6 GEORGE V SESSIONAL PAPER No. 38a A. 1916 



INVESTIGATION INTO THE PACIFIC HALIBUT FISHERIES, BRITISH 



COLUMBIA. 



By Professor Arthur Willey, D.Sc, F.R.S., F.R.S.C., 

 McGill University, Montreal. 



PART I. — IXTRODUCTION. 



It is known that the halibut has already passed the zenith of its productivity in 

 the north Atlantic and is now far outclassed in industrial importance by the Pacific 

 race which belongs to the same species. Yet the critical periods of its life and growth, 

 spawning, metamorphosis, and migrations have thus far eluded the efforts of the 

 international commission for the exploitation of the sea, which has accomplished so 

 much in other fields. 



The economic history of the halibut fishery on the northwest coast of the Ameri- 

 can continent may be said to have begun with Indian tradition, and to have culmin- 

 ated in the competitive industry of to-day. The sign of the halibut was used as a 

 crest by the Haidas of the Queen Charlotte islands in the days when that tribe was 

 in the ascendant. Dr. C. F. Newcombe, of Victoria, who is a great authority on 

 Indian antiquities in British Columbia, showed me an illustration of a Haida com- 

 munal grave house from Cumshewa, which had been installed in the Department of 

 Anthropology of the Field Columbian Museum (see publication 98, report series, 

 vol. ii, No. 4, annual' report for 1903-04, Chicago, October, 1904, plate liii, opposite 

 p. 281). The house measures 17 by 20 feet, and in the middle of its facing boards 

 there is a carved post portraying in its entirety the halibut crest, a very rare example. 

 The figure of the halibut may sometimes be recognized in Indian rock-carvings or 

 petroglyphs. An exceptionally interesting animal scene, which ought to be protected 

 from the class of visitors who cut their names or initials on all objects of beauty and 

 rarity, is to be found a little to the south of the town of Nanaimo, carved on a sand- 

 stone knoll above a gravel pit off the main road between the Indian reservation and 

 the Chase river. It deserves to be kept as one of the sights of Nanaimo, but will 

 soon be destroyed unless it is cared for by those in authority. Mr. George Wadding- 

 ton, of Nanaimo, kindly gave me a print from a photograph of it which he had taken 

 after chalking over the deeply incised lines. The original, without chalk, does not 

 give the impression of crudeness in its sylvan surroundings, but of typical aboriginal 

 decorative art. The halibut can be seen to the left of the middle of the picture. Tliis 

 petrograph has also been described and illustrated by Mr. Harlan J. Smith and by 

 Dr. C. F. Newcombe. 



Accounts of eye-witnesses of the old Indian methods of fishing for halibut have 

 been written by J. J. Lord and G. M. Dawson. Lord, the author of the " Naturalist 

 in Vancouver Islarfd and British Columbia" (two vols., London, 1866), gave a vivid 

 description of his experience in a fishing canoe off the northern end of Vancouver 

 island. He surmised correctly that the species was identical with Pleuronectes liippo- 

 glossus Linnse (1758), inhabiting the North Atlantic ocean. This specific deter- 

 mination was subsequently corroborated by Dr. Tarleton H. Bean (" On the occur- 

 rence of Hippoglossus vulgaris Flem., at Unalaska and St. Michaels, Alaska," Proc. 

 U.S. Nat. Mus., vol. ii, 1879, pp. 63-66). It may be explained that the systematic 

 name of the halibut as given by Jordan and Evermann (Fishes of North America, 

 part iii, 1898, p. 2611) is, in accordance with the rules of priority, Hippoglossus 

 hippoglossus. The Linnsean species was promoted to generic rank by Cuvier (1817) 

 and was called Hippoglossus vulgaris by Fleming (1828). 



38a— 1 



