348 GRINNELL 



able lakes, where the fish spawn. It is the common prac- 

 tice of many of the canners to fish with nets in these lakes, 

 and with an utter disregard for consequences to catch the 

 fish while occupied in depositing their eggs. 



As the natives of Alaska, many of them Aleuts, subsist 

 largely on salmon, the regulations of the Treasury De- 

 partment permit them to fish for food, and they are not 

 subject to the general law which provides " for the pro- 

 tection of the salmon fisheries of Alaska." Advantage is 

 taken of this liberty still further to destroy the fish. The 

 natives catch all the salmon they wish and sell them to 

 the canners, and this goes on indefinitely wherever the 

 prohibition against fishing is in any degree regarded. Of 

 course the natives, ignorant of the law, and, like the 

 white man, eager for present gain, are glad to catch the 

 fish and to sell them. 



It must be remembered that long before the white man 

 had come to Alaska, the fisheries on most of the streams 

 resorted to by the salmon already had owners. For hun- 

 dreds of years the Indians and the Aleuts had held these 

 fisheries, not in the general way in which an Indian tribe 

 claimed to possess a certain territory, but with an actual 

 ownership which was acknowledged by all and was never 

 encroached on. Their rights to the fisheries were as real 

 as to the arms that they bore or the boats in which they 

 traveled. For centuries certain families or certain clans 

 had held proprietary rights in particular streams, and they 

 alone could take fish from them. No Indian would fish 

 in a stream not his own. He respected the rights of 

 others, just as he expected others to respect his own. 

 These ancient rights have now been taken from the na- 

 tives by force, but they are still anxious to get what they 

 can from the fishing. 



On some streams it is easier to take the fish in traps 

 than it is to stop them by means of barricades, and then 



