24 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Through the Yukon region of the great northwest, there is a 

 grayling, very abundant in the right waters and bearing the name of 

 the standard-bearer, Tliymallus signifer. In the old days, after the 

 great glacial ice, this fish extended to the eastward over a much larger 

 area, but the ice has melted away, and there are left three isolated 

 colonies to the southeast of the main band. One of these colonies is 

 called Tliymallus ontariensis or tricolor and lives in certain streams, 

 notably the Jordan and the Au Sable, in the sandy woods of the south- 

 ern peninsula of Lake Michigan. In both these streams the grayling is 

 growing scarce through the combined evil influence of the lumberman 

 and the trout-hog. In the northern peninsula, there is another isolated 

 little colony. Let us call its stream the Nameless Eiver, and if we 

 leave it so the thyme-scented fish may increase to fill other rivers which 

 are not nameless. 



The remaining colony, a little changed from the other two through 

 long isolation, is in Montana, at the head of the Missouri Eiver. The 

 Montana grayling is called Tliymallus montanus. It is most plentiful 

 in the Gallatin River, and if you look through the mountains till you 

 find Horsethief Creek, you will be sure of at least one day's good sport. 

 It will take all day to find the creek, no matter from where you start. 



And this brings me to describe my best day's sport with the 

 grayling. It so happened that in June, 1897, the present writer was 

 in the city of Juneau, the metropolis of Alaska. That day, the Cana- 

 dian surveyor, Ogilvie, since noted in Klondyke history, had reached 

 Juneau from up the coast and across the mountains with a wonderful 

 story of the happenings in the northwest territory of Canada, on the 

 banks of the middle Yukon. It seems that the Indian Skookum Jim 

 of Caribou Crossing, with his friend Tagish Charley, a squaw man 

 Siwash George, and his wife, who was Skookum Jim's sister, were 

 wandering across the country, supposed vaguely to be in the interest 

 of one Anderson— looking for gold. 



Away down the river beyond Lake Labarge, one of the men took 

 sick. He had eaten too much blubber of some sort, and the wife of 

 Siwash George went down to a brook to get him a basin of water. In 

 the bottom of the basin was a streak of fine gold. They went down to 

 the stream and bailed out more. Then Skookum Jim, as his name 

 would indicate, started out swiftly at the top of his speed, " touching 

 only the high places," to record with the Dominion authorities the 

 claim of himself and his associates. Skookum in Chinook means swift, 

 hence Skookum Chuck — a waterfall. Bonanza Creek, Klondyke, 

 Dawson then at once became names and then realities, and all the 

 world knows their story. Skookum Jim, a millionaire, built himself 

 a large house of pine lumber at Caribou Crossing. He went to Seattle 

 to buy a Brussels carpet for its floor. When the carpet came it was 

 too broad by nearly a yard for Skookum Jim's best room. So he had 



