SALMON PROCESSING MACHINERY #1

Print size: 5 1/2" x 8 1/4"

This drawing is of the "Iron Chink", the revolutionary salmon processing machine that could remove the fins and clean the inside of a fish in just a few seconds instead of several minutes. Invented and named in Seattle in 1903 by Edmund Smith, it was advertised with fragrantly racist print ads as a solution to problems with the availability of East Asian fish butchers. Smith died in a car accident on his way to an industrial exposition just a few years later.

The machine, however, has proven so well conceived that, with a few updates, it is still in use today. This particular one continues to operate at Trident's Ketchikan cannery.

Tom Crestodina, an Alaskan fisherman, began making cutaway drawings in 2011 to connect with his young son, Franio, while he was out at sea.