VICTORIA—THE SALMON: ITS HAUNTS AND HABITS.
We were landed, soon after our arrival, on a rocky point of land with a
snug sheltered bay on each side; an easy slope led up to the frame of a
house, destined to be our headquarters; a pretty spot, very Englishlike
in its general features, but in the rough clothing of uncultivated
nature. Tents were pitched, the baggage carried safely up and stowed
away, and the first camp of the Boundary Commission established in this
new land of promise.
Our first walk to Victoria, now the thriving capital of Vancouver
Island, was made on the evening of our landing. The gold-fever was
just beginning to rage fast and furiously, and all classes, from every
country, were pouring in—a very torrent of gold-hunters. Not that
_gold-hunter_ means only he that digs and washes the yellow ore from
out Nature’s treasury, but includes a herd of parasites, that sap the
gains of the honest digger; tempting him to gamble, drink poison
(miscalled whisky), and purchase trashy trumpery, made, like Pindar’s
razors, only to sell; and thus fool away his wealth; ‘earned like a
horse, squandered like an ass!’ Both species were well represented, in
what could not, in any sense of the word, as yet be called a town.
The old trading-post of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the governor’s
house, and a few scattered residences of the chief traders and other
employés of the Company, alone represented the permanent dwellings. But
in all directions were canvas tents, from the white strip stretched
over a ridge-pole, and pegged to the ground (affording just room
enough for two to crawl in and sleep), to the great canvas store, a
blaze of light, redolent of cigars, smashes, cobblers, and cocktails.
The rattle of the dice-box, the droning invitation of the keepers of
the monte-tables, the discordant sounds of badly-played instruments,
angry words, oaths too terrible to name, roystering songs with noisy
refrains, were all signs significant of the golden talisman that met
me on every side, as I elbowed my way amidst the unkempt throng, that
were awaiting means of conveyance to take them to the auriferous bars
of the far-famed Fraser river. Along the side of the harbour, wherever
advantageous water-sites were obtainable, the noise of busy industry
sounded pleasantly in contrast to the mingled hubbub I had just left.
Higher up the slope, substantial stores were being rapidly built. Out
of these germs grew the present town the capital of the island, that we
shall often have to visit in the course of this narrative.
With the island, and its history as a colony, I have but little to do.
Other and more able writers have said all that need or can be told
about its commerce, agriculture, politics, and progress. The prairie,
forest, lake, river, sea, estuary, and rocky inlet are my domains; to
their tenants I have to introduce you, guide you to their homes and
haunts, and bring you face to face, in imagination, with the zoological
colony of the Far North-west.
First, of the island. Vancouver Island is situated between the
parallels of 48° 20″ and 51° N. lat., and in from 123° to 128° W.
long.—its shape, oblong; length, 300 miles; its breadth, varying at
different points, may be taken at an average of from 35 to 50 miles.
The island may be characterised as an isolated ridge of mountains,
which attain, at their greatest elevation, an altitude of about 6,000
feet. There are no navigable rivers, but numerous mountain-streams,
that, as a rule, have a rapid descent, and empty into inlets or arms
of the sea, everywhere intersecting the coast-line, east and west of
the watershed. Lakes, large and small, are common, from the summit of
the hills to the flat gravel lands near the coast; dense pine-forests
clothe these hills to their very tops. On the open lands, misnamed
prairies, the scrub-oak (_Quercus garryana_) grows so gnarled and
contorted that stock, branch, twig, and even the very leaves look as
if they suffered from perpetual cramp. Alder, willow, black birch, and
cottonwood fill the hollows.
The climate of the island is milder and more equable than it is on the
adjoining continent, and closely approximates to that of Great Britain.
The shortest road to an Englishman’s heart, says the adage, is down his
throat; and being a road a good deal travelled, is it to be wondered at
if fish (especially such as are welcome travellers down this same ‘red
lane’) should have been the first objects of practical Natural History
to which the naturalist, fresh from the ‘old country’ and seventy-two
days’ imprisonment on board-ship, turned his attention? The first fish
I saw and tasted was salmon; and to the Salmon and its haunts I at once
introduce you.
