FISHERIES OF WASHINGTON AND BRITISH COLUMBIA. 301 



considered to present the best advantages yet discovered, and much 

 larger catches of sock eye have been made directly in front of it than 

 in any other part of the salt water. Along the south side of Point 

 Roberts long leaders are not ijossible, and the cribs are invariably 

 comparatively near the shore, but the fish also keep correspondingly 

 farther in, and after Cannery Point the next best sites are said to be 

 in the neighborhood of the southwest corner. West of the point, up 

 toward the boundary line, the bottom is again suited to long leaders. 



Trap-net fishing was started at Point Roberts some years before it 

 was taken up at other places. The first net of this kind was built by 

 John Waller, about 1880, off Cannery Point, a short distance north of 

 the Indian reef, and this position appears to have been more continu- 

 ously occupied for the purpose than any other. For nearly a decade, 

 however, such operations as were carried on were scarcely more than 

 experimental, and the results for the most part were small. While we 

 have little information on the subject, the traps as first constructed 

 seem not to have been entirely suited to the capture of the sock eye, 

 and the value of the different sites had yet to be learned. In Waller's 

 trap the crib is safd to have been only about 20 feet square, while 

 the leader, measuring some 900 feet long, did not approach nearer than 

 300 feet from the shore. It was set only during the sockeye run, the 

 greater portion of the catch being sold to the canneries on the Fraser 

 River, while the remainder were salted. Mr. Waller was succeeded 

 about 1885 by a practical fisherman from the Great Lakes, who is still 

 at Point Roberts and who has done much to bring the net to its present 

 state of perfection. He made use of at least the same general position 

 as Mr. Waller, but in 1887 a second trap was added on the eastern side, 

 much nearer the boundary line. Until 1891 the number of these nets 

 does not seem to have been increased beyond two, the catch by this 

 means continuing small and being disposed of as in the beginning. 

 In the last-named year, however, a small cannery, the first one in the 

 region, was built at Semiahmoo, at the eastern end of Boundary Bay, 

 and arrangements were made to obtain the necessary supplies of fish 

 from Point Roberts. This led to the erection of one or two, possibly 

 three, additional traps. In 1893 a second cannery was built, this one 

 occupying the southeast corner of the Point, and the number of traps 

 was increased to 13, 11 being operated by the two canneries, and 2 

 independently. Before the next season both canneries had passed into 

 the control of the Alaska Packers' Association, which made use of 12 

 traps during 1894, while 4 were under independent management, making 

 16 in all south of the boundary line. During this year the first net was 

 placed in the Canadian waters of Boundary Bay, being located close 

 to the line. 



In 1895 there were 33 trap-net locations about Point Roberts, of 

 which 23 were east of the Point in Boundary Bay, and the remainder 

 south and west of it. This number included both the traps in use and 

 those of previous years whose positions were still marked by more or 



