the Indians boast dozens of tribal names, and almost every island on the
coast and village in the interior seems the home of a separate tribe,
they will be found much alike--dirty, greasy, sore-eyed, short-legged,
and with their unkempt hair cut squarely off, as if a pot had been
upturned over it to guide the operation. The British Columbians do not
bother about their tribal divisions, but use the old traders' Chinook
terms, and call every male a "siwash" and every woman a "klootchman."
Since the highest Canadian authority upon the subject predicts that the
northern half of the Cordilleran ranges will admit of as high a
metalliferous development as that of the southern half in our Pacific
States, it is important to review what has been done in mining, and what
is thought of the future of that industry in the province. It may almost
be said that the history of gold-mining there is the history of British
Columbia. Victoria, the capital, was a Hudson Bay post established in
1843, and Vancouver, Queen Charlotte's, and the other islands, as well
as the main-land, were of interest to only a few white men as parts of a
great fur-trading field with a small Indian population. The first nugget
of gold was found at what is now called Gold Harbor, on the west coast
of the Queen Charlotte Islands, by an Indian woman, in 1851. A part of
it, weighing four or five ounces, was taken by the Indians to Fort
Simpson and sold. The Hudson Bay Company, which has done a little in
every line of business in its day, sent a brigantine to the spot, and
found a quartz vein traceable eighty feet, and yielding a high
percentage of gold. Blasting was begun, and the vessel was loaded with
ore; but she was lost on the return voyage. An American vessel, ashore
at Esquimault, near Victoria, was purchased, renamed the _Recovery_, and
sent to Gold Harbor with thirty miners, who worked the vein until the
vessel was loaded and sent to England. News of the mine travelled, and
in another year a small fleet of vessels came up from San Francisco; but
the supply was seen to be very limited, and after $20,000 in all had
been taken out, the field was abandoned.
In 1855 gold was found by a Hudson Bay Company's employe at Fort
Colville, now in Washington State, near the boundary. Some Thompson
River (B. C.) Indians who went to Walla Walla spread a report there
that gold, like that discovered at Colville, was to be found in the
valley of the Thompson. A party of Canadians and half-breeds went to the
region referred to, and found placers nine miles above the mouth of the
river. By 1858 the news and the authentication of it stirred the miners
of California, and an astonishing invasion of the virgin province began.
It is said that in the spring of 1858 more than twenty thousand persons
reached Victoria from San Francisco by sea, distending the little
fur-trading post of a few hundred inhabitants into what would even now
be called a considerable city; a city of canvas, however. Simultaneously
a third as many miners made their way to the new province on land. But
the land was covered with mountains and dense forests, the only route to
its interior for them was the violent, almost boiling, Fraser River, and
there was nothing on which the lives of this horde of men could be
sustained. By the end of the year out of nearly thirty thousand
adventurers only a tenth part remained. Those who did stay worked the
river bars of the lower Fraser until in five months they had shipped
from Victoria more than half a million dollars' worth of gold. From a
historical point of view it is a peculiar coincidence that in 1859, when
the attention of the world was thus first attracted to this new country,
the charter of the Hudson Bay Company expired, and the territory passed
from its control to become like any other crown colony.
[Illustration: INDIAN SALMON-FISHING IN THE THRASHER]
In 1860 the gold-miners, seeking the source of the "flour" gold they
found in such abundance in the bed of the river, pursued their search
into the heart and almost the centre of that forbidding and unbroken
territory. The Quesnel River became the seat of their operations. Two
years later came another extraordinary immigration. This was not
surprising, for 1500 miners had in one year (1861) taken out $2,000,000
in gold-dust from certain creeks in what is called the Cariboo District,
and one can imagine (if one does not remember) what fabulous tales were
based upon this fact. The second stampede was of persons from all over
the world, but chiefly from England, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
After that there were new "finds" almost every year, and the miners
worked gradually northward until, about 1874, they had travelled through
the province, in at one end and out at the other, and were working the
tributaries of the Yukon River in the north, beyond the 60th parallel.
Mr. Dawson estimates that the total yield of gold between 1858 and 1888
was $54,108,804; the average number of miners employed each year was
2775, and the average earnings per man per year were $622.