SALMO QUINNAT.
Richardson, F. B. A., ‘Fishes,’ p. 219; Common Salmon, Lewis and Clark.
INDIAN NAMES: at Chinook Point, mouth of the Columbia, _Quinnat_; at
the Kettle Falls, _See-met-leek_; by the Nesquallys, _Satsup_.
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS.—Head, just one-fourth of the entire length,
measured from the tip of the nose to where the scales terminate at the
tail; the operculum very much rounded, and usually with several spiny
projections on the outer margin; preoperculum rounded much the same,
but wanting the serrated margin; branchial rays, fourteen. Cleft of
the mouth posterior to the eye, which is a dark copper-colour in the
freshly-caught fish. The teeth are large and strong in both jaws, but
they vary in number according to the age, sex, and condition of the
salmon; about ten in each limb of the jaws may be taken as the usual
average in an adult fish. Those on the tongue are smaller, and placed
in two rows, six in each row. The vomerine and palatine teeth are again
much smaller and weaker than any of the others, corresponding to such
as stud the gullet.
Fresh from the water, the colours in a healthy fish are particularly
marked and bright, but change rapidly after death. The back, through
its entire length, is a light steel-blue; shading off on the sides to
a lighter tint, that merges by imperceptible gradations through grey
to silvery-white on the belly; blushed over with pink, that disappears
soon after death. Back, above the well-defined lateral line, thickly
spotted with black, the spots being like stars with rays of irregular
length; but I have very often seen the spots extending beyond the
lateral line, and even on the white of the belly. Opercula, all the
fins and the tail more or less spotted, and of a pinkish hue, the anal
and pectoral fins tipped with black. The general appearance of this
salmon is that of being very thick for its length, the dorsal outline
slightly arched, forming almost a notch with the tail.
• • • • •
Soon after our commencing work, I was encamped for many months on the
banks of the Chilukweyuk river, a tributary to the Fraser, having a
short but rapid course through a rocky valley.
In June and July salmon ascend this stream in incredible numbers,
filing off as they work upcurrent into every rivulet, filling even
pools left on the prairies and flats by the receding floods.
About a mile from my camp was a large patch of pebbly ground, dry even
at the highest floods, through which a shallow stream found its way
into the larger river. Though barely of sufficient depth to cover an
ordinary-sized salmon, yet I have seen that stream so filled, that fish
pushed one another out of the water high-and-dry upon the pebbles.
Each, with its head up-stream, struggled, fought, and scuffled for
precedence. With one’s hands only, or, more easily, by employing a gaff
or a crook-stick, tons of salmon could have been procured by the simple
process of hooking them out.
It seems to me that thousands of the salmon ascending these small
mountain-streams never can spawn from sheer want of room, or, if they
do, it must be under most unfavourable circumstances. At the end of
the pebble-stream was a waterfall, beyond which no fish could by
any possibility pass. Having arrived at this barrier to all farther
progress, there they obstinately remained. Weeks were spent in
watching them, but I never, in a single instance, saw one turn back
and endeavour to seek a more congenial watercourse; but, crowded from
behind by fresh arrivals, they died by the score, and, drifting slowly
along, in time reached the larger stream. It was a strange and novel
sight to see three moving lines of fish—the dead and dying in the
eddies and slack-water along the banks, the living, breasting the
current in the centre, blindly pressing on to perish like their kindred.
Even in streams where a successful deposition of the ova has been
accomplished, there never appears, as far as my observations have gone,
any disposition in the parent-fish to return to the sea. Their instinct
still prompts them to keep swimming up-stream, until you often find
them with their noses worn quite off, their heads bruised and battered,
fins and tail ragged and torn, bodies emaciated, thin, and flabby;
the bright silvery tints dull and leaden in hue, a livid red streak
extending along each side from head to tail, in which large ulcerous
sores have eaten into the very vitals.
