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[Illustration: AS THE DEER BOUNCED UP THE BANK, JACK FIRED--_Page 41_]
JACK THE YOUNG CANOEMAN
An Eastern Boy's Voyage in a Chinook Canoe
by
GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL
Author of "Jack in the Rockies," "Jack the Young Ranchman,"
"Jack Among the Indians," "Pawnee Hero Stories," "Blackfoot
Lodge Tales," "The Story of the Indian,"
"The Indian of To-day," etc.
Illustrated by Edwin Willard Deming
And by Half-tone Engravings of Photographs
[Illustration]
New York
Frederick A. Stokes Company
Publishers
Copyright, 1906
By Frederick A. Stokes Company
Published in September, 1906
All rights reserved
The University Press, Cambridge, U.S.A.
PREFACE
The mountains which border the British Columbia coast between the mouth
of the Frazer River and the southeastern point of Alaska are still
unknown to the world at large. Few people have sailed up the wonderful
fiords, which, as great water-floored canyons, run back forty or fifty
miles into the interior. Fewer still have penetrated by land into the
mountains where there are neither roads nor trails, and where progress
on foot is barred by a thousand insurmountable obstacles.
Since the time that Jack Danvers made his voyage in a Chinook canoe
along this beautiful coast, it has not greatly changed. The mountains
still abound in game, the sea in fish; the scenery is as beautiful as
it was then; and over the waters, dancing blue beneath the brilliant
sky, or black under the heavy rain clouds, the Indian still paddles his
high-prowed canoe.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. VICTORIA, V. I. 11
II. HOW JACK AND HUGH CAME TO BRITISH COLUMBIA 22
III. A MYSTERIOUS WATER MONSTER 31
IV. THE COBBLER NATURALIST OF BURRARD INLET 40
V. AN UNEXPECTED BEAR 53
VI. OF INDIANS IN ARMOR 68
VII. SEAMMUX IN DANGER 78
VIII. THE COAST INDIANS AND THEIR WAYS 91
IX. PREPARATION FOR THE VOYAGE 103
X. THE START 111
XI. FOOD FROM THE SEA 124
XII. THE ISLAND DEER 135
XIII. AN ADVENTURE OF THE CASSIAR 147
XIV. BUTE INLET 158
XV. THE WORK THAT GLACIERS DO 172
XVI. A MOTHER'S COURAGE 189
XVII. JACK MEETS A SEAL PIRATE 209
XVIII. MILLIONS OF SALMON 228
XIX. FISHING WITH A SIWASH 236
XX. OFF FOR A HUNT IN THE MOUNTAINS 251
XXI. LAST DAYS IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 264
XXII. THE HOMEWARD ROAD 277
ILLUSTRATIONS
As the deer bounded up the bank, Jack fired _Frontispiece_
Jack fired at the white spot on the beast's breast _Facing page_ 58
Seammux also rolled after the goat, and he, too,
disappeared " " 82
Here they wear white men's clothes, including
shoes and hats " " 92
"Close to some of the houses stand tall carved
poles, called totem poles" " " 98
When they saw the canoe they all stopped and
began to stare at it " " 190
Drove her short horns deep into his side " " 204
An Indian salmon weir " " 234
Jack the Young Canoeman
CHAPTER I
VICTORIA, V. I.
"Say, Hugh, what is that Indian doing in that canoe? I thought at first
that he was paddling, but he doesn't seem to move, and that doesn't
look like a paddle that he has in his hand."
"To tell you the truth, son, I don't know what he is doing. This
business here on the salt water puzzles me, and everything is strange
and queer. This ain't like the prairie, nor these ain't like any
mountains that I've ever seen. I am beginning at the bottom and have
got to learn everything. But about that Indian in the canoe, you can
see that the boat doesn't move; and you can see, too, if you look
sharp, that he's anchored. Don't you see that taut line reaching down
into the water?"
"That's so," said Jack; "he surely is anchored, but he works his arms
just as if he were paddling. I am going to ask this man over here."
Jack walked over to a sailor who stood leaning against the rail of the
deck on which they were sitting, and who was looking over the water,
and said to him: "Will you tell me, sir, what that Indian is doing in
the canoe over there?"
The man turned his head and looked in the direction in which Jack
was pointing, and said: "Yes, I can tell you what he is doing; he is
fishing. Don't you see that every stroke he makes he is bringing up
some herrings?"
"No, I don't see it, and I will be much obliged to you if you will
describe to me how he is fishing."
