398 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



positive injury to the welfare of the Indians, making it desirable to remove them altogether from 

 Neah Bay to some other place ou the coast south of Cape Flattery, are grave problems which the 

 Government will, at no distant day, be called upon to solve. 



The proximity of Neah Bay to the waters covered each season, with innumerable swarms of 

 fur-seals, its nearness to the banks where annually thousands of tons of halibut are taken by the 

 Indians of Cape Flattery and the west coast of Vancouver's Island, the fact that it is 700 miles 

 nearer the codfish banks of the North Pacific than San Francisco, and that it is the only safe 

 harbor of refuge at the entrance to Fuca Strait, are commercial questions of great and increasing 

 value. The near advent of commercial activity on Puget Sound will call the attention of capital- 

 ists to their importance, and show to the commercial world the necessity of utilizing the many 

 advantages Neah Bay possesses, and eventuate in building up a thriving village of whites instead 

 of the unsightly Indian wigwams of the present. 



It is a well-ascertained fact that the seals come from the south, approaching the coast in the 

 vicinity of Point Greuville and Destruction Island, then in the vicinity of Quilleute and Flattery 

 Rocks, and later in the season along the west coast of Vancouver Island. 



At the commencement of the sealing season all the sealing vessels, both American and 

 English, cruise between Cape Flattery and Point Grenville, and as the great herd slowly moves 

 northward the English vessels keep within their own waters, and are followed by our own vessels, 

 which find the harbors of Barclay Sound and Clyoquot convenient places to run for shelter, just 

 as the English schooners at the commencement of the season will visit Neah Bay as a harbor of 

 refuge. 



The general belief is that these seals go directly north after leaving the vicinity of Cape 

 Flattery, and some of the English schooners follow them to the region about Queen Charlotte 

 Islands and the southern coast of Alaska. This is undoubtedly true of a large portion of the herd or 

 herds, for they do not appear to be in one body, but rather like the salmon in separate schools, 

 although their time of appearance is the same. But the observations of some of the sealing cap- 

 tains this season lead them to the conclusion that the fur-seal seen off.Cape Flattery do not go to 

 Bering Sea at all, but "haul out," as it is termed, on some undiscovered island in the North 

 Pacific or go direct to the Japanese or Siberian coasts. 



Capt. E. H. McAlmond, of schooner Champion, and Capt- N. T. Oliver, of schooner Eudora, 

 two of the largest vessels in the fleet, which proceeded farther out to sea than either of the others, 

 both told me that the last of the season the seals appeared to be " striking off due west." 



In a conversation I had in February last with Capt. William Spring, of schooner Favourite, 

 and Capt. Hugh McKay, of schooner Onward, both vessels belonging to Victoria, British Columbia, 

 which had put in here for a harbor, I found they held the same opinion, that the seals " hauled out 

 on some undiscovered islands in the North Pacific and did not all go into Bering Sea." These two 

 gentlemen, with whom I have been personally acquainted for nearly twenty years, are among the 

 oldest and most experienced men in the seal and sea-otter business. 



2. STATISTICS FOR 1880. 



The following statements show the condition of the fur-seal fishery of Cape Flattery and vicin- 

 ity as reported at Neah Bay, Clallam County, Washington Territory, for the season ending June 

 30, 1880: 