The Indians say all the salmon that come up to spawn die; but if all
do not die, I have no hesitation in saying that very few spring-salmon
ever reach the saltwater after ascending the rivers to spawn. Why
there should be this marvellous waste of salmon in the rivers of the
North-west I am somewhat puzzled to imagine. The distance the fish
have to travel from the sea up-stream, or the obstacles they may
have to overcome, have clearly nothing to do with their dying. In the
Chilukweyuk river the distance from the sea is not over 200 miles, and
that clear from any kind of hindrance; and yet they die in thousands.
In the Columbia they ascend a thousand miles to the Kettle Falls, and
they have been caught many hundred miles above that; still they die
just the same as in the shorter streams. Up the Snake river they push
their way to the great Shoshonee Falls, over a thousand miles against
a rocky stream, but perish there just as they do in the Sumass and
Chilukweyuk rivers, which are close to the sea.
Unlike the salmon in our own streams, the spring-salmon in
North-western waters spawn in midsummer, when the water is at its
lowest temperature and greatest flood-height, from the melting snow.
As there is no impediment or hindrance to prevent them returning
to the sea, why do they die in N.W. waters? In my opinion, from
sheer starvation. Careful observations, made at various Indian
fishing-stations and extending over a long space of time, have
quite convinced me that salmon (I more particularly allude to the
spring-fish) never feed after leaving saltwater. My reasons for
thus thinking are, first, no salmon (as far as I know) has ever
been tempted to take a bait of any kind in the fresh water above
the tideway. The Indians all say that salmon never _eat_ when in
the _rivers_; and I could never discover that they had any recorded
instance, or even tradition, of a salmon being taken with bait.
I tried every lure I could think of, to tempt these lordly salmon. The
most killing salmon-flies of Scotch, Irish, and English ties, thrown
in the most approved fashion, were trailed close to their noses; such
flies as would have coaxed any old experienced salmon in the civilised
world of waters to forget his caution. Hooks, cunningly baited with
live fish, aquatic larvæ, and winged insects, were scorned, and not
even honoured with a sniff. Others of the Commission also tried their
powers of fascination, but with equally unsuccessful results.
I have opened a very large number of salmon at various Indian
fishing-stations, on their first arrival, and during every stage of
their wasting vitality, and after death had ended their sufferings;
and not in a solitary instance did I ever discover the trace of food
in the stomach or intestinal canal. But in every case where a salmon
was taken in the tideway or saltwater, I invariably found the remains
of small fish and marine animals in its stomach; and in the estuaries
and long inland canals that so strangely intersect the coast-line of
British Columbia, salmon are readily and easily caught with hook and
line; clearly showing to my mind, that whilst in salt and brackish
water the North-western spring-salmon feed and fatten, but, after
quitting their ocean-haunts for the cold fresh-water, they starve,
waste, and die, as a lamp goes out from sheer want of oil. Surely,
where hundreds of salmon are split in a day, as at the Kettle Falls, it
is fair to assume that if they took any food, by chance a fish would be
caught immediately after its meal, with enough evidence in the stomach
to prove the fact of having broken its fast; but such proof is never
discoverable. Digestion would scarcely be more rapid in the rivers than
it is in the ocean and estuary, where we know they eat. Open a salmon
and examine its stomach at any time, caught either in nets or with hook
and line, and food in various stages of digestion will be invariably
found.
Another proof that they undergo a rigid and persistent lent is found in
the rapid wasting of all the tissues that goes on during their sojourn
in fresh-water. Allowing for the consumption of material requisite
for the purposes of reproduction, and the wear-and-tear consequent on
making their way up stiff currents, leaping falls, and laboriously
toiling up rocky _canions_—still I contend, if only a partial
equivalent was resupplied in the shape of food, waste would not go on
to the actual death of the muscles, that slough away in large pieces,
as the exhausted fish makes feeble efforts to struggle on; dying at
last a loathsome mass of rotting animal matter.
