Artifact of the Month: October 2016

Long before modern fishing gear, local Native clans created ingenious tools to catch the fish they needed to sustain them throughout the year. While salmon, herring, and eulachon were important staples for the local diet, fresh and dried halibut provided good reserves for winter. In local waters, halibut can reach gigantic proportions and halibut hooks were used to catch more desirable and manageable 30-50 pound fish. Halibut hooks are made from two sections of wood, usually yew or yellow cedar, lashed together forming a distinctive V-shape. One arm is usually carved with a symbolic design representing a clan or aquatic creature while the other has a sharp barb, traditionally made of bone and later, metal. A baited hook is lowered to the sea floor with cedar bark or sinew line and stone sinkers. The biting halibut's cheek catches on the barb and by design the more the fish struggles, the further entangled it will become.

October's Artifact of the Month is a halibut hook donated by Frances Baker. The hook features a carved octopus design with three rows of tentacles. The barb is a steel nail secured with cedar twine. It has signs of damage likely caused by the teeth of a hooked fish and hopefully a successful catch.

Ketchikan Museums: Tongass Historical Society Collection, THS 84.1.72.24