1909.] The Life History of the Pacific Salmon. 27 



tember, and in the Snake River itself they reach the Salmon Falls in south- 

 ern Idaho where they spawn in October and November. The enormous 

 extent of the migration in the Columbia is well shown in a map given by 

 Col. Marshall Macdonald.* In the Fraser River the Sockeye spawn in 

 large numbers in the Shuswap Lakes, at Ouesnel Lake at a distance of 

 about three hundred and fiftv miles from the sea, and they also reach the 

 head waters, spawning in Stuart and Tatla lakes and in Lake Frangois 

 in considerable numbers, five hundred miles from the ocean. The Hump- 

 backs do not extend so far up, none being observed in a big run of that 

 species in 1907 above Kamloops on the Thompson River, a distance of 

 two hundred and fifty miles from the sea, and in the Fraser River proper 

 none were seen above Seton Lake. "In the rest of the watershed the 

 streams were crowded with countless thousands. The Nicola River was 

 a wriggling mass of fish from a point about half a mile from Nicola Lake 

 to the river's mouth, and they literally filled all the other tributaries of 

 the Thompson and the Fraser below the points named. "f 



This description by Commissioner Babcock gives a vivid picture of 

 the enormous abundance of the fish during the run in the good years. 

 The number of fish at a given point of the river will, of course vary from 

 time to time, but at the height of a good run they may be seen in such num- 

 bers as to justify some of the stories one hears concerning them, such as 

 it being possible to cross the river practically dry shod on their backs 

 or that they have overturned a stage coach while it was fording the stream. 

 They certainly would readily overturn a rowboat, not to speak of a canoe, 

 and in the great run of 1905 an observer at the fish-way at Quesnel Lake 

 states that "There were days w^hen the fish were two or three feet deep 

 going through the ladder. It ran red with then). "J 



The Fraser is the largest and longest river of British Columbia, and 

 it is in it that the run is greatest. S^me idea of the extent of a good run 

 may be obtained from the statistics of the pack produced by the canneries 

 operating on the river and the adjacent waters. In 1905, the last "good " 

 year for which I have complete figures, the Canadian canneries of the Fraser 

 River district pvit up 877,136 cases of salmon of all varieties, each case 

 consisting of forty-eight pounds. In addition to this the canneries operat- 

 ing in the State of Washington, which m.ake use of fish migrating toward 

 the Fraser River, put up 1,057,295 cases, so that the total pack of Fraser 



*Bull, U. S. Fish Commission. XIV. 1894. 



tj. P. Babcock. Report of the Commissioner of Fisheries for British Columbia 

 for the year 1907. Victoria, B.C., 1908. 



JReport of the Fisheries Commissioner for British Columbia for the Year 1905. 

 Victoria, 1906. 