Sores, in both male and female fish, often arise from injuries
inflicted by the teeth of a jealous adversary; but these wounds are
utterly different from the sloughing ulcer, arising, as I believe, from
sheer lack of vital force. These salmon veritably consume themselves,
and perish, when life’s stove burns out, for want of fuel to keep it
alight.
In August the Chilukweyuk river became perfectly unendurable from
the quantities of dead fish floating down. I had with me a splendid
retriever, that, to my disgust and annoyance, used to amuse himself,
during my absence from the tent, by swimming in after the floating
salmon, bringing them ashore, and safely storing them in my canvas
dwelling; and on my return I used to discover a heap of fish, the
stench from which was beyond human endurance. If fastened out from the
tent, he piled them up at the door: all the lessons bestowed on him
failed to convince him of his folly; he stuck to his disagreeable habit
with a perseverance worthy of a better cause.
Arriving a little later than the preceding, is a smaller fish, which
I believe to be the _Salmo paucidens_ (Weak-Toothed Salmon) of Sir J.
Richardson, F. B. A., p. 223; the _red charr_ of Lewis and Clark, but
the red they allude to is a colour every one of the different species
acquire after being a short time in the rivers.
This fish seldom attains a weight over from three to five pounds,
and is called by the Indians, at the salmon-leap at Colville on the
Columbia, _stzoin_; it is a very handsome fish, back nearly straight,
a light sea-greenish colour; sides and belly silvery-white, tail very
forked, fins and tail devoid of any spots; the teeth are wide apart,
and not strongly implanted. I was disposed at first to think they were
the _young_ of some other species; but the Indians are positive they
are not, and they spawn much as the others do. In a small stream or
tributary to the Chilukweyuk river, a mountain-torrent on the west
side of the Cascades flowing into the Fraser, on the banks of which I
was for a long time encamped, and up which the salmon come in great
numbers, I amused myself watching this species of salmon (_Salmo
paucidens_) deposit their spawn. It was in August, the water clear as
crystal, the bottom a fine brown gravel. A trench, that looked about
three or four inches deep and three feet long, was muzzled out by the
noses of the females. A female fish poised herself over the trench,
head up-stream, and by a rapid vibration of her fins kept herself
nearly still; this lasted about a minute and a half or two minutes,
during which time a quantity of ova were deposited. She then darted off
like an arrow; four males at once took her place over the spawn-bed,
and remained, just as the female had done, about two minutes. On their
leaving two females came, and were followed by the males, as before.
The water was about four feet deep. I am quite sure, from often
watching these streams, that one spawning-bed is used by a great many
males and females: it was both curious and interesting to watch the
extreme regularity with which the sexes succeeded each other.
The question as to what becomes of the young salmon after leaving the
egg, is a query more easily asked than answered. There are no snug
breeding-ponds, no cosy little aquariums or water-nurseries, where the
baby-salmon may be watched and carefully tended until, honoured with
a badge, it is sent away to travel through pelagic meadows, deep-sea
forests, and ocean gardens, where, growing rapidly, bigger if not
wiser, it returns to tell how long it has been away, and how rapidly
it has grown. Assistance such as this falls not to the lot of the
hunter-naturalist, who with prying eye peers, searches, and grubs about
on the banks and into the depths of the lakes and mountain-torrents, in
this far-western wilderness. Had he the eyes of Argus, he could only
register a few hasty observations, and generalise on their value: he
has no opportunities for investigations, such as they have, who at home
can watch the egg in their very parlours, gradually shaping itself into
the quaint little salmon; see it come from out the egg-case with its
haversack of provender, wonderfully provided to supply its wants, until
able to live by its own teeth and industry; track its growth and habits
through its youthful days; then, marking it with a leaden medal, send
it off to sea, to welcome it back after its wanderings a full-grown
salmon.
