Given the shipping options available in the first half of the twentieth century, freezing salmon was much more practical than canning it. Yet Alaska’s 1939 exports of frozen salmon amounted to only $303 thousand. Although the territory’s exports of frozen halibut were more substantial, the paltry figures for its most famous fish are remarkable, especially since the salmon selected for freezing were the most prized varieties – coho, sockeye, and king. Compared with canning, freezing required less labor and fewer materials, both of which had to be imported at considerable expense. It also kept fish in a form that, in theory, resembled and could be substituted for fresh, arguably giving it more center-of-the-plate appeal than any kind of canned fish (especially one widely used as army rations). Nonetheless, frozen fish suffered from a stubborn image problem. Even as techniques improved and the industry insisted that frozen fish was as good as, better than, or the exact same thing as fresh, consumers didn’t trust it. How did a preservation technique so suited to fish’s perishable nature earn such a bad name? As always, the answer lies less in the technology itself than in the way it has been used.