Salmon labels are a prize catch from the great Northwest

ANACORTES, Wash. (AP) - When Carl Wedlund worked in the canneries, he pretty much did what his supervisor told him: He drove his boss around town, made coffee and cleaned bathrooms and storage areas.

In those storage rooms, Wedlund found a hidden treasure - shiny, colorful, unused salmon can labels, all destined for the dump.

"I'd go into these label rooms and my boss would say, ‘Clean them up,'" said Wedlund, who was in his 20s at the time.

Once, Wedlund drove four truckloads of labels to the dump, where they likely were burned. But many of those labels escaped the incinerator. Wedlund brought home thousands - some by the handful and others by the hundreds - wrapped in the plastic they were shipped in.

"Dad would say, ‘What the heck are you doing with those? They'll never be worth anything,'" said Wedlund, now 70. "I wish he could see them now."

Like the labels on fruit crates and cigar boxes, vintage salmon can labels are in demand by collectors and decorators, said Dwayne Rogers, owner of The Label Man, a Chico, Calif.-based online business that sells labels.

Collecting salmon can labels is more popular in the Northwest than in other regions, Rogers said.

"The salmon stuff is pretty competitive," Rogers said. "Salmon has become an endangered species, which adds a lot of draw for the collector."

A hard-to-find salmon can label could sell for up to $600, he said. Many are worth between $20 and $50, according to various dealers online.

"It's an addictive little thing," Rogers said. "To be able to walk into an antique store and find something (you) didn't have, it's like an adrenaline rush. When you find something, you get really happy."

Scott McPherson, a semiretired Alaskan fisheries biologist and collector of salmon labels, said he's drawn to the history of the labels and the connection to the fishing industry. "The salmon labels do have some intrigue for people because it's a way of looking back in time and thinking about the way things were," McPherson said.

Like McPherson and Wedlund, many people who collect salmon can labels have some connection to the fishing industry. They are either salmon fishermen, cannery workers or their descendants, Rogers said.

Except for a three-year stint in the Army, Wedlund worked for canneries from the time he was 19 until he was 62. He's been collecting labels for 40 years.

A few he considers special, including the older or hard-to-find labels, and labels with stunning artwork. He doesn't know what his collection of labels is worth, but that's not important because he isn't interested in selling.

Wedlund is more excited by the history and images on the labels. He plans to give his collection to the Anacortes History Museum for other people to enjoy.

"I'd rather let them have them, then 20 or 30 years from now, when I'm gone, everyone can see them," he said.

Wedlund's collection spans 100 years. His oldest label is a Fort Dearborn brand from 1863, which came from a Columbia River cannery. His most recent are from the 1960s. His labels are so popular that the city and the Anacortes Chamber of Commerce have reproduced the designs onto trash cans and coffee mugs.

"I've been fortunate to be in the right place at the right time," he said.

At first, Wedlund was attracted to the look of the labels. They were printed in bright colors with elegant renderings of everything from salmon, mountains, fishermen and flowers to wildcats, children and idealized images of American Indians.

"I just like the art of them," Wedlund said, pointing to the detailed illustrations. "You can look at the salmon and see all the scales. It would cost a fortune to do that today."

He points to the illustration of the little boy printed on the Tommy Tucker brand. "Look at the expression on his face, the colors," said Wedlund.

Collections of salmon can labels reflect consumers' changing tastes, said Terry Slotemaker, Anacortes History Museum educator. For instance, red was a popular label color that reflected the color of the flesh of the popular sockeye salmon.

McPherson also is fascinated by the illustrations.

"Some of the Anacortes companies, like Fidalgo Island Packing, had some of the best artwork," McPherson said. "I think (canneries) competed to have a better looking label."

Although a dozen cannery sites once dotted the city, Slotemaker said only about seven operated at any one time. Today, no canneries operate in Anacortes.

The demise of the canneries had more to do with changes in the technology of food preservation than the lack of salmon. Now, seafood processing plants prepare and freeze salmon and fish or shellfish.

Most of the fish processed in Anacortes now come from Alaska, Slotemaker said.

The ability to flash-freeze fish or ship fresh fish almost anywhere in the world the day it's caught has changed how fish is marketed, Slotemaker said.

"Fresh fish can be flown anywhere from Minneapolis to London," he said. "I've been in Sisters, Oregon, and had Copper River (Alaska) salmon flown in that day."

The change in fish processing means that can labels are a thing of the past - which makes it all the more important to Wedlund.

Wedlund has been able to acquire a good sample of the labels used by canneries. There are more brands than canneries because the canneries formed cooperatives to sell salmon all over the country, he said. Rogers said that each buyer wanted its own brand printed on the can, even though the salmon was the same.

Over the years, Wedlund has formed friendships with other collectors. One collector from Alaska recently gave him several labels, including a label from Ward's Cove Packing Co. in 1890 that Wedlund had heard about but had never seen.

Wedlund said one of his collector friends from California used to tease him about owning all but one label from Ward's Cove Packing Co., which was based in La Conner and Ketchikan, Alaska. The missing label was from the Gateway cannery.

The Gateway label has a salmon and a bungalow nestled among evergreen trees with the sea in the background. Wedlund had searched 40 years for it.

When the Alaskan collector finally gave him the Gateway label, it was everything he hoped it would be, Wedlund said.

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Information from: Skagit Valley Herald,
http://www.skagitvalleyherald.com

The Label Man, Dwayne Rogers, http://www.thelabelman.com

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may no be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WS-07-04-09 0302EDT