Digital Bob Archive

The Southeast Alaska Fish & Game Club, was founded in 1917 \"to assist, encourage, foster and promote the propagation and protection of game animals, fish and birds in Southeastern Alaska,\" but its main emphasis appears to have been on enhancing trout fishing in local streams and lakes. For that purpose, it operated a fish hatchery in downtown Juneau.

Sparkplug of the club and the hatchery was A. Joseph Sprague who had first come to Alaska in 1907 to work in a hatchery at Yes Bay, near Ketchikan. He then worked for a time in Oregon where he organized a sportsmen's club and introduced eastern brook trout. Sprague came to Juneau in 1915 and interested Bart L. Thane of the Alaska Gastineau mine and Charles Garfield of the Customs Service in a trout stocking program. Annex Creek was the first choice for a hatchery location but was eliminated because of cold and snow. A small hatchery was then built at Thane, the first in this part of Alaska, and early in 1917 some 150,000 eastern brook trout were hatched from eggs received from the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries hatchery in Colorado. They were released the following May in the Salmon Creek reservoir, Lower Annex Lake, and in Dewey Lake and Long Lake near Skagway.

After some preliminary discussion, 20 Juneau men met in the Customs Service offices in the Oddfellows Building on July 14, 1917, and formally organized the Southeast Alaska Fish & Game Club. At a later date, \"Southeast\" was dropped from the name to give it wider appeal. Membership dues were set at $1 a year and before a month passed there were 228 members, \"all of whom have been appointed deputy game wardens,\" according to a news story. Club records are scarce, but one wonders whether any of its members ever arrested a fish or game law violator.

Early in August a committee was named to find a building suitable for a hatchery, and by August 9 it had secured the space formerly occupied by the White Lunch, next door to the Union Pool Hall, on Lower Front Street (now South Franklin). The rent was $35 a month. A wire from Charles Sulzer, the Delegate in Congress from Alaska at that time, advised the club that he had secured \"200,000 black-spotted Rocky Mountain trout eggs\" for the club. Equipment was quickly installed. The Alaska Electric Light & Power Company and the Juneau Water Company contributed electricity and water.

By the summer of 1918 the club had stocked Lawson, Cowee and Nevada Creeks and the Treadwell Ditch with trout, had distributed trout fry to barren lakes as far away as Chichagof Island, and had planted eyed salmon eggs in the Haines area. A report in May, 1918, said more than 150,000 eastern brook fry and nearly 150,000 eyed salmon eggs had been distributed. Despite the fact that Sprague was working without compensation, the club was having financial difficulties. In June, 1918, it switched from trout to salmon propagation, in the hope of getting funds from some of the canneries, but only one canneryman contributed. Then in 1919 the Legislature created a Territorial Fisheries Commission to engage in hatchery work and the club voted to sell its equipment to the Territory. The equipment was valued at $650; the club received $275, enough to pay its outstanding debts.

Although it was out of the hatchery business, the Alaska Fish & Game Club continued into the 1930s, working with the Forest Service and the Bureau of Public Roads in stocking lakes and streams with trout.