Bahcock. — The Great Fraser River Fishery 245 



Naval Service, Ottawa, and William A. Found, Superintendent 

 of Fisheries for the Dominion of Canada, representing Great 

 Britain; and the Honorable Wm. C. Redfield, Secretary of 

 Commerce, Edwin F. Sweet, Assistant Secretary of Com- 

 merce, and Dr. Hugh M. Smith, United States Commissioner 

 of Fisheries, representing the United States. Following an 

 extended investigation, that commission, like the commissions 

 of 1906 and 1908, unanimously found that the situation was 

 critical and recommended joint action on the part of Canada 

 and the United States. Subsequently a treaty was signed at 

 Washington, D, C, in 1919. Canada at once approved the 

 treaty. That treaty now awaits the action of the Senate of 

 the United States. 



Canada stands today, as she has stood since the beginning, 

 ready to adopt any measures which promise to restore the 

 runs of sockeyes to the Fraser River system. She can accom- 

 plish nothing without the cooperation of the United States. 

 Neither Canada nor the United States acting singly can pro- 

 vide measures that will ensure restoration of the salmon. 



Deplorable as the conditions on the Fraser system are, the 

 runs of sockeyes can be restored by concurrent action on the 

 part of Canada and the United States. It has been shown 

 that in the big years 1901, 1905, 1909, and 1913, the Fraser 

 system produced an average of 1,927,602 cases of sockeyes, 

 and at the same time afforded an ample supply to seed all of 

 the spawning beds. The average catch of the four big years 

 named may again be taken whenever the beds are again as 

 abundantly seeded as they were in the brood years that pro- 

 duced those big runs. The spawning area of the Fraser basin 

 has not been lessened or damaged in any way. Its spawning 

 beds are as extensive and as siiitable for salmon propagation 

 as they ever were. Its lake waters are as abundantly filled as 

 ever with the natural food for the development of young 

 sockeyes, and the channels of the Fraser are open and free to 

 the passage of fish. All that is required to reproduce the great 



