FISH HARVESTING.
The systems adopted by the Indians for capturing salmon vary in
accordance with the localities chosen for fishing. Besides the stages
or baskets in use on the Columbia river, they construct weirs reaching
from one side of a stream to the other, with skilfully-contrived
openings, allowing fish to pass easily through them into large lateral
stores made of closely-woven wicker, where they are kept prisoners
until required.
They have rather a clever contrivance for catching salmon in the bays
and harbours, using a sort of gill-net (a net about forty feet long
and eight feet wide), with large meshes; the upper edge is buoyed by
bits of dry cedar-wood, that act as floats, and the net kept tight by
small pebbles slung at four-foot distances along the lower margin. This
kind of net the Indians stretch across the mouth of a small bay or
inlet, and sit in their canoes a short distance off, quietly watching
it. These small bays, or saltwater aquariums, are the lurking-places
and strongholds for shoals of anchovies and herrings. Often tempted
to wander and make excursions beyond the gateway of their rocky home,
they are at once spied by predatory piratical salmon; seeking safety
in flight, they dash headlong for their hiding-place, hotly pursued by
their dreaded foe, and shooting easily through the cordy snare, laugh
to see Master Salmon ‘run his head into the net;’ bob-bob go the floats
beneath the surface, up paddles redskin, hauls up his net, clutches the
silvery pirate, and with a short heavy club gives him a blow on the
head, drops him into the canoe, lets go his net, and waits for the next.
With this kind of net immense numbers of spring and fall salmon are
taken. All their nets are made of cord, spun from native hemp, that
grows abundantly along the banks of the Fraser and other streams.
Squaws gather the plant about a week before the flowering-time; first
soak, then beat it into fibre; this, arranged in regular lengths, is
handed to the Indian, who, seated on the ground, twists the bundles
of tiffled hemp into cord—a cord as regular and symmetrical as
the handiwork of a practised ropemaker—-using neither tools nor
machinery, but simply the hand and naked thigh.
The first salmon entering the Columbia are taken at Chinook Point, a
short distance above Cape Disappointment, near the mouth of the river.
These are known as ‘Chinook salmon,’ and are celebrated, not only in
the immediate neighbourhood but in the markets of San Francisco, as the
fattest and finest-flavoured salmon taken on the coast; they are large,
ranging from 35lbs. to 70lbs. in weight.
In June the grand army arrives. We need not linger at the old fishery
of the Chinook Indians, so prosperous fifty years ago. The Indians have
disappeared; but the salmon army marches on, with little interruption,
until they have arrived at the Cascades.
Here we must remain awhile, and see for ourselves how the red man
harvests his salmon. Salmon is quite as essential to the Indians
residing inland as grain to us, or bananas and plantains to the
residents in the tropics: gleaning the regular supply of fish, the
Indian literally harvests and garners it as we reap our grain-crops.
It cannot be by mere chance that fish are prompted, by an unalterable
instinct, to thread their way into the farthest recesses of the
mountains—fish too that are fat and oily, and best adapted to supply
heat and the elements of nutrition.
The winters are long and intensely cold, often 30° Fahr. below zero,
the snow lying deep for at least six months. Birds migrate, most of
the rodents and the bears hibernate, and such animals as remain to
brave the biting cold, retire where it is very difficult and often
impossible to hunt or trap them. In a small lodge, made of hides or
rushes, as far from windproof as a sieve would be; wrapped in miserable
mantles (simply skins sewn together, or ragged blankets, bought of the
Hudson’s Bay Company), cowering and shivering over the smouldering
logs, are a family of savages. The nipping blasts and icy cold forbid
their venturing in pursuit of food; flesh they could not cure during
the summer, for they have not salt, and sun-drying is insufficient to
preserve it. A miserable death, starved alike by cold and hunger, must
be the fate of this, and of all Indian families away from the seaboard,
but for salmon: sun-dried, it preserves its heat and flesh-yielding
qualities unimpaired; uncooked, they chew it all day long, and
frequently grow fat during their quasi-hybernation. The waterways
are thus made available for the transport of coals and provisions
necessary to keep the life-stove burning, floated free of freight up to
the very doors of the Indian’s wigwam. The way he harvests this store,
and preserves it for winter use, we shall see as we follow the course
of the salmon in their ascent of the Columbia river.
