Few white men ventured inland, a century ago, in the days of the
first Chief Capilano, when the spoils of the mighty Fraser River
poured into copper-colored hands, but did not find their way to the
remotest corners of the earth, as in our times, when the gold from
its sources, the salmon from its mouth, the timber from its shores
are world-known riches.
The fisherman's craft, the hunter's cunning, were plied where now
cities and industries, trade and commerce, buying and selling, hold
sway. In those days the moccasined foot awoke no echo in the forest
trails. Primitive weapons, arms, implements, and utensils were the
only means of the Indians' food-getting. His livelihood depended
upon his own personal prowess, his skill in woodcraft and water
lore. And, as this is a story of an elk-bone spear, the reader must
first be in sympathy with the fact that this rude instrument, most
deftly fashioned, was of priceless value to the first Capilano, to
whom it had come through three generations of ancestors, all of whom
had been experienced hunters and dexterous fishermen.
Capilano himself was without a rival as a spearman. He knew the
moods of the Fraser River, the habits of its thronging tenants, as
no other man has ever known them before or since. He knew every
isle and inlet along the coast, every boulder, the sand-bars, the
still pools, the temper of the tides. He knew the spawning-grounds,
the secret streams that fed the larger rivers, the outlets of
rock-bound lakes, the turns and tricks of swirling rapids. He
knew the haunts of bird and beast and fish and fowl, and was
master of the arts and artifice that man must use when matching
his brain against the eluding wiles of the untamed creatures of
the wilderness.
Once only did his cunning fail him, once only did Nature baffle
him with her mysterious fabric of waterways and land-lures. It
was when he was led to the mouth of the unknown river, which has
evaded discovery through all the centuries, but which--so say the
Indians--still sings on its way through some buried channel that
leads from the lake to the sea.
He had been sealing along the shores of what is now known as Point
Grey. His canoe had gradually crept inland, skirting up the coast
to the mouth of False Creek. Here he encountered a very king of
seals, a colossal creature that gladdened the hunter's eyes as
game worthy of his skill. For this particular prize he would cast
the elk-bone spear. It had never failed his sire, his grandsire,
his great-grandsire. He knew it would not fail him now. A long,
pliable, cedar-fibre rope lay in his canoe. Many expert fingers had
woven and plaited the rope, had beaten and oiled it until it was
soft and flexible as a serpent. This he attached to the spearhead,
and with deft, unerring aim cast it at the king seal. The weapon
struck home. The gigantic creature shuddered, and, with a cry like
a hurt child, it plunged down into the sea. With the rapidity and
strength of a giant fish it scudded inland with the rising tide,
while Capilano paid out the rope its entire length, and, as it
stretched taut, felt the canoe leap forward, propelled by the mighty
strength of the creature which lashed the waters into whirlpools, as
though it was possessed with the power and properties of a whale.
Up the stretch of False Creek the man and monster drove their
course, where a century hence great city bridges were to over-arch
the waters. They strove and struggled each for the mastery; neither
of them weakened, neither of them faltered--the one dragging, the
other driving. In the end it was to be a matching of brute and
human wits, not forces. As they neared the point where now Main
Street bridge flings its shadow across the waters, the brute
leaped high into the air, then plunged headlong into the depths.
The impact ripped the rope from Capilano's hands. It rattled
across the gunwale. He stood staring at the spot where it had
disappeared--the brute had been victorious. At low tide the Indian
made search. No trace of his game, of his precious elk-bone spear,
of his cedar-fibre rope, could be found. With the loss of the
latter he firmly believed his luck as a hunter would be gone. So he
patrolled the mouth of False Creek for many moons. His graceful,
high-bowed canoe rarely touched other waters, but the seal king had
disappeared. Often he thought long strands of drifting sea grasses
were his lost cedar-fibre rope. With other spears, with other
cedar-fibres, with paddle-blade and cunning traps he dislodged the
weeds from their moorings, but they slipped their slimy lengths
through his eager hands: his best spear with its attendant coil
was gone.
The following year he was sealing again off the coast of Point Grey,
and one night, after sunset, he observed the red reflection from the
west, which seemed to transfer itself to the eastern skies. Far
into the night dashes of flaming scarlet pulsed far beyond the head
of False Creek. The color rose and fell like a beckoning hand, and,
Indian-like, he immediately attached some portentous meaning to
the unusual sight. That it was some omen he never doubted, so he
paddled inland, beached his canoe, and took the trail towards the
little group of lakes that crowd themselves into the area that lies
between the present cities of Vancouver and New Westminster. But
long before he reached the shores of Deer Lake he discovered that
the beckoning hand was in reality flame. The little body of water
was surrounded by forest fires. One avenue alone stood open. It
was a group of giant trees that as yet the flames had not reached.
As he neared the point he saw a great moving mass of living things
leaving the lake and hurrying northward through this one egress. He
stood, listening, intently watching with alert eyes; the zwirr of
myriads of little travelling feet caught his quick ear--the moving
mass was an immense colony of beaver. Thousands upon thousands
of them. Scores of baby beavers staggered along, following their
mothers; scores of older beavers that had felled trees and built
dams through many seasons; a countless army of trekking fur-bearers,
all under the generalship of a wise old leader, who, as king of the
colony, advanced some few yards ahead of his battalions. Out of
the waters through the forest towards the country to the north they
journeyed. Wandering hunters said they saw them cross Burrard Inlet
at the Second Narrows, heading inland as they reached the farther
shore. But where that mighty army of royal little Canadians set
up their new colony no man knows. Not even the astuteness of the
first Capilano ever discovered their destination. Only one thing
was certain: Deer Lake knew them no more.
After their passing the Indian retraced their trail to the water's
edge. In the red glare of the encircling fires he saw what he at
first thought was some dead and dethroned king beaver on the shore.
A huge carcass lay half in, half out, of the lake. Approaching
it, he saw the wasted body of a giant seal. There could never be
two seals of that marvellous size. His intuition now grasped the
meaning of the omen of the beckoning flame that had called him from
the far coasts of Point Grey. He stooped above his dead conqueror
and found, embedded in its decaying flesh, the elk-bone spear of
his forefathers, and, trailing away at the water's rim, was a long,
flexible, cedar-fibre rope.
As he extracted this treasured heirloom he felt the "power," that
men of magic possess, creep up his sinewy arms. It entered his
heart, his blood, his brain. For a long time he sat and chanted
songs that only great medicine-men may sing, and, as the hours
drifted by, the heat of the forest fires subsided, the flames
diminished into smouldering blackness. At daybreak the forest
fire was dead, but its beckoning fingers had served their purpose.
The magic elk-bone spear had come back to its own.
Until the day of his death the first Capilano searched for the
unknown river up which the seal travelled from False Creek to
Deer Lake; but its channel is a secret that even Indian eyes have
not seen.
But although those of the Squamish tribe tell and believe that the
river still sings through its hidden trail that leads from Deer Lake
to the sea, its course is as unknown, its channel is as hopelessly
lost as the brave little army of beavers that a century ago
marshalled their forces and travelled up into the great lone north.