In his report, published by order of Parliament, Mr. Dawson says that
while gold is so generally distributed over the province that scarcely a
stream of any importance fails to show at least "colors" of the metal,
the principal discoveries clearly indicate that the most important
mining districts are in the systems of mountains and high plateaus lying
to the south-west of the Rocky Mountains and parallel in direction with
them.
This mountain system next to and south-west of the Rockies is called,
for convenience, the Gold Range, but it comprises a complex belt "of
several more or less distinct and partly overlapping ranges"--the
Purcell, Selkirk, and Columbia ranges in the south, and in the north the
Cariboo, Omenica, and Cassiar ranges. "This series or system
constitutes the most important metalliferous belt of the province. The
richest gold fields are closely related to it, and discoveries of
metalliferous lodes are reported in abundance from all parts of it which
have been explored. The deposits already made known are very varied in
character, including highly argentiferous galenas and other silver ores
and auriferous quartz veins." This same authority asserts that the Gold
Range is continued by the Cabinet, Coeur d'Alene, and Bitter Root
mountains in our country. While there is no single well-developed gold
field as in California, the extent of territory of a character to
occasion a hopeful search for gold is greater in the province than in
California. The average man of business to whom visitors speak of the
mining prospects of the province is apt to declare that all that has
been lacking is the discovery of one grand mine and the enlistment of
capital (from the United States, they generally say) to work it. Mr.
Dawson speaks to the same point, and incidentally accounts for the
retarded development in his statement that one noteworthy difference
between practically the entire area of the province and that of the
Pacific States has been occasioned by the spread and movement of ice
over the province during the glacial period. This produced changes in
the distribution of surface materials and directions of drainage,
concealed beneath "drifts" the indications to which prospectors farther
south are used to trust, and by other means obscured the outcrops of
veins which would otherwise be well marked. The dense woods, the broken
navigation of the rivers, in detached reaches, the distance from the
coast of the richest districts, and the cost of labor supplies and
machinery--all these are additional and weighty reasons for the slowness
of development. But this was true of the past and is not of the present,
at least so far as southern British Columbia is concerned. Railroads are
reaching up into it from our country and down from the transcontinental
Canadian Railway, and capital, both Canadian and American, is rapidly
swelling an already heavy investment in many new and promising mines.
Here it is silver-mining that is achieving importance.
[Illustration: GOING TO THE POTLATCH--BIG CANOE, NORTH-WEST COAST]
Other ores are found in the province. The iron which has been located or
worked is principally on the islands--Queen Charlotte, Vancouver,
Texada, and the Walker group. Most of the ores are magnetites, and that
which alone has been worked--on Texada Island--is of excellent quality.
The output of copper from the province is likely soon to become
considerable. Masses of it have been found from time to time in various
parts of the province--in the Vancouver series of islands, on the
main-land coast, and in the interior. Its constant and rich association
with silver shows lead to be abundant in the country, but it needs the
development of transport facilities to give it value. Platinum is more
likely to attain importance as a product in this than in any other part
of North America. On the coast the granites are of such quality and
occur in such abundance as to lead to the belief that their quarrying
will one day be an important source of income, and there are marbles,
sandstones, and ornamental stones of which the same may be said.
One of the most valuable products of the province is coal, the essential
in which our Pacific coast States are the poorest. The white man's
attention was first attracted to this coal in 1835 by some Indians who
brought lumps of it from Vancouver Island to the Hudson Bay post on the
main-land, at Milbank Sound. The _Beaver_, the first steamship that
stirred the waters of the Pacific, reached the province in 1836, and
used coal that was found in outcroppings on the island beach. Thirteen
years later the great trading company brought out a Scotch coal-miner to
look into the character and extent of the coal find, and he was followed
by other miners and the necessary apparatus for prosecuting the inquiry.
In the mean time the present chief source of supply at Nanaimo, seventy
miles from Victoria and about opposite Vancouver, was discovered, and in
1852 mining was begun in earnest. From the very outset the chief market
for the coal was found to be San Francisco.