The Cascades, where the salmon first meet with a hindrance to their
upward course, is a lovely spot. The vast river here breaks its way
through the Cascade Mountains, a mountain-gap unequalled, I should
say, in depth and extent, by any in the world. Some parts are massive
walls of rock, and others wooded slopes like to a narrow valley. One
can hardly imagine the possibility of so great a change in climate,
and consequently vegetation, as there is betwixt this place and the
Dalles, only a few miles farther up the river. I have left the Dalles
when the ground was covered with snow, and within a distance of forty
miles entered this gap, and found the climate to be that of summer. The
sloping forests brightly green, shrubs of various sorts, tropical in
appearance, immense ferns, the emerald moss clothing the rocks, over
which dozens of waterfalls, unbroken for a thousand feet, tumble from
the hills into the river —all together make up a scene of beauty and
rich luxuriance, unlike any other part of the river.
From the Dalles to the Cascades the river has scarcely a perceptible
current, either side being bounded by perpendicular walls of mountains.
Tradition says, that once the river had a uniformly swift course the
entire way, and that where the Cascades now are, the water passed at
that time under a huge arch that reached from side to side. Afterwards
an earthquake tumbled it down, the ruins of the arch still existing as
a chain of islands across the head of the rapids; the river, having
gradually carried away the fragments, forming now the long rapid. The
river, thus suddenly thrown back, flooded the forests up to the Dalles,
and to this day stumps of trees are to be seen sticking out of the
water many hundred yards from the shore.
Below the Cascades, before reaching the flat district about Fort
Vancouver, the scenery is bold and massive; immense hills densely
wooded, bold promontories, and grassy glades are passed successively as
the steamer dashes on her downward trip. At the Cascades there is now a
railway, over which goods and passengers are conveyed to the steamers
above the rapids, which are so swift that canoes plied by experienced
Indians dare not venture to run them.
Wandering along by this foaming rush of water, one sees numberless
scaffoldings erected amongst the boulders—rude clumsy contrivances,
constructed of poles jammed between large stones, and lashed with ropes
of bark to other poles, that cross each other to form stages. Indian
lodges, pitched in the most picturesque and lovely spots imaginable,
are dotted along from one end of the rapids to the other. Indians
from long distances and of several tribes have come here to await the
arrival of the salmon.
Leaning against the trees, or supported by the lodges, are numbers of
small round nets (like we catch shrimps with in rocky pools), fastened
to handles forty and fifty feet in length. Hollow places are cunningly
enclosed, with low walls of boulders, on the riverside of each stage.
It is early in June; the salmon have arrived, and a busy scene it is.
On every stage plying their nets are Indian fishers, guiltless of
garments save a piece of cloth tied round the waist. Ascending the
rapids, salmon seek the slack-waters at the edges of the current,
and are fond of lingering in the wake of a rock or any convenient
hollow; the rock-basins constructed by the sides of the stages are
just the places for idling and resting. This the crafty fisher turns
to good account, and skilfully catches the loiterer by plunging his
net into the pool at its head, and letting the current sweep it down,
thus _hooping_ salmon after salmon, with a certainty astounding to a
looker-on. Thirty salmon an hour is not an unusual take for two skilled
Indians to land on a stage. As soon as one gets tired, another takes
his place, so that the nets are never idle during the ‘run.’
The instant a fish reaches the stage, a heavy blow on the head stops
its flapping; boys and girls are waiting to seize and carry it ashore,
to be split and cured—a process I can better describe when at the
salmon-falls. As there is at the Cascades simply hindrance to the
salmon’s ascent, of course vast numbers escape the redskins’ nets.
Forty miles above this fishery is another obstruction, the Dalles;
where the river forces its way through a mass of basaltic rocks in
numerous channels, some of them appearing as if hewn by human hands.
Another portage has to be made here, a neat little town having grown up
in consequence of the transhipment. The journey from steamer to steamer
is accomplished in stages, the heavy goods being hauled by mule and
ox-teams. The road lies over a steep ridge of hills to the junction
of the Des Chutes, or ‘Fall river,’ with the Columbia. Fishing at the
Dalles is much the same as at the Cascades.
Great numbers of salmon turn off and ascend the Snake river, to be
captured at the Great Shoshonee Falls by the Snake and Bannock Indians.
We follow on the vanguard of the swimming army, passing numberless
tributaries, up which detachments make their way, right and left, into
the heart of the country—supplies for tribes living near the different
streams—to the great falls of the Columbia, the ‘Kettle Falls,’[3] why
so named is not very clear. These falls, except when the river is at
its highest flood, form an impassable barrier to the salmon’s progress;
the distance from the sea is about 700 miles, and the first arrivals
are usually about the middle of June.
The winter-quarters of the Boundary Commission were about two miles
above the falls, and close to the falls is a trading-post of the
Hudson’s Bay Company, Fort Colville. The gravelly plateau on which the
trading-post stands, together with one or two houses belonging to old
employés, was clearly once a lake-bottom. The water at some remote
period filling the lake appears to have broken its way out through the
rocks at the falls, and left this flat dry land. Patches of wheat and
barley are grown, but the soil is far too poor to repay the labour of
cultivation.
