratory. Most of the outside walls were constructed of peeled round spruce logs. The 1943 center section and the north wing of the building were constructed using horizontal logs with double saddle notching. The imposing fireplace and chimney is made entirely from local river cobbles and boulders; the stovepipe from the wood cook stove is attached to this chimney. The original foundation is concrete and rubble rock. The materials and craftsmanship used in erecting the wings complements the central section so well that the entire building appears to have been built at the same (1940s) time period.

To enhance the building's rustic appearance, false rafter ends and purlins were part of the original plan. The false rafter ends were constructed using round logs at each rafter end. The false rafter ends were notched and attached to the milled Douglas fir rafter ends. In the center section at the gable ends, false log roof purlins were installed that extend 2'6" into the room. False purlins were also installed in the north and south wing gables.

The Lake Brooks laboratory is significant because it served as one the major Bristol Bay-area fisheries research headquarters for more than thirty years. The Bristol Bay Investigation's consistent research philosophy and activities provided for a continuity of records, which were used to manage the Bristol Bay fisheries and to provide data for development of the North Pacific Fisheries Treaty of 1953. In addition, Laboratory personnel constructed and used the Lake Brooks weir and the Brooks Falls fish ladder for specific salmon research in the Naknek-Lake Brooks area. The fisheries laboratory is the oldest substantial building in the present-day park, and the first building in the park built by a public entity.

The building served as an administrative center for staging local operations and for studies. Fish and Wildlife Service biological crews arrived at the station and were deployed into the Bristol Bay area. Over the years, the crews gathered a wealth of salmon data. Investigations conducted from the laboratory included collecting scale samples at canneries and streams, aerial and ground surveys of spawning grounds, tagging and crowding studies, and fingerling sampling. Additional activities included tagging salmon, marking juvenile salmon, making spawning ground surveys, and performing aerial spawning ground counts of salmon, including photographic coverage of index areas in all of the major Bristol Bay watersheds.

Beginning in 1961, the Bristol Bay Investigation changed its research direction and expanded its activities to the entire Naknek drainage system. The Field Laboratory expanded its coordinating activities, and for more than a decade, fisheries management agencies—first the Fish and Wildlife Service, later the National Marine Fisheries Service—built additional cabins, weirs, and counting fences in Katmai National Monument. While the agency maintained counts, studies shifted to on-the-ground experiments. This change in management philosophy eventually de-emphasized the need to maintain a strong central headquarters presence. Fish counts along the Brooks River were stopped in 1967, and in 1974 NMFS decided that the laboratory no longer needed to be staffed. The National Park Service acquired the building in 1979. The new agency decided to use the building for employee housing, and several modifications (including a metal instead of a shingle roof) have recently been effectuated consistent with that purpose.

The building is part of the Brooks River Archaeological District National Historic Landmark (AHRS # XMK-051) and has been judged as a non-contributing element to that NHL. Recognizing its historical importance, however, it is suggested as part of this study that the Lake Brooks Field Laboratory is significant under National Register Criterion A (for "properties that are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history"). This significance has been suggested even though Criterion G applies (for properties that are either less than 50 years of age or for properties that have achieved significance within the past 50 years). Park contract personnel recently completed a Determination of Eligibility for this building. The State Historic Preservation Office's response to that study determined that the property was eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places; the agency did, however, have some concerns that needed to be addressed before formal listing could take place.

The other major historic property in Katmai National Park and Preserve related to fisheries research and management is the Brooks River fish ladder. This structure is one of the few fish ladders in southwestern Alaska and one of the few (perhaps the only) fish ladder within a National Park Service unit.

The Brooks River Fish Ladder is associated with the Fish and Wildlife Service's fisheries research. During the early 1970s, the NPS placed planks over the upper end of the ladder. This photo was taken by Victor Cahalane in August 1954. NPS Photo Collection, neg. 12,049.

As noted above, Bureau of Fisheries personnel became concerned about aiding fish passage over Brooks Falls in 1920. Using hand tools at first, then dynamite, they smoothed out a rough pathway around the north end of the falls during the summers of 1920 and 1921. Fifteen years later, the agency first considered and planned the installation of a fish ladder around the falls' south side. For the next ten years, agency personnel periodically sought the funds to construct the facility. Throughout this period, the falls were located within the boundaries of the newly-expanded Katmai National Monument, but the USBF which became part of the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1940 made no mention of its plans to the National Park Service, because they apparently thought that the NPS would be unconcerned about such a minor structure.