The original mines are now owned by the Vancouver Coal-mining and Land
Company. Near them are the Wellington Mines, which began to be worked in
1871. Both have continued in active operation from their foundation, and
with a constantly and rapidly growing output. A third source of supply
has very recently been established with local and American capital in
what is called the Comox District, back of Baynes Sound, farther north
than Nanaimo, on the eastern side of Vancouver Island. These new works
are called the Union Mines, and, if the predictions of my informants
prove true, will produce an output equal to that of the older Nanaimo
collieries combined. In 1884 the coal shipped from Nanaimo amounted to
1000 tons for every day of the year, and in 1889 the total shipment had
reached 500,000 tons. As to the character of the coal, I quote again
from Mr. Dawson's report on the minerals of British Columbia, published
by the Dominion Government:
"Rocks of cretaceous age are developed over a considerable area
in British Columbia, often in very great thickness, and fuels
occur in them in important quantity in at least two distinct
stages, of which the lower and older includes the coal measures
of the Queen Charlotte Islands and those of Quatsino Sound on
Vancouver Island, with those of Crow Nest Pass in the Rocky
Mountains; the upper, the coal measures of Nanaimo and Comox,
and probably also those of Suquash and other localities. The
lower rocks hold both anthracite and bituminous coal in the
Queen Charlotte Islands, but elsewhere contain bituminous coal
only. The upper have so far been found to yield bituminous coal
only. The fuels of the tertiary rocks are, generally speaking,
lignites, but include also various fuels intermediate between
these and true coals, which in a few places become true
bituminous coals."
It is thought to be more than likely that the Comox District may prove
far more productive than the Nanaimo region. It is estimated that
productive measures underlie at least 300 square miles in the Comox
District, exclusive of what may extend beyond the shore. The Nanaimo
area is estimated at 200 square miles, and the product is no better
than, if it equals, that of the Comox District.
Specimens of good coal have been found on the main-land in the region of
the upper Skeena River, on the British Columbia water-shed of the
Rockies near Crow Nest Pass, and in the country adjacent to the Peace
River in the eastern part of the province. Anthracite which compares
favorably with that of Pennsylvania has been found at Cowgitz, Queen
Charlotte Islands. In 1871 a mining company began work upon this coal,
but abandoned it, owing to difficulties that were encountered. It is now
believed that these miners did not prove the product to be of an
unprofitable character, and that farther exploration is fully justified
by what is known of the field. Of inferior forms of coal there is every
indication of an abundance on the main-land of the province. "The
tertiary or Laramie coal measures of Puget Sound and Bellingham Bay" (in
the United States) "are continuous north of the international boundary,
and must underlie nearly 18,000 square miles of the low country about
the estuary of the Fraser and in the lower part of its valley." It is
quite possible, since the better coals of Nanaimo and Comox are in
demand in the San Francisco market, even at their high price and with
the duty added, that these lignite fields may be worked for local
consumption.
Already the value of the fish caught in the British Columbian waters is
estimated at $5,000,000 a year, and yet the industry is rather at its
birth than in its infancy. All the waters in and near the province
fairly swarm with fish. The rivers teem with them, the straits and
fiords and gulfs abound with them, the ocean beyond is freighted with an
incalculable weight of living food, which must soon be distributed among
the homes of the civilized world. The principal varieties of fish are
the salmon, cod, shad, white-fish, bass, flounder, skate, sole, halibut,
sturgeon, oolachan, herring, trout, haddock, smelts, anchovies,
dog-fish, perch, sardines, oysters, crayfish shrimps, crabs, and
mussels. Of other denizens of the water, the whale, sea-otter, and seal
prove rich prey for those who search for them.
[Illustration: THE SALMON CACHE]
The main salmon rivers are the Fraser, Skeena, and Nasse rivers, but the
fish also swarm in the inlets into which smaller streams empty. The
Nimkish, on Vancouver Island, is also a salmon stream. Setting aside
the stories of water so thick with salmon that a man might walk upon
their backs, as well as that tale of the stage-coach which was upset by
salmon banking themselves against it when it was crossing a
fording-place, there still exist absolutely trustworthy accounts of
swarms which at their height cause the largest rivers to seem alive with
these fish. In such cases the ripple of their back fins frets the entire
surface of the stream. I have seen photographs that show the fish in
incredible numbers, side by side, like logs in a raft, and I have the
word of a responsible man for the statement that he has gotten all the
salmon needed for a small camp, day after day, by walking to the edge of
a river and jerking the fish out with a common poker.