About three weeks preceding the arrival of the salmon, Indians begin to
assemble from all directions. Cavalcades may be seen, day after day,
winding their way down the plain; and as the savage when he travels
takes with him all his worldly wealth—wives, children, dogs, horses,
lodges, weapons, and skins—the turn-out is rather novel. The smaller
children are packed with the baggage on the backs of horses, which are
driven by the squaws, who always ride astride like the men. The elder
girls and boys, three or four on a horse, ride with their mothers,
whilst the men and stouter youths drive the bands of horses that run
loose ahead of the procession. A pack of prick-eared curs, simply tamed
prairie-wolves, are always in attendance.
A level piece of ground overlooking the falls (the descent from which
to the rocks is by a zigzag path, down a nearly vertical cliff) is
rapidly covered with lodges of all shapes and sizes. The squaws do the
work appertaining to camping, and are literally ‘hewers of wood and
drawers of water.’ The men, who are all, when at the fishery, under
one chief, whom they designate the ‘Salmon Chief,’ at once commence
work—some in repairing the drying-sheds, which are placed on the rocks
(as are also numbers of lodges) at the foot of the zigzag; others are
busy making or mending immense wicker hampers, about thirty feet in
circumference, and twelve feet in depth. Little groups are dragging
down huge trees lopped clear of their branches—rolling, twisting,
and tumbling them over the rocks, to be fixed at last by massive
boulders, the ends hanging over the foaming water not unlike so many
gibbets. These trees being secure and in their right places, the next
work is to hang the wicker baskets to them, which is a risky and most
difficult job: but many willing hands and long experience work wonders;
with strong ropes of twisted bark, the baskets are at last securely
suspended. By this time the river begins to flood rapidly, and soon
washes over the rocks where the trees are fastened, and into the
basket, which is soon in the midst of the waterfall, being so contrived
as to be easily accessible from the rocks not overwashed by the flood.
Whilst awaiting the coming salmon, the scene is one great revel:
horse-racing, gambling, love-making, dancing, and diversions of all
sorts, occupy the singular assembly; for at these annual gatherings,
when all jointly labour in catching and curing the winter supply of
salmon, feuds and dislikes are for the time laid by, or, as they
figuratively express it, ‘The hatchet is buried.’
The medicine-men (doctors and conjurors) of the different tribes busily
work their charms and incantations to insure an abundant run of fish.
One of the illustrations is drawn from a photograph of the falls. The
Indians at first steadily refused to allow the photographer and his
machine to come near the falls, declaring it a box of bad ‘medicine’
that would surely drive every salmon away; and not until an old Romish
priest who was at the trading-post explained it to them, did they
permit a photograph to be taken.
The watchers announce the welcome tidings of the salmon arrival,
and the business begins. The baskets are hung in places where past
experience has taught the Indians salmon generally leap, in their
attempts to clear the falls. The first few that arrive are frequently
speared from the rocks. They are in such vast numbers during the height
of the ‘run,’ that one could not well throw a stone into the water at
the base of the falls without hitting a fish: fifty and more may be
seen in the air at a time, leaping over the wicker traps, but, failing
to clear the ‘salmon-leap,’ fall back, and are caged. In each basket
two naked Indians are stationed all day long; and as they are under
a heavy fall of water, frequent relays are necessary. Salmon three
or four at a time, in rapid succession, tumble into the basket. The
Indians thrust their fingers under the gills, strike the fish on the
head with a heavy club, and then fling them on the rocks. I have known
three hundred salmon landed from one basket betwixt sunrise and sunset,
varying in weight from twenty to seventy-five pounds.
From the heaps of fish piled on the rocks, boys and girls carry and
drag them back to the squaws seated round the curing-houses; with sharp
knives they rip the salmon open, twist off the head, and cleverly
remove the backbone; then hanging them on poles, close under the roofs
of sheds the sides of which are open, they dry them slowly, small fires
being kept constantly smouldering on the floors. The smoke serves to
keep away the flies, and perhaps also aids in the preservation of the
fish. The only portions eaten by the Indians during the catching are
the heads, backbones, roes, and livers, which are roasted, skewered on
sticks.
When thoroughly dried the fish are packed in _bales_ made of rush-mats,
each bale weighing about fifty pounds, the bales being tightly lashed
with bark-ropes. Packing in bales of equal weight facilitates an
equitable division of the take. Horses are purposely brought to carry
the fish back to winter-quarters, and two bales are easily packed on
each horse. The fishing-season lasts for about two months: then the
spoils are divided, and the place abandoned to its wonted quietude,
until the following summer brings with it another harvest.
