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