334 HISTORY. 



Up to nearly the time my work was published, little was known about 



niariue seal fishing. It was mostly confined to the 



C. M. Scammon,p. 475. Indians. A tew vessels were engaged in the trade 



from Victoria , but cut no figure in commerce. The 



price of skins was comparatively low, and no great inducements were 



offered to go into the business. It was when prices advanced, and white 



hunters acquired the skill of following the movements of the seals and 



in shooting from a boat, that the real danger of the extermination of 



the species became apparent. The records of the Pribilof Islands show 



that not many seals were left on the rookeries about 1810 to 1845, and 



very few then appeared in the vicinity of the British Columbia coast. 



As those rookeries increased so the " Victoria catch " increased, and 



amounted to about 5,000 skius in 1809. (Marine Mammals, p. 154.) 



Previous to ten years ago I always hunted seals with a spear in a 

 large canoe, and from 20 to 30 miles around Cape 



Watkins, p. 394. Flattery and from 00 to 100 miles up and down 



the coast. Each canoe carried 3 Indians, and I 

 was the spearman, and generally seemed about all of the seals that I hit, 

 but would sometimes miss them and they would swim away. In hunt- 

 ing with schooners during the last ten or twelve years we would take 

 ten or fifteen smaller canoes on board and go up and down the coast 

 from the mouth of the Columbia River to the upper end of Vancouver 

 Island. We send but 2 men out in the small canoe. I have always 

 used the spear in hunting the seals and none of the hunters that went 

 with me ever used the gnu. We do not like to use guns because it 

 scares the seals away. 



VESSELS USED. 



Page 187 of The Case. 



(See also " Sealing by Coast Indians.") 



About five or six years ago I commenced to hunt in smaller canoes 

 that were taken out to sea in schooners. I 

 Bowa-chup, p. 376. hunted with spears all of the time. 



About ten years ago the first British schooner came into Pachenah 

 Bay to get Indian hunters, and have been coming 

 Charlie, p. 304. in there ever since, increasing in numbers year by 



year, till now there are nearly one hundred seal- 

 ing schooners on the coast hunting seals. 



My tribe used to hunt exclusively in canoes, and did not go many 



miles from the cape, but in the last ten or twelve 



Jas. Lighthouse, p. 390. years a good many of ie hunters put their canoes 



on the small schooners, owned by some of us, and 



we go farther out into the sea, and from the Columbia River to Bar 



clay Sound, to hunt seals. Unless we use guns we will have to stop 



hunting them, for they are getting so wild we cannot catch many. 



The sealing industry, as regards British Columbia, started in about 



1872; at that time Indians only were employed to 



Mon-is Moss, p. Ml. do the killing, which was done by spearing. The 



fleet was small, not numbering over half a dozen 



vessels, and the trade was in the hands of three or four men. In 1883 