During the drying, silicious sand is blown over the fish, and of course
adheres to it. Constantly chewing this ‘sanded salmon’ wears the teeth
as if filed down, which I at first imagined them to be, until the true
cause was discovered. I have an under-jaw in my possession whereon the
teeth are quite level with the bony sockets of the jaw, worn away by
the flinty sand.
I question if in the world there is another spot where salmon are in
greater abundance, or taken with so little labour, as at the Kettle
Falls, on the Columbia river. In all streams emptying into Puget’s
Sound, in the Fraser river, and rivers north of it to the Arctic
Ocean, salmon ascend in prodigious abundance. In the Fraser there are
no obstructions as far as Fort Hope to the salmon ascent; hence fishing
is carried on by each village or family for themselves, and not by
the combined labour of many, as on the Columbia. Near the mouth of
the river large iron gaff-hooks are generally used; with these ugly
weapons salmon are hooked into the canoes. Higher up, at the mouths
of the Sumass, Chilukweyuk, and other tributary streams, they use a
very ingenious kind of net worked between two canoes, with which large
numbers of salmon are taken. Stages, too, are hung over the eddies from
the rocks, and round nets used as at the Cascades.
On the Nanaimo river the Indians have a very ingenious contrivance
for taking salmon, by constructing a weir; but, instead of putting
baskets, they _pave_ a square place, about six feet wide and fourteen
feet long, with white or light-coloured stones. This pavement is
always on the lower side of the weir, leading to an opening. A stage
is erected between two of these paved ways, where Indians, lying on
their stomachs, can in an instant see if a salmon is traversing the
white paved way. A long spear, barbed at the end, is held in readiness,
and woe betide the adventurous fish that runs the gauntlet of this
perilous passage!
But the most curious contrivance I saw was at Johnson’s Narrows. I
have said salmon readily take a bait when in saltwater. The Indians
when fishing use two spears, one about seventy feet in length; the
other shorter, having a barbed end, is about twenty feet long. In a
canoe thus equipped, favourable fishing-grounds are sought, the Indian
having the long spear being also provided with a small hollow cone of
wood, trimmed round its greater circumference with small feathers, much
like a shuttlecock; this he places on the end of the longer spear, and
presses it under water, until down the full length of the handle; a
skilful jerk detaches this conelike affair from the spear-haft, when it
wriggles up through the water like a struggling fish. The savage with
the short spear intently watches this deceiver; a salmon runs at it,
and it is speared like magic.
Next in importance amongst the Salmonidæ is the Oregon Brook Trout,
_Fario stellatus_ (Grd. Proc. Acad., Phil. Nat. Soc., viii. 219).
_Specific Characters._—Head rather large, contained four-and-a-half
times in the total length; maxillary reaching a vertical line drawn
behind the orbit. Colour of the back bright olivegreen, sides
pinkish-yellow, belly white, profusely speckled over with minute black
spots.
This trout lives everywhere, and is to be met with in the lakes and
rivers in Vancouver Island, in all streams flowing into Puget’s Sound,
and away up the western sides of the Cascades. Crossing to the eastern
side, and descending into the valley of the Columbia, again he puts in
an appearance. Climb the western slope of the Rocky Mountains up to
the summit, 7,000 feet above the sea-level, there too he lives—always
hungry and voracious. These trout are very delicious, varying from
eight ounces up to three pounds in weight.
My first exploit in fishing for trout may be worth relating:—I was
sitting on the bank of a stream that rippled gaily on its rocky course,
down the western slope of the Rocky Mountains; and which, here and
there lengthening out into a long stickle, and curling round a jutting
rock, lazily idled by the grassy bank; anon leaping a sudden fall,
and widening into a glassy pool. Butterflies gambolled and flitted
recklessly; dragonflies clad in brilliant armour waged cruel war on
the lesser forms of winged life, chasing them everywhere. The busy
hum of insects, the air fragrant with the forest perfumes, the murmur
of the water, and the songs of feathered choristers made one feel
happy, though far away from civilisation. My reverie was broken by a
sudden splash; a speckled tyrant, lurking under the bank on which I
sat, had pounced upon a large grey fly that, unconscious of danger, had
touched the water with its gauzy wings. Very well, Master Trout, you
may perhaps be as easily duped as your more cautious _confrères_; so
setting to work, I overhauled my ‘possible sack,’ found a few coarse
hooks, a bit of gut, and some thread.
