The Bumble Bee Egg House, South Naknek, 1977

In nearly every Bristol Bay cannery, is an "egg house" where the salmon eggs are processed. Although cannery workers are often recruited from all over the world, this job is almost exclusively held - or very closely supervised - by Japanese workers.

Red caviar, usually from Alaskan salmon, is familiar in Japan in the form of a product called sujiko, which is processed caviar still in the skein or egg sack.

The egg-filled sacs, or skeins are weighed and then agitated in large vats filled with a brine solution. Following that, they are graded by sujiko technicians, and sorted into boxes according to quality and size. They are sometimes salted for preservation and taste. (You can see the large bowl of salt in the middle of the table in this photo.) Then they are packed by layering them, very artistically, into the wooden boxes, with wooden lids, which you can also see in this photo. Periodically the cannery tenders take both eggs and frozen salmon out to a waiting Japanese freighter.

©Photo by Richard Hawkinson with a Pentax LX

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