CHAPTER III.
FISH HARVESTING.
Thesystems 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 distanceoff, 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 practisedropemaker—-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 thetransport 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, whichare 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 constructedby 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, thushoopingsalmon 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 muleand 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 thebase 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 inbalesmade 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, andrivers 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, theypavea 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 theadventurous 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, andthe 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 cautiousconfrères; 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 thatday 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 rememberone 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 ageneral 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, notmuch 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 nativesEulachonor Candle-fish. I have had both leisure and opportunity to make this fish’s intimate acquaintance; played the spyupon 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 eightfeet 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 fillwith 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.