Buried dreams: The rise and fall of a clam cannery on the Katmai coast
Johnson K. 2002. Buried dreams: The rise and fall of a clam cannery on the Katmai coast. National Park Service, Department of the Interior
This is a collection of historical essays that offer readers a lens through which they can view the life of workers in an Alaskan cannery during the first half of the twentieth century. Buried Dreams is a collection of historical essays that offer readers a lens through which they can view the life of workers in an Alaskan cannery during the first half of the twentieth century. The first essay, “Kukak: A Clam Cannery on the Edge of the American Dream,” places Kukak into the larger context of American history. Essay two, “It All Begins with a Dimple in the Sand,” examines the role razor clams play in the coastal ecosystem and introduces readers to the area’s first clam diggers. “Commericial Clamming Comes to the Katmai Coast,” looks at the rise of the commercial razor clam industry and how Kukak came to be built. The fourth essay, “Working the Swikshak Beach,” describes what life was like for clam diggers on Swikshak Beach. Essay five, “A Portal to the Past…and Future” describes the Kukak social fabric. The seventh essay, “Dashed Dreams,” discusses the decline of the commercial clamming industry. Finally, the last essay, “Reclaiming Kukak: the Paradox of Preservation” asks readers to contemplate the importance of preserving historic sites such as Kukak within the context of our national heritage. Kukak Cannery was one of Alaska’s largest clam canning facilities and a historical account such as this reveals an otherwise obscure industry and the people who pioneered its development on the Pacific Coast.