UA Press releases new book on the Pacific cod fishery in Alaska

August 26, 2019

University Relations

The University of Alaska Press has released "Alaska Codfish Chronicle: A History of the Pacific Cod Fishery in Alaska," by James Mackovjak.

Cod is one of the most widely consumed fish in the world. For many years, Atlantic cod took center stage, but today, partly because of climate change and overfishing, it’s likely that the cod on your kitchen table or in your fish sandwich is a product of Alaska’s Pacific cod fishery. Alaska Codfish Chronicle is the first comprehensive history of that fishery.

The book begins by describing the biology of the Pacific cod and looking at how Indigenous Alaskans utilized the fish. It then chronicles the cod fishery’s early history, during which cod were primarily caught by lone men fishing with handlines from dories. 

Next, the book describes the years following World War II, when foreign fishing fleets “invaded” Alaska’s coastal waters. Americanization — a complex, freewheeling process under which domestic fishing fleets replaced the foreign fleets — followed. A simultaneous (and continuing goal) was to rationalize the fisheries: essentially, to bring domestic fish-catching and fish-processing capabilities into balance with the available fish resources, and to manage the fisheries in a manner that fostered fishing and fish-processing operations that were efficient, ecologically sound, and sustainable.

Today, the Pacific cod fishery is — in terms of species and volume — the second-largest fishery in Alaska and is considered among the best-managed fisheries in the world. 

James Mackovjak has been involved with Alaska’s fisheries since he first arrived in Alaska in 1969, working as a commercial fisherman and operating a small fish-processing business at Gustavus, in Southeast Alaska. In 2013, Mackovjak received the Alaska Historical Society’s Pathfinder Award in recognition of his books Tongass Timber: A History of Logging and Timber Utilization in Southeast Alaska, Aleutian Freighter: A History of Shipping in the Aleutian Islands Area, and Alaska Salmon Traps.

For more information about this title and many more please visit www.uapress.alaska.edu or call 800-621-2736.