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helped free the frontier



salmon industry, Judge W.C. Arnold. The bill was defeated.

"But I had a cause, believe me," he said.

When the constitutional convention opened in 1955, Frank renewed his campaign -- by attempting to insert a provision into the draft constitution to wipe out the fish traps.

"I lost there too, at first," he said.

He was rooming with another delegate, a young lawyer named Seaborn J. Buckalew, Jr., chairman of the convention's ordinance committee. (Buckalew now is a superior court judge in Anchorage.)

Peratrovich "sold" Buckalew. Then, through Buckalew's efforts, the committee voted to attach the fish-traps question as an ordinance to the proposed state constitution. "Ordinance No. 3" was the official title.

[[image]] Frank Peratrovich [[\image]]

Alaska voters ratified the constitution in April, 1956 -- including Ordinance No. 3 -- and when Alaska became a state in January, 1959, the traps were outlawed.

"I enjoy taking the credit for that," Peratrovich said.

Now retired and residing in Ketchikan, he is pleased with the way things are going today in Alaska -- especially with the flow of young persons to the young state.

"Whenever I meet someone," he said, "I say, "Why don't you go to Alaska? We need young people like you up there. There are all sorts of opportunities ..."

Frank Peratrovich, as much as anyone, helped to create those opportunities.

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