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Recording the History of the Clyde River Fishery
by Scott Wheeler
When I was growing up on Clyde Street during the 1970s, few of us who lived there had much money so we had to find our own sources of entertainment. We didn’t have to look further than the Clyde River to keep us occupied. Each spring we looked forward to the massive walleye run that blackened the river on their trip up the river to spawn.
The walleye runs of my youth are now all but gone, gone the same route as the salmon runs of the generations before me. The heyday of the Clyde River is now locked in the minds of the people who lived this exciting period of our history. Many other memories have been taken to the grave. Back a few years ago I started recording the memories of some of those who grew up fishing along the Clyde, many of them during the salmon run of the early decades of the 20th century. Some of those memories will be in my book that is expected to go to print this spring, just in time for the spring fish runs of the Clyde.
When Salmon was King: Echoes from the Clyde River is mainly a collection of memories of people who grew up along the banks of the Clyde River. Among some of the men who shared their memories with me are: Fred Carter, Deane Wheeler, Dick Chaffee, Harold Kelley, and Dan Collins. While the book will focus mostly on the memories of the people who fished the river, it will also include a chapter titled, “The River Boss”. This chapter is about Al Flory, the man who headed up the hydro project on the Clyde for several decades. Another chapter, “The Guardian Ghost Warden of the Clyde”, is about Normand Moreau, a man, who as a Fish and Wildlife warden, could melt into the woodwork as he hunted the river banks in search of poachers. The memories, along with a vast array of photos and other Clyde River memorabilia, will make this book a real keepsake.
It only seems fitting that the cover of the book has a photo of a young Fred Carter – a kind of a God Father of the Clyde River.
“Salmon fishing was salmon fishing in them days,” Carter explained. “It was nothing to catch four or five salmon during a short walk up the river, not like today where a person could starve waiting to catch a salmon.”
Besides the number of fish in the river, Carter said that the other big change that he has witnessed during the decades is why people fish. As a youngster during the Depression years of the 1930s, he said people didn’t so much fish for fun, but for survival. Reflecting back to his early years, he said his parents did all they could to provide food, clothing, and to keep a roof over the heads of their large family. To help make ends meet, the family turned to the Clyde River that was located right across the road from his home.
“If it wasn’t for the fish, there would have been some days that all we would have had to eat is bread and butter.
He said there was nothing like fresh salmon to take away the hunger, but salmon didn’t run all year long, so they did what they could to preserve salmon for later in the year. They preserved the salmon, and any other kind of fish for that matter, in a crock using salt.
“First they put in a layer of salt, then a layer of salmon, then a layer of salt, and so on,” Carter said. The salt preserved the salmon for future meals.
“Back in those days you couldn’t be fussy about what you ate,” he said. “You ate what you could get.” He pointed out that desperation often forced his family to eat suckers – a bottom dwelling fish that also migrates the river in the spring. Many people today wouldn’t consider eating this species. Although the fish are bony, Carter said they are tasty.
I “hope” the book will be ready for sale by the spring fishing season. I will keep readers, of both my blog and journal, updated about the sale date and price of the book when it becomes available.