"Of course I will," said the man. "You see his canoe is anchored there
in that deep water, just this side of that point around which the tide
runs strong. At this season of the year the herrings gather in big
schools in that eddy there. Of course we don't know just how they lie,
but they must be mighty thick together. That thing the Indian has in
his hand is a pole about a dozen feet long, flattened on the sides,
and maybe a couple of inches across in its widest part. The flattening
makes the pole sort of oval shaped, if you should saw through it; and
each of the narrow edges of the pole is studded with a row of sharp
nails, about an inch or two apart. These nails are firmly driven into
the wood and the points that stick out for about an inch are very
sharp. The nails run for about one half the length of the pole. The
Indian, sitting in his canoe and holding the upper part of the pole in
his two hands, as you see, just as he would hold a paddle, sweeps the
end of it, that has the nails in, through the water, using just the
same motion that he does in paddling. The herrings down there are so
thick that every time he passes the pole vertically through the water
it strikes the bodies of three or four of the fish with force enough to
drive the nails into them; and as the man continues the stroke they are
pushed ahead of the pole. When the stroke is finished and the end of
the pole brought out of the water, the fish are still sticking on the
nails. Then, you will see, if you watch him, he brings the nailed end
of the pole in over the canoe, taps the pole on the canoe, and the fish
drop off into the bottom of the boat. Don't you see the white shiny
specks on the pole every time he makes a stroke?"
"Yes," said Jack, "of course I see them, but that is a new way of
fishing to me, and I never should have guessed what he was trying to
do. I should think it would take a long time to get fish enough for a
mess in that way."
"Don't you believe it," said the sailor; "one of those fellows may get
a bushel or two of fish in two or three hours. Just you watch the pole
as one brings it up and see how many fish he gets to a stroke, and then
figure how many strokes he makes to a minute."
Jack watched for a few minutes and saw that at every sweep of the pole
two or half a dozen fish were brought up and knocked loose so as to
fall into the canoe, and he made up his mind that after all this was a
quick and easy way of fishing.
In the meantime Hugh had strolled up and was listening to their talk,
but without making any comment.
Presently Jack said to the sailor: "We are not near enough to make a
very good guess at the size of those fish; how big are they?"
"Oh," said the sailor, "they are not very big, maybe not more than four
or six inches long, but there are lots of them, as you can see. They
catch oolichans in that way too, when they are here, but they have gone
now. We only have them during the month of May, but then they gather in
certain places and there are worlds of them. The Indians catch them,
and the white folks catch them; in fact, for a little while pretty
nearly everybody lives on oolichans. They are mighty good eating, I
can tell you, and besides those eaten fresh, lots of them are smoked
and salted. The Indians don't save many of them. What they don't eat
fresh they use to make oil with, for the oolichan is an awful fat fish
and you can get lots of oil out of them. They are so fat, that after
they have been dried you can light them at one end and they will burn
just like a candle. I expect that is the reason that sometimes they are
called candle-fish."
"Say, friend," said Hugh, "you ain't joking, are you?"
"No," said the man, "I ain't joking; that's just the way it is, like I
tell you."
"Well, no offence," said Hugh. "Where I come from, in the mountains
and in the cattle country, sometimes the boys, when a stranger comes
around, sort of josh him in a good-natured way, and tell tall stories
just to see how much he will believe. I didn't know that maybe you had
such a custom as that out here."
"No, sir," said the sailor, "we don't do anything like that here. We
suppose that people ask us questions about the country because they
want to know how things really are, and we tell them just what the
facts are."
"Well," said Hugh, "it seems to me, from what I have seen, that the
facts are strange enough here, and it wouldn't be necessary for you to
stretch them a mite to astonish folks."
Soon after this Hugh and Jack went back to the place where they had
been sitting, in the shelter of the deck cabin, and sat there looking
over the beautiful view that was stretched out before them. Neither
said very much. Both were impressed by the beauty of the scene and
the novelty of their surroundings; for neither of them had ever seen
anything like it before.
"I tell you, son," said Hugh, "this here is a wonderful country to
me, and I never saw anything to match it. You see it's the first time
that I ever got down to the edge of the salt water. I don't know what
to make of it all. Everything is different; the mountains and timber,
the people, the animals, and the birds. And as for fish--why! I never
supposed there was any place in the world where fish were as plenty as
they are here."
"Yes," said Jack, "it's surely a wonderful country. There is something
new to look at every minute; and it's all just as different as can be
from anything I ever saw before. I was talking to one of the passengers
here a little while ago and he told me that these Indians here live
almost altogether on fish. They dig clams and catch mussels and catch
the salmon and the herrings and those little fish this sailor was
talking about; and they kill seals and porpoises and even whales. It's
all mighty strange, but doesn't it show just how people fit themselves
to the conditions that surround them? Now, suppose you take one of the
Blackfeet, turn him loose on his horse at the edge of the water, and
how do you think he would go to work to get his next meal? Why, he
would starve to death."
