 As a town dominated by one business - salmon canning - Brookfield's population varied seasonally, with the population rising during the summer/fall salmon canning months, when seasonal workers would move to the town for the duration of the canning season.The census numbers fluctuate wildly depending on the alignment of the date of the census with the seasonal nature of the business; thus the 1885, 1887 and 1920 numbers are likely to reflect permanent residents and exclude seasonal cannery workers.The census records also show a significant change in the heritage of the inhabitants over the life of the town, beginning with a population consisting primarily of contract Chinese cannery workers in 1880, a large "Indian half-breed" (territorial census classification) population in 1885, and shifting to a largely Austria-Hungarian population of fishermen in the later years.