Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
China Camp State Park in Marin preserves remnants of the bay's last active
shrimping camp. The nets, baskets, drying ovens, and other elements of the
shrimping life are on view, and the
Grace Quan
, a replica of a historic shrimping
junk, can occasionally be found tied up at the dock. (Kathleen M. Wong)
were engaged in the shrimp industry around the bay. . . . Dried shrimps
were exported and fresh ones sold in San Francisco,” where it was the
custom in restaurants at the time to place a plate of fresh shrimp before
patrons perusing their menus.
The shrimpers fished just offshore using time-honored techniques they
had practiced in China. They staked poles in the bay's extensive mudflats,
strung hand-woven nets between the poles, caught the shrimp in a kind of
bag in the middle of the net, and took up the nets at each slack water of the
flood and ebb tide. According to an early fisheries surveyor, Captain Edgar
Wakeman, 12-15 boats, with three men each, worked the nets and brought
in the shrimp. The catch was then “boiled in large vats of salt water, . . .
spread out on the cleanly swept ground and dried in the sun, being raked
over frequently during the day. The scales or skin become separated from
the meat and looks like a fine sawdust. The meat and refuse is then sewn
up in [the] best quality of bags . . . [and] shipped to China.”
The Chinese shrimpers were so successful that they put their predeces-
sors, the Italians, out of business. But the Italians had other fish to fry.
They set out in small Mediterranean-style lateen sail boats from which
they fished by hand and nets not only for salmon upriver but also for
smelt, sardines, anchovies, sole, and flounder in Richardson Bay and the
South Bay. Surveyor Wakeman observed that they built picturesque fires
on the beaches at night, which could be seen twinkling from other shores,