"He surely would," said Hugh. "Don't you know, that the things these
Indians here eat would be sort of poison to the Blackfeet? It is
against their medicine to eat fish or most anything that lives in the
water. They think those things are not fit to eat, and many of them
would starve before they would even touch them."
The vessel ploughed its way through the strait with the land rising
high on the right and lower on the left-hand side. Both coasts were
rock-bound, and the heavy swell dashed against the shore great waves,
whose foam flew high into the air. Away to the south rose high rough
mountains, their summits white with snow. To the north the land rose
gently, and green fields, dotted here and there with white houses,
stretched away for miles. Beyond were hills, forest-clad.
The travellers were busy looking in all directions at the beautiful
prospect spread before them. Suddenly, not far from the ship, a great
head rose above the water, remaining there for a moment looking at
the boat. Jack saw it and called out to his companion: "O Hugh! that
must be a sea-lion or a fur seal! It's bigger than the seals that I
have seen on the coast of Maine." After a moment the head disappeared
beneath the water. But in a few moments several other heads were seen;
and these seals, less timid than the first, swam along not far from
the boat, showing their great bodies partly out of the water, and
sometimes, in chasing one another, jumping high into the air. Further
along, the boat startled from the surface of the water a group of black
birds. Less in size than ducks, they flew swiftly along, close to the
water's surface. Jack could see that on the shoulders of each bird was
a round spot of white, while the legs were coral-red.
"There is a new bird to me, Hugh, and I bet it is to you, too. That
must be one of the birds they call guillemots. They live up in the
North and breed on the ledges of the rock. I have read about them
often."
"Well," said Hugh, "there's surely plenty to see here; and I wouldn't
be surprised if you and I travelled around all the time with our mouths
open, just because we are too surprised to remember to shut them."
All this time the boat was moving swiftly along. Toward afternoon she
rounded a sharp point of rocks; and, proceeding up a narrow channel,
the buildings of the town of Victoria were soon seen in the distance.
Hugh said:
"That must be our landing place, son. I'll be glad to get ashore and
stretch my legs. I take it, this here land that we are coming to is an
island, and very likely there won't be a horse in the place. We'll have
to do all of our travelling afoot, or in one of these cranky canoes,
and I haven't much of a notion of getting into one of them. I'll be a
good deal like you were the first time you got on a horse--afraid I'll
fall off; and yet I don't know as they'll be any harder to ride in than
the birch canoes I used to travel in up in the North."
Victoria, where our travellers landed that afternoon, was a charming,
quiet town of six or seven thousand inhabitants, situated on the
extreme southeastern point of Vancouver Island. For many years after
its settlement it had been nothing more than the Hudson's Bay fort and
trading post, with a few dwellings occupied by those employed there.
But the discovery of gold in small quantities on the Frazer River in
1857, and later on at the placer mines on the Quesnelle and at Caribou,
made a great change in the prospects of the place. Word of the new
diggings travelled fast and soon reached California, causing a world of
excitement among the mining population of that State, then ripe for a
fresh move. A rush took place, and all those who travelled toward the
new mines in British Columbia passed by the drowsy old Hudson's Bay
fort, where hitherto the only event of the year had been the arrival of
the ship from England with the mail. Now the fort was startled by the
coming of twenty thousand miners, who pitched their tents about it and
founded Victoria. Buildings sprang up and trade was attracted. Every
one going to the mines or coming from them passed through the town
and paid its tribute, and high hopes were entertained of its future
importance. People who lived there began to call it "the emporium of
commerce," "the metropolis of the northwest coast of America." But,
unfortunately for Victoria, the mines, which caused this excitement
soon ceased to pay; and the town's commerce fell off. It did not fulfil
the promises of its early youth, and its growth has since been slow.
Now, however, there was a prospect of speedy communication with the
rest of the world; for during the summer when our travellers reached
there, the Canadian Pacific Railroad was being built and the loyal
inhabitants of Victoria were again anticipating that the place would
become a great city--"a second San Francisco." There was reason for
their hopes. While the railroad could not directly reach Victoria, its
terminus on the mainland would be within easy reach of the Island City,
and would give Vancouver Island a market for its products. Its trade
at that time was little or nothing, for the goods sent to the United
States had to pay a heavy duty, which left little margin for profit.
Hugh and Jack spent several days at Victoria. The country was
picturesque and attractive, and the roads good. They took long walks
into the country to the Gorge and to Cedar Hill, from which a beautiful
view of the city could be obtained. The panorama included also a view
of the Straits of Fuca, the Gulf of Georgia with its hundreds of
islands, and the mainland, rough with mountain peaks, among which,
rising above all, stood Mt. Baker, calm and white, a snow-clad monarch.