There are about sixteen canneries on the Fraser, six on the Skeena,
three on the Nasse, and three scattered in other waters--River Inlet and
Alert Bay. The total canning in 1889 was 414,294 cases, each of 48
one-pound tins. The fish are sold to Europe, Australia, and eastern
Canada. The American market takes the Columbia River Salmon. Around
$1,000,000 is invested in the vessels, nets, trawls, canneries,
oil-factories, and freezing and salting stations used in this industry
in British Columbia, and about 5500 men are employed. "There is no
difficulty in catching the fish," says a local historian, "for in some
streams they are so crowded that they can readily be picked out of the
water by hand." However, gill-nets are found to be preferable, and the
fish are caught in these, which are stretched across the streams, and
handled by men in flat-bottomed boats. The fish are loaded into scows
and transported to the canneries, usually frame structures built upon
piles close to the shores of the rivers. In the canneries the tins are
made, and, as a rule, saw-mills near by produce the wood for the
manufacture of the packing-cases. The fish are cleaned, rid of their
heads and tails, and then chopped up and loaded into the tins by
Chinamen and Indian women. The tins are then boiled, soldered, tested,
packed, and shipped away. The industry is rapidly extending, and fresh
salmon are now being shipped, frozen, to the markets of eastern America
and England. My figures for 1889 (obtained from the Victoria _Times_)
are in all likelihood under the mark for the season of 1890. The coast
is made ragged by inlets, and into nearly every one a watercourse
empties. All the larger streams are the haven of salmon in the spawning
season, and in time the principal ones will be the bases of canning
operations.
The Dominion Government has founded a salmon hatchery on the Fraser,
above New Westminster. It is under the supervision of Thomas Mowat,
Inspector of Fisheries, and millions of small fry are now annually
turned into the great river. Whether the unexampled run of 1889 was in
any part due to this process cannot be said, but certainly the salmon
are not diminishing in numbers. It was feared that the refuse from the
canneries would injure the "runs" of live fish, but it is now believed
that there is a profit to be derived from treating the refuse for oil
and guano, so that it is more likely to be saved than thrown back into
the streams in the near future.
The oolachan, or candle-fish, is a valuable product of these waters,
chiefly of the Fraser and Nasse rivers. They are said to be delicious
when fresh, smoked, or salted, and I have it on the authority of the
little pamphlet "British Columbia," handed me by a government official,
that "their oil is considered superior to cod-liver oil, or any other
fish-oil known." It is said that this oil is whitish, and of the
consistency of thin lard. It is used as food by the natives, and is an
article of barter between the coast Indians and the tribes of the
interior. There is so much of it in a candle-fish of ordinary size that
when one of them is dried, it will burn like a candle. It is the custom
of the natives on the coast to catch the fish in immense numbers in
purse-nets. They then boil them in iron-bottomed bins, straining the
product in willow baskets, and running the oil into cedar boxes holding
fifteen gallons each. The Nasse River candle-fish are the best. They
begin running in March, and continue to come by the million for a period
of several weeks.
Codfish are supposed to be very plentiful, and to frequent extensive
banks at sea, but these shoals have not been explored or charted by the
Government, and private enterprise will not attempt the work. Similar
banks off the Alaska coast are already the resorts of California
fishermen, who drive a prosperous trade in salting large catches there.
The skil, or black cod, formerly known as the "coal-fish," is a splendid
deep-water product. These cod weigh from eight to twenty pounds, and
used to be caught by the Indians with hook and line. Already white men
are driving the Indians out by superior methods. Trawls of 300 hooks are
used, and the fish are found to be plentiful, especially off the west
coast of the Queen Charlotte Islands. The fish is described as superior
to the cod of Newfoundland in both oil and meat. The general market is
not yet accustomed to it, but such a ready sale is found for what are
caught that the number of vessels engaged in this fishing increases year
by year. It is evident that the catch of skil will soon be an important
source of revenue to the province.
[Illustration: AN IDEAL OF THE COAST]
Herring are said to be plentiful, but no fleet is yet fitted out for
them. Halibut are numerous and common. They are often of very great
size. Sturgeon are found in the Fraser, whither they chase the salmon.
One weighing 1400 pounds was exhibited in Victoria a few years ago, and
those that weigh more than half as much are not unfrequently captured.
