Babcock. — The Great Fraser River Fishery 241 



existing conditions the sockeyes will be exterminated within 

 a short period. 



The Fraser River basin has an area of 90,903 square 

 miles. It contains sixteen great lakes and many rivers that 

 have a total area of 2,351 square miles. No other river on 

 the Pacific Coast drains so extensive an area of lake water 

 adapted to the propagation and rearing of sockeyes. In the 

 past it has produced greater runs of sockeyes than any other 

 river because this great spawning area was abundantly seeded 

 every fourth year. It has been shown that sockeyes spawn 

 in streams tributary to lakes and on the shoals of lakes, and 

 that their young remain in the lake-waters for a year or more 

 after hatching and then migrate to the sea. Knowing that 

 the sockeyes were bred in the watershed of the Fraser, we 

 therefore know that the great runs of sockeyes in the big years 

 1901, 1905, 1909, and 1913 originated there. The runs of 

 those years produced an average pack of 1,927,602 cases and at 

 the same time afforded in the first three named years a suffi- 

 cient number to seed the entire spawning area. Therefore the 

 amount of the average pack of the big years 1901, 1905, 1909, 

 and 1913 may be safely taken from the run without an over- 

 draft, whenever the spawning beds are as abundantly seeded 

 as they were in 1901, 1905, and 1909. The spawning area of 

 the Fraser has not been lessened or injured. Its spawning 

 beds have not been damaged or interfered with by settlement, 

 factories, mining, or irrigation. Its gravel beds and shoals 

 are as extensive and as suitable for spawning as they ever 

 were. Its lake-waters are as abundantly filled as ever with 

 the natural food for the development of young sockeyes. The 

 channels of the Fraser are open and free to the passage of fish. 

 All that is required to reproduce the great runs of the past is a 

 sufficient number of spawning fish to seed the beds as abun- 

 dantly as they were seeded in 1901, 1905, and 1909, and in 

 former big years. The fishery cannot be restored in any 

 other way. 



The great sockeye salmon fishery of the Fraser River sys- 