While they remained in the town they lived literally on the fat of
the land. Victoria boasted one of the best hotels in the world; not
a pretentious structure, but one where everything that was good to
eat, in abundance, well cooked and well served, was furnished. There
were fish of many sorts,--salmon and sea bass, herring and oolichans,
oysters and clams, crabs, game, delicious vegetables, and abundance of
fruit.
Mr. Sturgis had given to Hugh a letter to an acquaintance of his in
Victoria, and one day Hugh and Jack called on Mr. MacTavish. He was
an old Hudson Bay man, who, after retiring from the service of the
Company had come to Victoria to live. He had a delightful family, and a
charming house, full of a multitude of interesting curiosities, picked
up during his long service in the North. Of these, one of the most
interesting was a complete set of dinner dishes, carved out of black
slate by the Haida Indians of the North. While the figures exhibited on
these were conventional in form and of Indian type, the carving was so
remarkably good that it was hard for Hugh and Jack to believe that the
work was Indian. Neither had ever seen anything done by Indians more
artistic than the ordinary painted skins of the plains' Tribes; and
when they saw such delicate, beautifully carved work, often inlaid with
the white teeth or fragments of bones of animals, it was hard for them
to understand how it all could have been done by native artists.
Mr. MacTavish told them much about the life of the island,--the fishing
and hunting. He said that at that very time, during the month of July,
the salt waters of the Straits and of the Gulf of Georgia abounded with
salmon, which were readily taken by trolling; and when thus taken, on a
light rod, furnished fine sport. Many of the brooks of the island, too,
afforded excellent trout fishing.
About Victoria there were found, he said, two species of grouse,--the
ruffed grouse and the blue grouse. The California quail had been
introduced and seemed to be increasing, but sportsmen did not care much
for it, because it did not lie well to a dog, but ran when alarmed and
took to the thickest brush, where it was impossible to shoot it. In the
autumn ducks and geese occurred in great numbers; and, on the whole,
shooting was good. Their host also told them there was a considerable
variety of big game. Deer were abundant within a few miles of Victoria;
and it was not uncommon for people, starting out in the evening, to
drive into the country and return the next night with several. There
were some places where still-hunting could be successfully followed;
but in most cases it was necessary to use hounds to drive the deer to
the water, for the timber was so thick, and the underbrush and ferns so
dense and tangled, that it was impossible to travel through the forests
without making a great deal of noise.
Their entertainer astonished Hugh and Jack by telling them that further
north on the island, in the neighborhood of Comox, elk were to be
found. They were not abundant, he said, and were hard to approach on
account of the character of the forest; but they were certainly there.
Bears and panthers were everywhere quite abundant. Sooke, a village
about twenty miles from Victoria, was a great place for bears. Many of
those killed were black or cinnamon; but it was reported that there
were also grizzlies at Sooke. The panthers were little hunted, except
in places where farmers had flocks or herds to protect. They lived
principally on the deer, which were very abundant. There were a few
wolves, but except in winter they were seldom seen.
Mr. MacTavish had a good knowledge of natural history; and he had much
to say to Jack, who was interested in the subject, about the curious
forms of life found in the surrounding waters. When he heard that
Jack and Hugh had come up there to spend a month travelling among the
islands, he told them that the best thing that they could do would be
to go over to the mainland, and there make the acquaintance of Jack
Fannin, a cobbler, living on Burrard Inlet, as he knew more about the
birds and mammals of the Province than any other man.
"Fannin is the man for you," said Mr. MacTavish, "and you should see
him before you make up your minds to do anything. He will give you the
best advice possible; and perhaps you can even get him to go with you.
That would be a great thing; it would add enormously to your pleasure,
and would save you many delays. And as he has mined, hunted, canoed,
and chopped logs over much of the coast, he knows it as well as any
one."
Our friends spent a long, delightful afternoon with Mr. MacTavish,
and when they spoke of returning to their hotel he would not let them
go, but kept them with him for the evening meal. They walked back
through the clear, cool moonlight to Victoria, and before they had
reached there had agreed that they would go by the first steamer to New
Westminster to hunt up Mr. Fannin.
The next day when they told Mr. MacTavish of their decision, he
congratulated them on their good judgment and gave them a letter to a
friend in New Westminster, who would take care of them and see that
they lost no time in finding the man they wanted.
The hospitality and kindness shown the two Americans by Mr. MacTavish
was typical of the treatment they received everywhere in British
Columbia. People there, they found, had time to enjoy life. They did
not rush about, after the headlong American fashion, but took things
quietly and easily. The stores were opened about nine or ten in the
morning, and at twelve they were closed. The shop-keepers went home to
lunch, appearing again and reopening their places about two o'clock;
keeping them open until four or five in the afternoon. Then their day's
work was over and they closed up for the night.