[3] Because of Bristol Bay's shallow waters, salmon would be caught by small "catcher boats", then transported to larger freezer ships docked about three miles from the shoreline.

The freezer ships would serve as the "base" for the fisheries' operations and would sometimes be inside Alaska's territorial waters, which extended three miles from the coast, and would sometimes be beyond it.

[4] On the freezer ships, the salmon would be frozen and kept in cold storage before eventually being sent to Puget Sound in the State of Washington for canning.

[5] The fisheries countersued, claiming that the law was an invalid burden on interstate commerce because the salmon, although caught in Alaskan waters, was canned and sold on the market in Washington State.

[10] In an 8–1 opinion delivered by Justice William O. Douglas, the Court held that the statute does not violate the commerce clause of the Constitution's First Article.