Among other materials wherewith to make a fly, feathers were
indispensable. Shouldering my gun, I strode off to look for a ‘white
flesher,’ alias ruffed grouse; soon stirred one up, bagged him, hauled
out his glossy bottle-green frill; selected some feathers which I
thought would turn a decent hackle, picked out a couple of brighter
ones for wings, some red wool from my blanket for dubbing, and with
these materials I tied a fly. Not the slightest resemblance, fancied
or real, did it bear to anything ever created, but still it was a fly,
and, as I flattered myself, a great achievement. A line was made from
some ends of cord; then cutting a young larch, I made my tackle fast to
the end, and thus equipped sallied to the stream.
My first attempt in the swift scour was a lamentable failure. Warily I
threw my newly-created monster well across the stream, and, according
to the most approved method, let it slowly wash towards me, conveying
to the rod and line a delicate and tempting tremble; not a rise, not
a nibble; my hopes wavered, and I began to think these trout wiser
than I had given them credit for. I tried the pool as a last chance;
so, leaning over the rock, I let my tempter drop into the water; it
made a splash like throwing in a stone; but imagine my delight, ye
lovers of the gentle art, when a tremendous jerk told me I had one
hooked and struggling to get free! Depending on the strength of my
tackle, I flung him out on the bank; and admitting all that may be said
against me as being barbarous and cruel, I confess to standing over the
dying fish, and admiring his brilliant colour, handsome shape, fair
proportion—and, last though not least, contemplated eating him! I
pitied him not as, flapping and struggling on the grass, his life ebbed
away, but thought only of the skill I had displayed in duping him, and
the feast in store for me on returning to camp.
Having discovered a secret, I pressed eagerly on to turn it to the best
advantage, and that day played havoc amongst the trouts. Some long
willow-branches, cut with a crook at the end, served me in lieu of a
basket. Passing the sticks under the gill-covers, and out at the mouth,
I strung trout after trout until the sticks were filled; then tying the
ends together, flung them across my shoulder and trudged along; a good
plan when you have not a basket. I now turned my attention, and devoted
all my ingenuity, to the manufacture of a more angler-like fly; and
in this case the adage proved true, ‘that a poor original was better
than a good imitation.’ My well-dressed fly was not one-half as much
appreciated as the old one; there was a sham gentility about him that
evidently led at once to suspicion, and it was only here and there I
met with a fish weak enough to fall a victim to his polished exterior;
I therefore abandoned the dandy, and returned again to the rough old
red-shirted ‘trapper’ with which I first commenced.
There was a stream in which I had better sport than in any of the
others, the Mooyee, on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains—a
small stream, very rocky, clear as crystal, icy cold, and so densely
wooded on each side that fishing in it, unless by wading, was
impossible. I remember one pool as being particularly productive—a
rock-basin, with a little rivulet dancing into it through a pebbly
reach; the water so beautifully clear, that everything in the pool
was visible, as though one looked into an aquarium. I could not help
standing and feasting my eyes on the trout playing about in it. To say
the pool was full of fish is no exaggeration; all, with their heads
toward the little stream, were gently sculling their tails to steady
themselves. I gazed upon a mass of fish, big and little, from four
ounces to three pounds in weight.
Having sufficiently indulged in admiring this host of trout (the
like of which I had never seen before), I began the war. Dropping my
‘sensation-fly’ into the little stream, I let it sink and drift into
the pool. Twenty open mouths rushed at it ravenously, and trout after
trout was rapidly landed on the shingle. I continued this scheme until
a heap of magnificent fish were piled at my side, and the pool was
rapidly thinning. One crafty old fellow, however, that looked about
three pounds in weight, defied all my efforts to tempt him. I let the
fly drift over him, under his nose, above his nose; but he scorned it,
and, if he could, I felt he would have winked his eye derisively at me.
To have him I was determined: so sitting down, I scooped out the eye
of a fish, and put it on the point of the flyhook, then let it drift
down the stream and into the pool; steadily it neared his nose, and in
breathless expectation I awaited the result. He was evidently uneasy,
and knew not what to do. It floated past him, and I thought my bait
had failed; when round he turned, and dashing viciously at it, seized
(pardon the joke) the hook and eye, and I had him fast. Being far too
heavy to risk jerking, I let him get over his furious fit, then towed
him ashore hand over hand gathering up my line, I got close to him,
and seizing him behind the gills, brought him upon the shingle; and a
beauty he was!
I have tried various expedients—more as experiments than anything
else—to find out what bait these trout really preferred. Grasshoppers
they took readily, and I have often caught a trout when only one leg of
the insect remained on the hook; the white meat from the tail of the
river crayfish is also a very favourite diet. Earth-worms I could not
try, because they do not exist in British Columbia. But all my trials
and experiments failed signally in discovering anything that could at
all compare with my ‘first fly.’
