PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 259 
kinds are caught further north, and great quantities are salted by the 
Hudson’s Bay Company, at their trading post at Fort Simpson, British 
Columbia, and either soid in the Victoria market or shipped direct to 
London in tierces, barrels, and kits. 
As an article of food and for the grease or fat contained in them, the 
Eulachon are highly prized by the Indians of Northern British Colum- 
bia and Southern Alaska, where they abound; particularly at the Nass 
River, British Columbia, where they are annually taken in enormous 
quantities, and where they seem to attain their very finest condition. 
The Nass River flows into Portland Inlet near the fifty-fifth parallel 
of north latitude, near the southern boundary of Alaska, and 30 
mniles north-northeast of Fort Simpson, British Columbia. At its mouth 
it widens out into a bay called Nass Bay or Strait, in which are various 
Shoals favorable for the Eulachon spawning grounds. 
There are other rivers and streams in British Columbia and Alaska 
at the mouths of which Eulachon are taken, but as the Nass River fish- 
ery exceeds them all, and is, in fact, the principal place where the busi- 
ness is carried on by both whites and Indians, a description of that 
fishery will suffice. 
The principal run of the fish reaches Nass River in the latter part of 
March, generally from the 16th to the 22d, varying in exceptional years 
from the 28th to April 4. When the season approaches the Indians as- 
semble in great numbers; not only the Nishka, or natives of the Nass 
country, but from hundreds of miles distant, some in canoes and some 
overland. In former years quarrels and fights among the different 
tribes were common, but of late years the influences of the missions at 
Meitlakatla, Kincoleth, and Fort Simpson have produced a favorable 
change, not only in inducing them to be more peaceful, but to lay aside 
their old heathen superstitions, one of which was that all the fish eaten 
for the first four or five days after they commence to arrive must be 
either fried or toasted; no one was allowed to boil any, as they believed 
that if any were boiled the fish would immediately leave the river; they 
were also strictly forbidden to drink water after a meal of fish, lest there 
should be rain which would hinder the drying. These ceremonies are 
now abandoned in a great measure, and but seldom practiced at the 
present time. 
The Eulachon only travel up the Nass River as far as the flood tides 
reach, which is from 15 to 20 miles from its mouth. For about 7 miles 
from Nass Strait the river is unsuited for fishing operations. From 
thence to the Nass Village, at the head of tide-water, is a succession of 
sand-bars, and these form the spawning beds of the fish. Every avail- 
able spot along the banks of the river is occupied by the Indians during 
the fishing season, who erect temporary wigwams for themselves. 
As the fishing season approaches the arrival of the fish is anxiously 
watched by the natives, as it is a season of the year in which they are 
generally out of food. 