In 1947, F&WS engineers designed the fishway, and in 1948 materials for the ladder were flown to Lake Brooks or extracted locally. [32] Four U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees John Hurst, Mike Michel, Mike Wold, and Jerry O'Neil blasted and hewed the ladder from solid rock to make it as natural-appearing as possible. Ten feet in width, the ladder had seven pools, each one foot above the other. A headgate metered water into the topmost pool. The fisheries employees completed the ladder, except for the bottommost pool, in 1949. [33] The remaining portions were completed early the next summer, and the ladder opened on August 7, 1950. [34]

The first NPS employee to become aware that a fish ladder was in the offing was Alfred Kuehl, a landscape architect in the agency's regional office in San Francisco. Kuehl visited the site in August 1948, while F&WS engineers were still finalizing plans for the ladder. [35] Kuehl, accompanied by the regional office's assistant regional director Herbert Maier, returned to the site a year later during the midst of construction work. Neither protested the construction, either during or immediately after their visit. [36] But in June 1950 another NPS employee, George L. Collins of the Alaska Recreation Survey, arrived at Katmai. Collins, quite clearly, was perturbed at what he saw and demanded to know who had allowed such a travesty to be built in an NPS unit. [37] The NPS, in turn, asked the F&WS why it built the ladder without authorization. The F&WS, in response, admitted that it had never asked for permission to build the ladder; it noted, however, that neither Kuehl nor Maier had expressed any objections while visiting the construction site. The mixed messages that the NPS was conveying, combined with the obvious fact that the fish ladder was an accomplished fact, prevented the NPS from stopping the new facility. The incident, however, rankled feelings between the two agencies for years afterward. [38]

When the construction of the fish ladder began, the Fish and Wildlife Service was the only federal agency with an active, ongoing presence in Katmai National Monument. As such, fish management (lacking other activities) was a primary governmental function in the Lake Brooks and Brooks River area. But in 1950, Northern Consolidated Airlines constructed five fish camps in the country west of the Aleutian Range; one of these camps was located at the mouth of Brooks River. As a result of this development, and the commencement that same year of an active presence by an NPS seasonal ranger, the focus of activity at the monument began to change.

Throughout the 1950s, the primary activity in the Brooks River area was the seasonal operation of the NCA fish camp, and the NPS presence was minimal. NPS officials made continued protests about the ladder, but the F&WS, which strongly supported its existence, rebuffed them. But by the early 1960s, the F&WS began to change its philosophy toward fish management, and Katmai National Monument began to attract visitors in large numbers who had little interest in sport fishing. Based on these trends, the fish ladder became increasingly anachronistic. In 1973, the National Marine Fisheries Service (the successor to the F&WS) vacated the area; that same year, NPS personnel blocked the fish ladder. Although the NPS's action did not succeed in preventing some water—and some fish—from using the ladder, the facility has been largely unused in recent years.

Because the NPS and the various fisheries agencies have had strongly differing attitudes toward the utility of the fish ladder, the facility has been the focus of several studies over the years. Perhaps predictably, studies sponsored by fisheries agencies have concluded that the fish ladder has had a significant effect in boosting the success of the Brooks River salmon run. NPS studies, by contrast, have concluded that the river's salmon run had been successful for hundreds of years before humans had ever intervened and that the fish ladder's "success" has been either inconsequential or irrelevant to NPS management goals.

The Brooks River fish ladder, therefore, is significant because of its relative (perhaps absolute) rarity among fishery-enhancement facilities within an NPS unit. It is also significant because it has been both a symbol of contention between the management philosophies of the various federal agencies toward fisheries management, and because it also symbolizes the changing role of fish ladders in the research process within federal fisheries agencies. It is thus worthy of consideration as a property to be nominated to the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion A, which identifies properties that are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history. It is recognized that other NPS policies—both management policies and natural resource management policies—frown on either the physical modification of streambeds or on habitat manipulation. [39] As a physical feature, however, the Brooks River fish ladder appears to have potential historical importance.

Endnotes

¹ U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries, 1920 (Washington, GPO, 1921), 31-32.

² U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries (Washington, GPO) for 1920 (p. 32) and 1921 (p. 17); NPS, Draft Environmental Assessment, Brooks Falls Fish Ladder, Katmai National Park and Preserve, May 1987, 16. Many sources have stated that the original cut was located where the fish ladder was later built. Both the USBF and Frank Been's Field Notes of Katmai National Monument Inspection (p. 11), however, confirm that the 1920-21 activity took place across the river from the fish ladder.