It may be that Creative wisdom has implanted the same instinct in the
North-western salmon, prompting it to obey similar laws, and follow the
same routine as to the exodus seaward, and return to fresh-water, as
directs it in our native streams: my own impression is, that the fish
spawned in midsummer or autumn remain up in the lakes and deep still
river-pools until the following summer freshets, when they take their
departure for the sea as the fresh-run salmon come. I think so, because
in the Sumass and Chilukweyuk lakes, already spoken of; along the banks
of the Fraser river, and in the Osoyoos lakes and tributaries to the
Columbia river, I have in September and October observed large shoals
of what I believed to be young salmon, that disappear when the snow
begins to melt during June and July in the following summer. I suspect
the first flood carries them down and out to sea; but, after all, this
is but surmise, and of little practical value.
I never caught salmon-fry whilst fishing for trout, as we could so
easily do in our streams; and it is just possible that the rapid rise
(unlike anything we know of in our streams) that takes place in every
river, brook, and rivulet during midsummer, when the snow melts on the
hills, reducing the temperature of the water down to freezing-point,
may send the young salmon-fry into the saltwater at a very early period
of its life. “At three days old he is nearly two grains in weight; at
16 months old he has increased to two ounces, or 480 times its first
weight; at 20 months old, after the smolt has been a few months in
the sea, it becomes a grilse of 8½ lbs., having increased 68 times in
three or four months; at 2⅔ years old it becomes a salmon of from 12
to 15 lbs. weight, after which its increased rate of growth has not
been ascertained; but by the time it becomes 30 lbs. in weight, it has
increased 115,200 times the weight it was at first.”[2] These smolts
that I have seen in shoals were about half an ounce in weight, the
produce of the summer’s spawning. As I have stated, they disappear when
the floods set in; and nothing more is seen of them until they return
salmon of various sizes, from 2 lbs. to 75 lbs., or, as I believe, the
Quinnat and Stzoin.
The next salmon in importance, as affording food to the Indians, is
called by them at the Kettle Falls _cha-cha-lool_, and arrives with the
quinnat. This is unquestionably a fully-matured fish, and a distinct
species, answering in many particulars to the _Salmo Gairdneri_ of Sir
J. Richardson, F. B. A., ‘Fishes,’ p. 221; it will be as well to retain
that name. It may be readily distinguished from the quinnat by its
rounded blunt-looking nose, shorter and much thicker head, straighter
back, and more slender figure—the tail not nearly as much forked. The
entire colour of the back is much lighter, and thickly freckled, as
are the fins and tail, with oval black spots. The average weight of
the _cha-cha-lool_ is from 8 to 11 lbs. This salmon is common in the
Fraser, Chilukweyuk, and Sumass rivers, and in every stream along the
mainland and island coasts up which salmon ascend. When they first
arrive the flesh is most delicious—fat, pink, and firm withal, and
to my palate finer than that of the mammoth quinnat. The Indians also
prize these salmon, and pack them when dried in bales apart from the
others.
_Salmo Gairdneri_ and _S. quinnat_ are the spring salmon, but the
autumn has also its supply of ‘swimming silver,’ quite equal to that of
spring in point of numbers, but inferior in quality. Up the Columbia
in October to the Kettle Falls, and somewhat earlier in the Fraser
and rivers north of it, comes an ugly, unprepossessing, hook-nosed,
dingy-looking salmon, called by the Colville Indians _Keasoo_, by the
Chinooks _Ekewan_, by the Clallams _Kutch-kutch_—the _Hooked Snout_ of
the fur-traders, _Salmo lycaodon_ of Pallas, _Zoog. Russ. Asiat._
When fresh-run, this fish in colour is of a silvery-grey lustre;
back, overshot with a greenish hue; belly, silvery-white; no spots on
either the back or sides. The hooked nose, said to be peculiar to the
male fish after spawning, is a well-marked, constant, and specific
character in every fresh-run fish, the females having at all times
symmetrical jaws. I found, from carefully observing great numbers of
these fresh-run males, that the hooked state of the snout differs
very materially in fish arriving at the same period; and I am quite
convinced that large numbers of these salmon do get back again to
the saltwater after spawning, and that the strange change that takes
place in the hooking over of the snout and growth of the teeth, during
their sojourn in the rivers, remains a permanent mark; and the vast
difference observable in the males, at the time of arrival, is simply
attributable to the fact, that those having the large fanglike teeth
and tremendously crooked snout are such as have been up the rivers
perhaps the year before, or, it may be, long prior to that period.
