Historian aims to capture life at Alaska cannery, calls for local stories

A 1979 aerial view of the “Diamond NN” cannery in South Naknek, Alaska.

By Stefanie Donahue

To highlight the historical significance of one of Alaska’s oldest salmon canneries in South Naknek, an Alaska historian is reaching out to Blaine and Birch Bay residents for their stories.

Dubbed the “Diamond NN” by locals in the Bristol Bay borough, the cannery was owned by the Alaska Packers Association, which also owned a cannery on Semiahmoo spit. The NN Cannery operated for over 100 years, drawing workers from around the world and as close as Blaine.

“The alumni of [Alaska Packers Association] canneries number in the thousands and each individual has a story to tell,” said Alaska historian Katie Ringsmuth in a press release. She’s leading a three-tiered project that aims to get the NN Cannery on the National Register of Historic Places, develop educational materials about cannery life and create an exhibition called “Mug Up” that features stories and photos from workers for the Alaska State Museum.

“If you worked your way through school at the sliming table [used to remove slime from a fish for canning], met the love of your life in the mess hall, your grandpa sailed on a tall ship or you repaired the boilers that kept the place running – we want to hear from you,” she said in the press release. “Your stories are rich with the experience, culture and history of the little-known cannery community.”

In partnership with Blaine’s Alaska Packers Association Cannery Museum, Ringsmuth will lead a brief presentation about the project and allow guests to share stories and photos at 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 14 at the cannery lodge in Semiahmoo Park, 9261 Semiahmoo Parkway.

“This isn’t just a nice local story,” she said. “This is a project that has national significance.”

Ringsmuth is a history professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage. In 2016, she decided to start the historic preservation project with Bob King, Katie Ringsmuth, Sharon Thompson and Anjuli Grantham after meeting with executives at Trident Seafoods, which owns the NN Cannery property.

Gary Johnson, former Alaska Packers Association superintendent. Photos courtesy of Katie Ringsmuth

She said she got the idea to start the project when she attended a conference with other historians. As one of the last canneries in Alaska to maintain its structure, Ringsmuth felt the NN Cannery was ideal for historic evaluation. Plus, preserving the its history was personal.

Ringsmuth’s father, Gary Johnson, started his career as a bookkeeper for the Alaska Packers Association in Semiahmoo and went on to become superintendent at the NN Cannery until he retired in 1997. During the offseason, he spent time in Blaine, where Ringsmuth was born. When she turned 18, she started working at the NN Cannery to pay for her college expenses.

“I am very proud of her,” Johnson said of Ringsmuth’s choice to pursue the project. Looking back, he said, “we took one of the worst canneries and made it one of the best canneries.”

The NN Cannery was transformed from an arctic packing saltery into a salmon cannery by the Alaska Packers Association in 1895 and remained in operation until 2015. Like many canneries owned by the Alaska Packers Association, Diamond NN provided work to skilled immigrants, often hailing from Europe and Asia; Alaskan natives were also a large part of the workforce, she said.

“From its bunkhouses to the boardwalks, the cannery’s dwindling structures contain the voices of the past,” read a post on the NN Cannery website. “Memories of machinery, the mess hall, and mug-ups — they continue to have meaning to the hundreds of workers who once labored there.

Discarded machines parts, broken boardwalks, skeletal remains of bunkhouses and graffiti etchings are the enduring reminders of the past that gives voice to the cannery people.”

Operating under The Alaska Association for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit, Ringsmuth and

her team has raised approximately $111,000 since they started the project through outreach and grant writing; $60,000 of that was granted to the team by the National Endowment for the Humanities for the “Mug Up” exhibit, which will eventually display at the Alaska State Museum, she said.

“What’s forgotten are all of the different people who came to Alaska to participate in this industry,” Ringsmuth said. “Alaska connects the rest of the country to the larger world.”

The project is a partnership of National Park Service, Alaska State Museum, The Alaska Association for Historic Preservation and Trident Seafoods. To learn more visit nncanneryproject.com.