The trout spawn about October, or perhaps a little later, depositing
their ova in gravel in the lesser streams.
SALMON TROUT.—_Salmo spectabilis_ (Red-spotted Salmon Trout),
Grd. Proc. Acad., Nat. Soc. Phild., viii. 218.—_Sp. Ch._: Head a
trifle more than a fourth of the total length; maxillary extending
to a vertical line drawn posterior to the orbit. Colour of the back
dark-greenish, inclining to grey, a lighter shade of the same colour on
the sides—beneath silvery-white; thickly marked above the lateral line
with yellowish spots, interspersed with others that are bright red.
In habits and distribution the salmon-trout differs in every respect
from the preceding. There can be no doubt that this fish is anadromous,
and comes up into the rivers to spawn at particular periods of the
year, like the salmon, and then returns to sea. In October the great
run begins. Into all the rivers emptying into Puget’s Sound—the
Dwamish, Nesqually, Puyallup, and several others, up the Fraser and its
tributaries, into all the creeks and inlets about Vancouver Island,
crowd in shoal after shoal. They vary in size; I have seldom seen them
exceed three pounds in weight.
The advent of these trout is the signal for a general Indian
fish-harvest. The banks of all the little streams are soon dotted with
temporary lodges, and every one, from the naked little urchin to the
stalwart chief, wages war upon these fish. All sorts of expedients are
used to snare them. Boys, girls, and old squaws catch them with a hook
and line, about eight or ten feet long, tied to the end of a short
stick. The hook (made of bone or hard wood) is baited with salmon-roe.
The Indians never use the roe fresh; dried in the sun it becomes
extremely tough, and acquires a very rank oily smell. The fish take it
greedily, and in this manner large numbers are captured.
Another bait equally fatal is made by cutting a small strip from the
belly of a trout, and keeping the shiny part outermost—winding it
tightly round the hook, from the barb, to about an inch up the line,
securing it by twisting white horsehair closely round it. A small
pebble is slung about a foot from the baited hook, and the line tied to
the canoe-paddle close to the hand; paddling slowly along, this bait
is trolled after the canoe. The intention is manifestly to imitate a
small fish, as we troll with minnow or spoon-bait in our waters. All
the larger fish are generally taken in this way. They rise readily to a
gaudy fly, and afford admirable sport.
But the great haul of hauls is effected by a most ingeniously-contrived
basket, in principle the same as our eel-baskets. It is made of
split vine-maple, lashed together with strips of cedar-bark. These
baskets vary in size; some of them are fifteen feet long, and six in
circumference. The crafty savages place their wicker traps in the
centre of the stream; a dam of latticework on each side reaches to
the bank, so that no fish can get up-stream unless through the trap.
Another plan, and a very good one where the water is shallow, is to
build a little wall of boulders, rising about a foot above water,
slanting the wall obliquely until the ends meet in the centre of the
stream at an acute angle; at this point they place the basket. By this
plan all the water is forced through the basket, increasing the depth
and strength of the current. In happy ignorance of their danger, the
fish ply steadily upcurrent, until they suddenly find themselves caged.
When a sufficient number of fish are in the basket, an empty one is
carried out and set, the other brought ashore; its contents are turned
out upon the grass. Squaws, old and young, knife in hand, squat round,
looking eagerly on; and as the captives lie flapping on the sward,
in the harpies rush, seize a trout, rip him up, remove the inside,
and then skewer him open with two sticks. Poles, having a fork at the
end, are placed firmly in the ground, about fifteen feet apart. Other
sticks, barked and rubbed very smooth, are placed in these forked ends,
on which the split trout are strung. Small fires are kept smouldering
below the strung-up fish. When thoroughly dry, they are packed in small
bales, and lashed with the bark of the cedar-tree.
CANDLE-FISH.—The Candle-fish or Eulachon, _Salmo (mallotus)
Pacificus_, Rich. F. B. A., p. 227; _Thaleichthys Pacificus_,
Grd.—_Sp. Ch._: Head somewhat pointed and conical; mouth large, its
fissure extending back to the anterior margin of the orbit; opercule
terminated by a rounded angle, lower jaw projecting a little beyond
the upper one; tongue rough, teeth on the pharyngeals; lower jaw,
palatines, and vomer devoid of teeth; eye rather small; adipose fin,
placed opposite the hind portion of the anal; scales subelliptical.
Dorsal region greenish-olive colour, generally silvery-white, sparsely
spotted with dirty yellow; a dark spot, nearly black, over each orbit.