In every stream and rill, where they can by any possibility work a
passage, you find these salmon; they remain until January and February
in the succeeding year, becoming fearfully emaciated and worn, from a
long and tedious abstinence; for I believe these salmon feed sparely,
if at all, after leaving the sea. The fish in January is of a pale
dirty-yellow colour; the sides, showing a bright purplish stripe (sure
sign of waning vitality), are flattened and compressed; the back is
straight until near its posterior third, when it dips down suddenly,
and rises again at the tail just as if you had cut a notch out. The
belly, instead of being silvery-white, is rusty yellow, and hangs
pendulous and flabby; the eye is dull and sunken.
But the most curious change is in the head of the male fish: the nose
becomes enormously elongated, and hooks down like a gaff-hook over the
under-jaw, and the under-jaw bends up at the point into a kind of spike
that fits into a regular sheath or hole in the upper jaw, just where
it begins bending into the hook-like point; the teeth become regular
fangs, sticking out round the jaws at irregular distances, and having a
yellow bonelike appearance. I have often seen the teeth more than half
an inch in length. It is quite clear that these teeth grow during the
time the fish remain in fresh-water; no shrinking of the gums could
account for such a length of tooth; and their use, I believe, is for
fighting.
My own observations lead me to assume that at least there are eight
or ten males to every female; and as one spawning-bed is used by many
females, terrible battles ensue between the males as to which shall
impregnate the ova; and it would appear, reasoning from analogy, that
the same law holds good with fish as with gregarious mammals and
birds—the stronger and more able male always begets the offspring. I
hardly think the ova of a female fresh-run salmon, impregnated by the
milt of an old and spent male fish, would produce as strong and healthy
an offspring as the male fat, fresh, vigorous, and healthy. I cannot
help thinking there must have been some purpose—as antlers are given
to the deer tribes, spurs to the males of gregarious birds, and like
examples—in giving such formidable weapons to these salmon during
their breeding-time; and why not the reason above stated?
Quoting from Dr. Scouler: ‘Observatory Inlet (which I should imagine
to be just such an inlet as Puget’s Sound) was frequented at the time
by such myriads of the salmon, that a stone could not have reached the
bottom without touching several individuals—their abundance surpassing
imagination to conceive.’ He goes on to say, that in a little brook
they killed sixty with their boarding-pikes. Then, he says, the hump
before the dorsal fin consists of fat, and appears to be peculiar to
the males, who acquire it after spawning-time, when their snouts become
elongated and arched.
The Fall-salmon (_Salmo lycaodon_) differ most extraordinarily at
different periods of their growth—so much so, that I quite believed
the adult, middle-aged, and young were three distinct and well-marked
species; but Dr. A. Günther has very kindly investigated the matter,
and knocked my three species into one.
Indians take the young of this salmon in large numbers in the bays,
harbours, and fiord-like inlets surrounding the island, and along the
British Columbian and Oregon coasts; also in the Sumass, Chilukweyuk,
and Sweltza rivers, and indeed in all inland lakes that are accessible
to fish from the sea. These handsome, troutlike young salmon are easily
caught with bait of any kind; they rise readily to a gaudy fly, and
seize even a piece of their brethren if carefully tied round a hook;
from six ounces to a pound is about the average size. When they go to
sea again from the lakes I had no opportunity of proving, but I imagine
they go down with the floods, as the spring salmon come up.