³ U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries (Washington, GPO), 1920-25 editions; Frank T. Been, Field Notes of KNM Inspection, November 12, 1940, 8; Alaska Travel Publications, Inc., Exploring Katmai National Monument and the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes (Anchorage, the author, 1974), 76.

⁴ U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries, 1936, 284; George J. Eicher, "The Effects of Laddering a Falls in a Salmon Stream," n.d. (1956?), AKSO-RCR Collection.

⁵ George J. Eicher, "History of the Bristol Bay Investigation," April 25, 1967, 1, ms. in files of the Auke Bay [Alaska] Laboratory, National Marine Fisheries Service.

⁶ Eicher, April 25, 1967, 1. Later it was discovered that Lake Brooks was the least typical of the Bristol Bay spawning and nursery areas.

⁷ Revised figures are from Eicher, 1971, as quoted by Carl Burger, with James Lundeen and Anders Danielson, "Biological and Hydrological Evaluations of the Fish Ladder at Brooks River Falls, Alaska" (draft report), U.S. F&WS, National Fishery Research Center, Anchorage, June 1, 1985, copy in AKSO-RNR files. No count is available for 1943.

⁸ Eicher, April 25, 1967, 7.

⁹ Annotated copy of "Kamishak Bay-Katmai Region" (map), USGS/1923, in File 601, KNM Box 2, Entry 7, RG 79, NARA DC; Hillory Tolson (Acting Director NPS) to Edwin G. Arnold (Director, Division of Territories and Island Possessions), April 12, 1946, at KATM; William R. Heard, Richard L. Wallace, and Wilbur L. Hartman, Distribution of Fishes in Fresh Water of Katmai National Monument, Alaska and their Zoogeographical Implications, Special Scientific Report—Fisheries No. 590 (Washington, USF&WS), October 1969, 2.

¹⁰ U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries (Washington, GPO), 1947 through 1955 editions.

¹¹ Annual Reports of Alaska Fisheries Investigations, 1943-1944, 1944-1945; Section of Alaska Fishery Investigations, September 1 to September 30, 1945, in Box 294, BCF Collection, 1904-1960, RG 22, NARA Anchorage; George J. Eicher to William S. Hanable, September 1, 1989, in AKSO-RCR files.

¹² Ranger (Willie) Nancarrow to Supt. MOMC, August 26, 1950, in File A2827, Reports to Chief Ranger, January 1950-November 1954, DENA archives.

¹³ O. A. Tomlinson (RD/R4) to Director NPS, July 31, 1950, in File 714, KNM Box 312, Entry 7, RG 79, NARA SB.

¹⁴ Eicher, April 25, 1967, 10-12.

¹⁵ John Greenbank (Fishery Management Biologist, F&WS), "Sport Fish Survey, Katmai National Monument, Alaska," n.d. (c. 1955), in File N1423, KATM.

¹⁶ William R. Heard, Richard L. Wallace, and Wilbur L. Hartman, Distribution of Fishes in Fresh Water of Katmai National Monument, Alaska and their Zoogeographical Implications, Special Scientific ReportFisheries No. 590 (Washington, USF&WS), October 1969, 1; F. W. Stokes (BCF Administrative Officer) to GSA Seattle, March 31, 1960, in "Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, Brooks Lake Files" folder, AKSO-RCR Collection.

¹⁷ NPS, Master Plan Brief for Katmai National Monument, 1965, 17 (map).

¹⁸ Most of the structures erected outside of the BCF's three main temporary camps were built rudely and deteriorated quickly. Item 17, "Inventory of Backcountry Facilities and Structures," in Breedlove, 1969; Robert L. Carper, List of Classified Structures Inventory (Denver, NPS), April 1976; NPS, Final Environmental Statement, Katmai Wilderness, Katmai National Monument, Alaska (FES 74-35), June 13, 1974, 31, 37; William R. Heard, Richard L. Wallace, and Wilbur L. Hartman, Distribution of Fishes in Fresh Water of Katmai National Monument, Alaska and their Zoogeographical Implications, Special Scientific ReportFisheries No. 590 (Washington, USF&WS), October 1969, 1-2; NPS, "Important Issues Concerning Preliminary Wilderness Proposal for Katmai National Monument," in Box 13, NARA ANC.

