UP THE S KEEN A RIVER. 181 



UP THE SKEENA KIVEK TO THE HOME OF THE 



TSIMSHIANS.* 



By GEORGE A. DORSEY, Ph. D., 



FIELD COLUMBIAN MUSEUM, CHICAGO, ILL. 



IN a recent number of the Monthly I described some of the in- 

 cidents of a visit to the Haida and Tlingit villages about Dixon's 

 Entrance; now I am to speak of the Tsimshian villages on the Skeena 

 River. The Tsimshian Indians are one of the five great stocks which 

 make up the aboriginal population of the coast of British Columbia 

 and southern Alaska. They are shut in by the Tlingits on the north 

 and by the Kwakiutls on the south, while on the head waters of the 

 Nass and Skeena Rivers they come in contact with the great Tinneh 

 or Athabascan stock. The Tsimshians are probably the most pro- 

 gressive of all the coast Indians, and are one of a few stocks on the 

 American continent which are holding their own in point of numbers. 

 Desiring to visit those villages which are least contaminated by 

 modern influence, we ascended the Skeena River to the village of 

 Kitanmaksh or Hazelton. The Skeena is the historic river of British 

 Columbia; its name signifies the " Water of Terrors." Nearly every 

 rock, every bend, every canon is the scene of some mythical tale. 

 The scene of the birth of the Tsimshian nation lies in its valley; the 

 rock is still revered upon which rested the Tsimshian ark after the 

 flood, and the " Dum-lak-an," " the new home and place of dispersal," 

 is still a Mecca to which pilgrimages are made. In the modern de- 

 velopment of the Omenica and Cariboo gold fields the Skeena has 

 been the highway to the sea. For hundreds of years canoes have 

 been paddled up and down its waters; it has been the highway for 

 intertribal trade from time immemorial, and when the Hudson Bay 

 Company's post was established at Hazelton, and merchandise began 

 to pour into the upper country in a steady stream, the Tsimshians 

 with their canoes enjoyed for a long time a monopoly of the carrying 

 trade. Gradually, as they learned the ways and methods of the white 

 man, the price per ton of freight from the coast to Hazelton began 

 steadily to rise, until in 1891 the' tariff of sixty dollars a ton was de- 

 clared ruinous by the company, and they decided to build their own 

 steamer with which to carry their freight up the river. 



Port Essington is the chief port of the mouth of the Skeena, 

 and in Essington we found ourselves on the twenty-third day 

 of July. The Caledonia was up the river on her third trip, but 

 was expected back any hour, but so delightfully uncertain is the river 



* From a lecture delivered at the Field Columbian Museum, November 13, 1897. 