The second form in which I mistook it for a distinct species is that
of the Humpbacked Salmon (_Salmo proteus_, Pallas; _Salmo gibber_,
Suckley; ‘_gerbuscha_,’ Kamtschatka; ‘_hud-do_’ of the Nesqually
Indians; ‘_hun-num_’ of the Fraser river Indians). In its general
outline it differs altogether from the Hook-nosed Salmon. The back
is much more arched; nose curved, but not nearly as much as in the
mature _Salmo lycaodon_, and the under-jaw turns up and terminates in a
protuberance or knob; teeth much more numerous, sharper, and smaller;
tail deeply notched, and thickly spotted with dark oval-shaped marks.
The most conspicuous feature is a large hump of adipose material
situated on the shoulders, a little anterior to the dorsal fin, and
only found in the male fish. It has generally been stated that this
hump grows upon the male fish after entering the fresh-water: this is a
mistake, for I have seen them again and again taken in the sea, before
going up into the rivers, with this hump well developed. On cutting
it open, it appears to be a sort of cellular membrane, filled with an
oily, semifluid kind of material. The use of this deposit, there can be
no doubt, is to supply the male with this material in some mysterious
way during the spawning-time, for, after that period has passed, the
hump entirely disappears. They arrive about the same time as the older
fish, but only in very large runs every second year—have the same
range, and die in thousands.
At Fort Hope, on the Fraser river, in the month of September, I was
going trout-fishing in a beautiful stream, the Qua-que-alla, that
comes thundering and dancing down the Cascade Mountains, cold and
clear as crystal; these salmon were then toiling up in thousands, and
were so thick in the ford that I had great trouble to ride my horse
through; the salmon were in such numbers about his legs as to impede
his progress, and frightened him so, that he plunged viciously and very
nearly had me off. They are never at any time good eating; the flesh,
in fresh-run fish, is white, soft, and tasteless. The Indians only eat
them when they are unable to obtain anything else. These salmon work up
to the very heads of the tributaries, and I have often seen them where
the water was so shallow as to leave their backs uncovered.
The _Salmo canis_ of Suckley (Dog-Salmon, Spotted Salmon, ‘Natural
History of Washington Territory,’ p. 341), which he says arrives at
Puget’s Sound in September and October, I believe to be only the old
males of the _Salmo lycaodon_ (Hook-nosed Salmon), that have had a
turn in the rivers perhaps a year or two before, and have got safely
back again to the sea, recruited their wasted energies, and returned
again for another perilous cruise up the streams. The large fanglike
teeth, from which they derive the name of dog-salmon, are the large
teeth grown and developed, as I have previously described them, whilst
spawning in the fresh water.
Salmon is of the most vital importance to the Indians; deprived or
by any means cut off from obtaining it, starve to death they must;
and were we at war with the Redskins, we need only cut them off from
their salmon-fisheries to have them completely at our mercy. If
salmon-fisheries—well managed, and conducted by persons who thoroughly
understood salting, barreling, and curing salmon—were established
on some of the tributaries to the Fraser and Columbia rivers, I am
quite convinced they would pay handsomely. Some few attempts have
been made by speculators, but always failed for want of capital and
proper management. The Hudson’s Bay Company, in some of their inland
and northern posts, feed their _employés_ on dried salmon during the
winter. At Fort Langley, on the Fraser river, the Company generally
_salt in_ several hundred casks of salmon, and these principally go to
the Sandwich Islands or to China. There was one large salmon-curing
establishment at the mouth of the Puyallup river, but I have been told
it did not pay; the fish, being badly put up and carelessly packed,
often spoiled before reaching the markets for which they were destined.
In Victoria, salmon is now a very important article both of food and
commerce.