WHITE HUNTERS. 361 



Two of the Indian hunters taken on board the Coririn at ITeah Bay. 

 Klahosh and his son Schuyler Colfax, while at Sitka bargained for the 

 schooner Ethel, seized by this vessel in Bering Sea last year, now owned 

 at Sitka and named the Clara. She is to be delivered to them on Paget 

 Sound at the end of the present sealing season on the coast for the sum 

 of $750. Later in the season the Indians at Quillehute and Neah Bay 

 go out from the land sealing in their canoes; also from the harbors on 

 the south and west coast of Vancouver. The Vancouver Indians go 

 out somewhat earlier than the others, for the reason that the seals 

 come nearer the coast, and are not compelled to venture so far from 

 shore in the treacherous weather of early spring. Two men constitute 

 a crew for a Vancouver Island or Cape Flattery canoe. They seldom 

 remain out over night. The Quillehute canoes carry three men, and 

 on account of the much greater distance they are compelled to go to 

 find seal are often kept out over night. 



Many of the Vancouver Island Indians are taken out as sealing crews 

 on the Victoria sealing schooners. The schooner JRosie Olson, boarded 

 by us May 13, had a crew consisting of Vancouver Indians. Each 

 canoe receives $3 for each skin taken by her, or $1.50 per man, and a 

 bounty of $25 a canoe for the season. The chief or head man receives 

 $120 for engaging the canoes. 



Owing to the later arrival of spring and pleasant weather farther 

 north, the sealing season there begins later. At Sitka they made the 

 first sealing trips in canoes about May 1. On account of the uncer- 

 tainty of the weather they dared not venture out earlier. We saw 

 numerous seals off the entrance to Sitka Sound early in April, and so 

 reported to the Indians at Sitka, but even this was not enough to tempt 

 them outside until the arrival of settled weather. At Hooniah about 

 the middle of April we were told that hunters were out after hair-seal 

 and fish for use on a seal and sea otter hunting trip which they pro- 

 posed to undertake some weeks later. 



On our arrival at Capes Chacon and Muzon, on the north side of 

 Dixons Entrance about May 11, we found large numbers of Indian seal- 

 hunters from various parts of Alaska and from British Columbia and 

 Queen Charlotte Island encamped waiting for moderate weather to begin 

 sealing. They arrived on the ground about May 1, and said they would 

 return to their home sometime in June, as the seal would theu be gone. 

 But three seals had been taken at Cape Chacon, and two at Cape Muzon. 



A crew for a hunting canoe at Cape Chacon consists of four men. 

 The Cape Muzon canoes, which are larger and go farther to sea in search 

 of seals, carry six men. The hunter is in charge, and employs the 

 other men. They use the spear but little, depending almost entirely 

 upon the gun, and what seems most remarkable, they use the Hudson 

 Bay musket, a single-barreled muzzle-loader of large bore, instead of 

 the fine double-barreled breechloader in use by the white hunters and 

 the Neah Bay and other Indians. 



The white hunters use principally shotguns, but in some cases the 

 rifle. A boat contains a hunter and a rower and 

 a steerer. Whenever a seal comes within gunshot L. G. Shepard, p. 188. 

 range, the white hunter fires at it. 



Second. Deponent's views as to the history of the sealing business 

 down to the year 1887 are best set forth in a state- 

 ment prepared by him personally, and submitted C.A. Williams, p. 536. 

 to a committee of Congress on merchant marine, 

 hereto annexed and marked A. Before submitting that statement to 