A human body is a kind of locomotive furnace, that has to be kept up
to a given temperature by fuel, its food. Under a tropical sun, not
much fuel is needed, and that of a sort that will not keep up a large
fire. Man, therefore, wears clothes made from a vegetable fibre, and
eats fruit and rice, the lowest in the scale of heat-making materials.
Far north among the polar ice, where you cannot touch metal without its
taking the skin off your fingers, the human locomotive is protected
by thick coverings of fur: the native takes the jackets from his
furry-footed companions, and covers his own skin with them. But the
grand oil-springs—the locomotive’s necessary coal-mines in another
form—are in the bodies of the great seals and whales. Oil and blubber
burn rapidly, and give out a large amount of heat. With a fur-suit
outside, and inside a feed of seal’s flesh washed down with seal’s oil,
the steam of life is kept up very easily.
But all the fat of the sea is not in the bodies of those great
blubbering whales and seals. There is a fish, small in size, not larger
than a smelt, that is fat beyond all description, clad in glittering
silver armour, and found on the coasts of British Columbia, Russian
America, Queen Charlotte and Vancouver Islands, which is called by
the natives _Eulachon_ or Candle-fish. I have had both leisure and
opportunity to make this fish’s intimate acquaintance; played the spy
upon its habits, its coming and going, and have noted how it is caught
and cured.
Picture my home—an Indian village, on the north shore of British
Columbia. The village is prettily situated on a rocky point of land,
chosen, as all Indian villages are, with an eye to prevention of
surprise from concealed foes. Rearward it is guarded by a steep hill,
and it commands from the front the entrance to one of those long
canals, which, as I have previously stated, resemble the fiords of
Norway, often running thirty or forty miles inland.
The dwellings consist of ten or fifteen rude sheds, about twenty yards
long and twelve wide, built of rough cedar-planks; the roof a single
slant covered with poles and rushes. Six or eight families live in
each shed. Every family has its own fire on the ground, and the smoke,
that must find its way out as best it can through cracks and holes
(chimneys being objected to), hangs in a dense upper cloud, so that a
man can only keep his head out of it by squatting on the ground: to
stand up is to run a risk of suffocation. The children of all ages,
in droves, naked and filthy, live under the smoke; as well as squaws,
who squat round the smouldering logs; innumerable dogs, like starving
wolves, prick-eared, sore-eyed, snappish brutes, unceasingly engaged
in faction-fights and sudden duels, in which the whole pack immediately
takes sides. Felt, but not heard, are legions of bloodthirsty fleas,
that would try their best to suck blood from a boot, and by combined
exertions would soon flay alive any man with a clean and tender skin.
The moon, near its full, creeps upward from behind the hills; stars
one by one are lighted in the sky—not a cloud flecks the clear blue.
The Indians are busy launching their canoes, preparing war against the
candle-fish, which they catch when they come to the surface to sport in
the moonlight. As the rising moon now clears the shadow of the hills,
her rays slant down on the green sea, just rippled by the land-breeze.
And now, like a vast sheet of pearly nacre, we may see the glittering
shoals of the fish—the water seems alive with them. Out glides the
dusky Indian fleet, the paddles stealthily plied by hands far too
experienced to let a splash be heard. There is not a whisper, not a
sound, but the measured rhythm of many paddlers, as the canoes are sent
flying towards the fish.
To catch them, the Indians use a monster comb or rake, a piece of
pinewood from six to eight feet long, made round for about two feet
of its length, at the place of the hand-grip; the rest is flat, thick
at the back, but thinning to a sharp edge, into which are driven teeth
about four inches long, and an inch apart. These teeth are usually
made of bone, but, when the Indian fishers can get sharp-pointed iron
nails, they prefer them. One Indian sits in the stern of each canoe to
paddle it along, keeping close to the shoal of fish another, having the
rounded part of the rake firmly fixed in both hands, stands with his
face to the bow of the canoe, the teeth pointing sternwards. He then
sweeps it through the glittering mass of fish, using all his force, and
brings it to the surface teeth upwards, usually with a fish impaled,
sometimes with three or four upon one tooth. The rake being brought
into the canoe, a sharp rap on the back of it knocks the fish off, and
then another sweep yields a similar catch.
It is wonderful to see how rapidly an Indian will fill his canoe by
this rude method of fishing. The dusky forms of the savages bend over
the canoes, their brawny arms sweep their toothed sickles through the
shoals, stroke follows stroke in swift succession, and steadily the
canoes fill with their harvest of ‘living silver.’ When they have
heaped as much as this frail craft will safely carry, they paddle
ashore, drag the boats up on the shelving beach, overturn them as the
quickest way of discharging cargo, relaunch, and go back to rake up
another load. This labour goes on until the moon has set behind the
mountain-peaks and the fish disappear, for it is their habit rarely to
come to the surface except in the night. The sport over, we glide under
the dark rocks, haul up the canoe, and lie before the log-fire to sleep
long and soundly.
