REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 141 



540. Tlie Tliiikit (Uaiioga tribe) of Klawak on Bucarelli Sound, Prince 

 of Wales Island, are now mingled with some Indians of Kaigani 

 (Haida) extraction. They have not in recent years hunted the fur-seal 

 in spring or summer, being more remuneratively and less arduously 



emj)loyed at that season in salmon canneries, or at other work. 

 93 During the winter, however, most of the men hunt the fur-seal 



to a greater or less extent j a single hunter sometimes getting as 

 many as twenty skins in a season. Here, five men often go together 

 in a canoe, the canoes used being larger than those at Sitka. In the 

 spring and early summer the seals are far off shore, but in the winter 

 months they come close in, particularly the gray i)ups and yearlings. 

 About two years ago, seals appeared in great numbers. In a good season , 

 200 or 300 skins are secured at Klawak, for which 2 dollars to 9 dollars 

 is paid by the traders on the si)ot. The flesh is sometimes eaten, but 

 not now so much as formerly, though the fat is still prized as food. 



541. Haida. — In the northern part of the Queen Charlotte Islaiuls 

 (lying off the northern extreme of the coast-line of British Columbia), 

 Masset is now the principal Indian Settlement. Here the Haida ]ieople 

 who formerly inhabited permanent villages at Virago Sound, JSTorth 

 Island, and elsewhere, now centre, though still resorting for purposes 

 of hunting and fishing to their ojd homes. Inquiries nuule at Masset 

 among the Indians (including Chief Edensaw, an old but very intel- 

 ligent man), with other information obtained, enable the following- 

 statements to be made respecting fur-seal hunting by the Haida peoi>le. 



542. About the beginning of the present century the sea-otter was 

 very abundant, and was systematically hunted. Fur-seals were often 

 seen, and, when required for food, were shot with arrows tipped with 

 the bone of the whale, or speared, though the skins at that time were 

 of little value. About the year 1840 (the year in which Fort Victoria 

 was established) the Haida first began to make a business of hunting 

 the fur-seal for skins. Guns were employed from the tirst in this hunt- 

 ing, loaded either with buck-shot or with " trade bullets," three to a 

 charge. At first comparatively few skins were got, but for the past 

 fifteen years a considerable nuinber has been obtained — in tv/o of these 

 years 1,000 skins or more. In 1873, a post of the Hudson's Bay Com- 

 pany was established at Masset, chiefly for the purpose of buying fur- 

 seal skins from the Indians, and the increased activity of the local 

 hunters coincides with this date. The Indians first saw schooners 

 engaged in hunting oft" this part of the coast about thirteen years ago. 



543. The hunting season is the spring and early summer, and most 

 of the hunting is done in Dixon Entrance, where the hunters have a 

 good chance of making the land safely, either to the south or north, if 

 bad weather comes on. They know that seals are often abundant in 

 the open ocean to the westward, but seldom go far out in that direction 

 because of the danger of being blown off" and lost. North Island is a 

 favourite starting-point for the hunters. 



544. In hunting there are usually four paddlers in a canoe, and one 

 man to shoot. When shot through the head, and at once killed, the 

 seals frequently sink, and long ago hunters often lost seals in this way; 

 now they spear the seals as soon as they are shot, and seldom lose any. 

 The males are the most apt to sink, while females with young always 

 float. Mr. R. H. Hall, formerly in charge of the northern coast posts 

 of the Hudson's Bay Company, who has himself been at sea with the 

 Haida when hunting, as the result of his own experience, states that if 

 a seal is lightly wounded with shot it generally escapes, as it is then 

 impossible to overtake it with a single canoe. If severely wounded or 