The following is a report of the yield and value of the fisheries of the
province for 1889:
+--------------------------+------------+-----------------+
| Kind of Fish. | Quantity. | Value. |
| | | |
+--------------------------+------------+-----------------+
| | | |
| Salmon in cans lbs. | 20,122,128 | $2,414,655 36 |
| " fresh lbs. | 2,187,000 | 218,700 00 |
| " salted bbls. | 3,749 | 37,460 00 |
| " smoked lbs. | 12,900 | 2,580 00 |
| Sturgeon, fresh | 318,600 | 15,930 00 |
| Halibut, " | 605,050 | 30,152 50 |
| Herring, " | 190,000 | 9,500 00 |
| " smoked | 33,000 | 3,300 00 |
| Oolachans, " | 82,500 | 8,250 00 |
| " fresh | 6,700 | 1,340 00 |
| " salted bbls. | 380 | 3,800 00 |
| Trout, fresh lbs. | 14,025 | 1,402 50 |
| Fish, assorted | 322,725 | 16,136 25 |
| Smelts, fresh | 52,100 | 3,126 00 |
| Rock cod | 39,250 | 1,962 50 |
| Skil, salted bbls. | 1,560 | 18,720 00 |
| Fooshqua, fresh | 268,350 | 13,417 50 |
| Fur seal-skins No. | 33,570 | 335,700 00 |
| Hair " " | 7,000 | 5,250 00 |
| Sea-otter skins " | 115 | 11,500 00 |
| Fish oil gals. | 141,420 | 70,710 00 |
| Oysters sacks | 3,000 | 5,250 00 |
| Clams " | 3,500 | 6,125 00 |
| Mussels " | 250 | 500 00 |
| Crabs No. | 175,000 | 5,250 00 |
| Abelones boxes | 100 | 500 00 |
| Isinglass lbs. | 5,000 | 1,750 00 |
+--------------------------+------------+ |
| Estimated fish consumed in province | 100,000 00 |
| Shrimps, prawns, etc. | 5,000 00 |
| Estimated consumption by Indians-- | |
| Salmon | 2,732,500 00 |
| Halibut | 190,000 00 |
| Sturgeon and other fish | 260,000 00 |
| Fish oils | 75,000 00 |
+---------------------------------------+-----------------+
| Approximate yield | $6,605,467 61 |
+---------------------------------------+-----------------+
When it is considered that this is the showing of one of the newest
communities on the continent, numbering only the population of what we
would call a small city, suffering for want of capital and nearly all
that capital brings with it, there is no longer occasion for surprise
at the provincial boast that they possess far more extensive and richer
fishing-fields than any on the Atlantic coast. Time and enterprise will
surely test this assertion, but it is already evident that there is a
vast revenue to be wrested from those waters.
I have not spoken of the sealing, which yielded $236,000 in 1887, and
may yet be decided to be exclusively an American and not a British
Columbian source of profit. Nor have I touched upon the extraction of
oil from herrings and from dog-fish and whales, all of which are small
channels of revenue.
I enjoyed the good-fortune to talk at length with a civil engineer of
high repute who has explored the greater part of southern British
Columbia--at least in so far as its main valleys, waterways, trails, and
mountain passes are concerned. Having learned not to place too high a
value upon the printed matter put forth in praise of any new country, I
was especially pleased to obtain this man's practical impressions
concerning the store and quality and kinds of timber the province
contains. He said, not to use his own words, that timber is found all
the way back from the coast to the Rockies, but it is in its most
plentiful and majestic forms on the west slope of those mountains and on
the west slope of the Coast Range. The very largest trees are between
the Coast Range and the coast. The country between the Rocky Mountains
and the Coast Range is dry by comparison with the parts where the timber
thrives best, and, naturally, the forests are inferior. Between the
Rockies and the Kootenay River cedar and tamaracks reach six and eight
feet in diameter, and attain a height of 200 feet not infrequently.
There are two or three kinds of fir and some pines (though not very
many) in this region. There is very little leaf-wood, and no hard-wood.
Maples are found, to be sure, but they are rather more like bushes than
trees to the British Columbian mind. As one moves westward the same
timber prevails, but it grows shorter and smaller until the low coast
country is reached. There, as has been said, the giant forests occur
again. This coast region is largely a flat country, but there are not
many miles of it.