Travels in Alaska 



the tail and swinging them over his head. Thousands 

 could thus be taken by hand at low tide, while they 

 were making their way over the shallows among the 

 stones. 



Whatever may be said of other resources of the 

 Territory, it is hardly possible to exaggerate the im- 

 portance of the fisheries. Not to mention cod, herring, 

 halibut, etc., there are probably not less than a thou- 

 sand salmon-streams in southeastern Alaska as large 

 or larger than this one (about forty feet wide) 

 crowded with salmon several times a year. The first 

 run commenced that year in July, while the king 

 salmon, one of the five species recognized by the 

 Indians, was in the Chilcat River about the middle 

 of the November before. 



From this wonderful salmon-camp we sailed joy- 

 fully up the coast to explore icy Sum Dum Bay, be- 

 ginning my studies where I left off the previous 

 November. We started about six o'clock, and pulled 

 merrily on through fog and rain, the beautiful wooded 

 shore on our right, passing bergs here and there, the 

 largest of which, though not over two hundred feet 

 long, seemed many times larger as they loomed gray 

 and indistinct through the fog. For the first five 

 hours the sailing was open and easy, nor was there 

 anything very exciting to be seen or heard, save now 

 and then the thunder of a falling berg rolling and 

 echoing from cliff to cliff, and the sustained roar of 

 cataracts. 



About eleven o'clock we reached a point where the 

 fiord was packed with ice all the way across, and we 



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