¹⁹ NPS, Draft Environmental Assessment, Brooks Falls Fish Ladder, KATM, May 1987, 18. But Superintendent Gil Blinn, who arrived in September 1969, recalled that the weir was "discontinued about my first summer or so." Blinn interview, August 26, 1988.

²⁰ George J. Eicher's analysis, "The Effects of Laddering a Falls in a Salmon Stream," (unpublished mss., USF&WS), c. 1956. Eicher ascribed the post-ladder sockeye salmon decline to overfishing in Bristol Bay and not to the presence of the fish ladder. He argued that the population of three salmon species—pinks, cohoes, and chums—were healthier in the 1950s (after ladder construction) than in the 1940s. But the average numbers of those three species (both before and after ladder construction) were less than one-tenth of one percent of the red salmon population. Contemporary biologists consider any differences in the number of pinks, cohoes, and chums to be so small as to be insignificant and inconclusive.

²¹ Darrell L. Coe (Management Assistant, KNM) to Supt. MOMC, March 27, 1967; George A. Hall (MOMC) to Assistant RD, WRO, August 19, 1967; both in AKSO-RNR files.

²² Vernon C. Betts (Chief Ranger, KNM) to Management Biologist (Alaska Office, NPS), July 21, 1970, in AKSO-RNR files.

²³ NPS, Final Environmental Statement, Katmai Wilderness, Katmai National Monument, Alaska, June 13, 1974, 29; SAR for 1973 (p. 2) and 1974 (p. 2). Harry Reitz, the NMFS Alaska Director, noted in 1978 that the agency "had not maintained an active research program there since 1972." Reitz to RD/PNRO, March 20, 1978, in "Buildings" file, KATM.

²⁴ "Brooks Lake General Correspondence" file, BCF folder, AKSO-RCR Collection; SAR 1978, 6; Morris interview, November 2, 1989.

²⁵ Carper, List of Classified Structures Inventory, 4-5; Janis Meldrum interview, June 9, 1993.

²⁶ Cahalane, A Biological Survey of Katmai National Monument, 178.

²⁷ Samuel A. King (Supt. MOMC) to Dexter F. Lall (ADF&G, Kodiak), June 22, 1962; Special Use Permit KATM-1-62; both in Item 13 ("Special Use Permits"), Breedlove 1962; NPS, Master Plan Brief for Katmai National Monument, 1965, 17 (map).

²⁸ Samuel A. King (Supt. MOMC) to Dexter F. Lall (ADF&G, Kodiak), June 22, 1962; Special Use Permit KATM-1-62; both in Item 13 ("Special Use Permits"), Breedlove 1962; Robert F. Cooney, "Preamble to Master Plan for Katmai National Monument," September 10, 1963; Kathy Jope to author, email, April 8, 1996.

²⁹ NPS, Katmai Coast Field Season Reports for 1984 and 1985.

³⁰ George Eicher, former Laboratory Director, unpub. mss. dated September 1, 1989, in Box 4, KATM/ANIA NPS Collection.

³¹ Laura Soullière Harrison, Architecture in the Parks National Historic Landmark Theme Study (Washington, NPS, Nov. 1986), 7-8.

³² Eicher, September 1, 1989.

³³ Eicher, April 25, 1967, 9.

³⁴ Ranger (Willie) Nancarrow to Supt. MOMC, August 26, 1950, in File A2827, Reports to Chief Ranger, January 1950-November 1954, DENA archives.

³⁵ Alfred C. Kuehl to Assistant Regional Director, Design and Construction, Region Four, August 21, 1951, in File N1423 ("Fish, 1946-1959"), KATM; George J. Eicher to Dean Paddock, March 21, 1987, in AKSO-RNR files.

³⁶ Alfred C. Kuehl to Assistant Regional Director, Design and Construction, Region Four, August 21, 1951, in File N1423 ("Fish, 1946-1959"), KATM.

³⁷ George L. Collins to RD/R4, NPS, July 19, 1950, in "Katmai NM" folder, Box 312, RG 79, NARA SB.

³⁸ O. A. Tomlinson (RD/R4) to Director NPS, July 31, 1950; Hillory A. Tolson (Acting Director, NPS) to Director, F&WS, August 25, 1950; M.C. James (Acting Director, F&WS) to Director NPS, September 27, 1950; all in File 208, KNM Box 311, RG 79, NARA SB; Eicher, September 1, 1989.

³⁹ NPS, Natural Resource Management Policies (NPS-77), 1991, pp. 2:70 and 3:42.