Preserving the History of Alaska’s Canning Industry
The Diamond NN Cannery waterfront, 1914. APA Collection, NPS San Francisco Maritime Historic Park. Image courtesy of the NN Cannery History Project.
Established on the Naknek River in southwest Alaska in 1894 by the Alaska Packers Association, the Diamond NN Cannery operated for more than 100 years. In that time, it expanded from a four-building salting facility to a 238-acre complex hosting over 50 buildings. At its height, the cannery was the largest salmon cannery in Alaska and it fed and housed hundreds of seasonal workers each year. During its century of operation, it played home to incredibly diverse American experiences, housing Croation fisherman, Italian, Scandinavian, Filipino, Chinese, Puerto Rican, Korean, Japanese, and Mexican workers, as well as Alaska Natives, African Americans, and Hawaiians. An initial grant from the NEH to create an exhibition celebrating this community provided foundational support for the NN Cannery History Project, which is collecting and preserving the history of the Diamond NN Cannery at South Naknek, Alaska and making that history accessible to the public.
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Cannery crew at APA’s Diamond J Cannery at Koggiung, ca. 1930s. National Park Service Alaska Regional Office. Image courtesy of the NN Cannery History Project.
A man and boy possibly from Kiniaak Village at South Naknek watch a steamer move downriver, 1914. APA Collections, NPS San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park. Image courtesy of the NN Cannery History Project.
Diamond NN Cannery workers at Mug Up, ca. 1974. Mike Rann. Image courtesy of the NN Cannery History Project.
For project director Katherine Ringsmuth, this history is personal. As a child, she followed her father to Alaska each summer, where he oversaw the canning operation. She went on to put herself through college by working in the factory. When the cannery shut down in 2014, Ringsmuth recognized that its loss would be an economic and cultural blow to the region—but that by preserving and showcasing the history of this unique place, she could help restore a sense of pride to the local community and potentially create an economic engine through tourism. With support from Alaska’s State Historic Preservation Office, the National Park Service, and Trident Seafoods, which now owns the cannery, Ringsmuth succeeded in having the salmon cannery added to the National Register of Historic Places. And with a grant from the National Park Service, she partnered with the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Project Jukebox to document oral histories related to the cannery.
The Mug Up exhibition will feature a model to inform visitors about Alaska canneries’ size and scale. The model is produced by Alaska Native artist Andrew Abyo, posed with it here at the Bristol Bay Native Corporation Headquarters in Anchorage, and assisted by the National Park Service and the Bristol Bay Native Corporation. Image courtesy of the NN Cannery History Project.
Ringsmuth (left) interviews former village resident Brad Angasan (sitting on four-wheeler) while Scott Jensen, of Jensen Hall Creative, films the interview for a short documentary for the exhibition that presents the story of cannery life from the local perspective, entitled, The Cannery Caretakers. Image courtesy of the NN Cannery History Project.
Project Historian Bob King interviews former spring/fall cannery crewmember Bruce Anderson in the Diamond NN Cannery’s Carpenter Shop in July 2019. Image courtesy of the NN Cannery History Project.
All of this work, as well as a great deal of time spent documenting the historic buildings, collecting objects, and digitizing images associated with the cannery, is leading to the creation of an exhibition—called Mug Up: The Language of Work—that is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Mug Up, which in cannery parlance means coffee break, will open at the Alaska State Museum in 2022 and then travel, bringing this significant Alaskan history to a broad audience. But the real goal is bigger than an exhibition. Ringsmuth put a great deal of thought into the NEH’s call for grants that would “create a humanities community.” This is a grassroots, volunteer-led effort that is offering Alaska’s cannery community a way to be part of preserving their own history. The sense of stature lent by an NEH grant has played an important role here, too. As Ringsmuth describes it, “all of America thinks you matter now—that’s what a federal grant does.”