The next labour is that of the squaws, who have to do the curing,
drying, and oil-making. Seated in a circle, they are busy stringing the
fish. They do not gut or in any way clean them, but simply pass long
smooth sticks through their eyes, skewering on each stick as many as
it will hold, and then lashing a smaller piece transversely across the
ends, to prevent the fish from slipping off the skewer. This done, next
follows the drying, which is generally achieved in the thick smoke at
the top of the sheds, the sticks of fish being there hung up side by
side. They soon dry, and acquire a flavour of wood-smoke, which helps
also to preserve them. No salt is used by Indians in any of their
systems of curing fish.
When dry, the candle-fish are carefully packed in large frails made
from cedar-bark or rushes, much like those one buys for a penny at
Billingsgate; then they are stowed away on high stages made of poles,
like a rough scaffolding. This precaution is essential, for the
Indian children and dogs have an amiable weakness for eatables; and
as lock-and-key are unknown to the redskins, they take this way of
baffling the appetites of the incorrigible pilferers. The bales are
kept until required for winter. However hungry or however short of food
an Indian family may be during summer-time, it seldom will break in
upon the winter ‘cache.’
I have never seen any fish half as fat and as good for Arctic
winter-food as these little candle-fish. It is next to impossible
to broil or fry them, for they melt completely into oil. Some idea
of their marvellous fatness may be gleaned from the fact, that the
natives use them as lamps for lighting their lodges. The fish, when
dried, has a piece of rush-pith, or a strip from the inner bark of the
cypress-tree (_Thuja gigantea_), drawn through it, a long round needle
made of hard wood being used for the purpose; it is then lighted, and
burns steadily until consumed. I have read comfortably by its light;
the candlestick, literally a stick for the candle, consists of a bit of
wood split at one end, with the fish inserted in the cleft.
These ready-made sea-candles—little dips wanting only a wick that can
be added in a minute—are easily transformed by heat and pressure into
liquid. When the Indian drinks instead of burning them, he gets a fuel
in the shape of oil, that keeps up the combustion within him, and which
is burnt and consumed in the lungs just as it was by the wick, but
only gives heat. It is by no mere chance that myriads of small fish,
in obedience to a wondrous instinct, annually visit the northern seas,
containing within themselves all the elements necessary for supplying
light, heat, and life to the poor savage, who, but for this, must
perish in the bitter cold of the long dreary winter.
As soon as the Indians have stored away the full supply of food for the
winter, all the fish subsequently taken are converted into oil. If we
stroll down to the lodges near the beach, we shall see for ourselves
how they manage it. The fish reserved for oil-making have been piled in
heaps until partially decomposed; five or six fires are blazing away,
and in each fire are a number of large round pebbles, to be made very
hot. By each fire are four large square boxes, made from the trunk
of the pine-tree. A squaw carefully piles in each box a layer of fish
about three-deep, and covers them with cold water. She then puts five
or six of the hot stones upon the layers of fish, and when the steam
has cleared away, carefully lays small pieces of wood over the stones;
then more fish, more water, more stones, more layers of wood, and so
on, until the box is filled. The oil-maker now takes all the liquid
from this box, and uses it over again instead of water in filling
another box, and skims the oil off as it floats on the surface.
A vast quantity of oil is thus obtained; often as much as seven
hundredweight will be made by one small tribe. The refuse fish are not
yet done with, more oil being extractible from them. Built against
the pine-tree is a small stage, made of poles, very like a monster
gridiron. The refuse of the boxes, having been sewn up in porous mats,
is placed on the stage, to be rolled and pressed by the arms and chests
of Indian women; and the oil thus squeezed out is collected in a box
placed underneath.
Not only has Nature, ever bountiful, sent an abundance of oil to
the redskin, but she actually provides ready-made bottles to store
it away in. The great seawrack, that grows to an immense size in
these northern seas, and forms submarine forests, has a hollow stalk,
expanded into a complete flask at the root-end. Cut into lengths of
about three feet, these hollow stalks, with the bulb at the end, are
collected and kept wet until required for use. As the oil is obtained,
it is stored away in these natural quart-bottles, or rather larger
bottles, for some of them hold three pints.
Some fifty years ago, vast shoals of eulachon used regularly to enter
the Columbia; but the silent stroke of the Indian paddle has now given
place to the splashing wheels of great steamers, and the Indian and the
candle-fish have vanished together. From the same causes the eulachon
has also disappeared from Puget’s Sound, and is now seldom caught south
of latitude 50° N.