The Alaska Packers  

The most celebrated of the Estuary's commercial sailing fleets belonged to the Alaska Packers Association, the world's largest salmon-packing operation. The Alaska Packers ships headed out the Golden Gate each spring for the Alaskan salmon-fishing waters and returned in late summer or early fall laden with canned salmon. The ships spent the winter in berthing and ship-repair facilities on the Estuary waterfront, near Grand Street in Alameda. Steamships replaced the sailing ships by 1930. During World War II the company transferred its operations to Seattle. The old berthing basin began to be used as a yacht harbor in the early 1930s. Now known as Fortman Marina, named for the first president of the Alaska Packers, it ranks as the oldest yacht harbor on the Estuary still in operation.

Woodruff Minor
Historian

  "Walk Along the Water"
  © Oakland Museum of California, used with permission.

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History of the Balclutha, AKA Star of Alaska, one of two surviving ships from the Alaska Packer fleet - National Park Service

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