Lake Brooks Fisheries Research District: Where Alaska's Salmon Science Began

The Lake Brooks Fisheries Research District, on the shore of Lake Brooks in Katmai National Park and Preserve, preserves the station the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) used from 1940 to 1972 to research and manage the sockeye salmon fishery of Bristol Bay.

The Lake Brooks Fisheries Research District. NPS / Alaska Regional Office.

The foundation of Alaska fisheries research

FWS research at the site began in 1940 with a temporary fish-counting weir across the outlet of Lake Brooks. Through 1955 the station was headquarters for FWS sockeye research across the lakes and rivers of Bristol Bay, laying the foundation of fisheries research in Alaska. From 1956 the work narrowed to the upper Naknek drainage, which includes most of the lakes and rivers of what was then Katmai National Monument. Over the years the station grew to include a field laboratory, several outbuildings, two residences and a concrete fish ladder around Brooks Falls.

The temporary fish weir and FWS tent camp at Lake Brooks, 1940. NPS (Katmai National Park and Preserve Archives).

This study of the region's salmon and the effects of international fishing — the Bristol Bay Investigation — set the scientific basis for today's management, which relies on strict escapement quotas, and contributed to an international treaty on North Pacific fishing. It helped build sustainable management of the resource that is the economic backbone of the region's coastal communities. From 1950 to 2008, Bristol Bay's sockeye salmon fishery was the most valuable fishery in the United States, a success due at least in part to science-based management.

Annual commercial catch at Bristol Bay, 1920–1978, with key events at Brooks River, in the region and nationally and internationally. NPS / Alaska Regional Office.

Significance and condition

• Period of significance: 1940–1972.
• National Register criterion: A, in science and conservation; local significance.
• Landscape type: historic vernacular landscape.
• Condition: fair. Added buildings, non-historic repairs to the laboratory, lost and neglected historic structures, modern circulation and failing utilities will erode the district's integrity without active management.

What survives

The overall layout and all the major buildings of the fisheries period remain, though the laboratory has since become a residence and been reroofed. The fish ladder and the weir remnants are the strongest reminders of the research. The ladder was blocked in 1973, though the barrier has since deteriorated; of the weir, a few metal bars stick up from the riverbed and a concrete footing remains on the east bank of the outlet.

FWS staff and construction crew in front of the field laboratory, about 1943. NPS / Katmai National Park and Preserve Archives.

• Field laboratory (BL-3) — the oldest federally built building in the park, built over 15 years to the Park Service's rustic architecture standards.
• Pan Abode residences (BL-1 and BL-2) and generator building — family housing during fieldwork, which helped retain fisheries experts, in a style matching the nearby Brooks Lodge.

Part of the district, with the features that contribute to its historic significance. NPS / Alaska Regional Office.

Layout and setting

• Spatial organization: the district sits in three clearings in dense spruce forest; a Park Service landscape architect recommended keeping a pattern of trees to preserve the forest character.
• Natural systems: Lake Brooks was chosen to represent the five major sockeye drainages — the Nushagak, Kvichak, Naknek, Ugashik and Egegik — in an ecosystem where fish stocks have not been altered by hatcheries, a natural laboratory.
• Circulation: direct access to the weir, an airplane haul-out, and jeep trails to Naknek Lake and to the fish ladder.

The fish ladder at Brooks Falls in 1954, four years after it was completed. NPS / Katmai National Park and Preserve Archives.

Sources

• National Park Service, Katmai National Park and Preserve: "Lake Brooks Fisheries Research District Cultural Landscape," part of the series Cultural Landscapes of Katmai National Park and Preserve. The article's "Kvichack" is given as Kvichak.