C. L. HOOPER, CAPTAIN, U. S. R. M. 503 



and on accomit of the niiieli greater distance they are compelled to go 

 to find seal are often kept out over night. 



Many of the Vancouver Is hind Indians are taken out as sealing crews 

 on the Victoria sealing schooners. Tlie schooner Rosie Olsen, boarded 

 bv ns May 13, had a crew consisting of Vancouver „ . ^, 



T T T71 1 • *. o J? 1 1 • J. 1 liosie Olsen, 1892. 



Indians. Ii^ach canoe receives $o tor 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 weatlier 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 uncertainty 

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

 seals ott" the entrance to Sitka Sound early in April, and so reported to 

 the Indians at vSitka, but even this was not enough to tempt them out- 

 side until the arrival of settled weather. At Hooniah about the mid- 

 dle of April we were told that hunters were out after hair-seal and lish 

 for use on a seal and sea-otter hunting trip which they proposed to un- 

 dertake some weeks later. 



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

 on's Entrance about May 11, we fimiid large numbers 

 of Indian seal-hunters from various i)arts 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 Avould return to their home S(une- 

 tinie in June, as the seal would then 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 

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

 Neah Bay and other Indians. 



In regard to the migration of the seal, from all I have learned I am 

 of the opinion that the seals upon leaving the Pribilof 

 Islands, make their Avay to the coast of California and '"''* '°°' 

 Oregon in much less time than is generally supposed. The females and 

 young leave first, commencing in October. The younger males follow, 

 and, I am convinced. Join and remain with the females until they return 

 to the islands, although it appears that they do not haul out at the same 

 time as the females. We found the females, yearlings, and two-year- 

 olds of both sexes together at all times. I have been told by seal hun- 

 ters that it is no unusual thing to find a young male keeping watch 

 near a sleeping female; that when but two seals are seen together one 

 is a young male and one a female, and that, if either, it is the female 

 that is asleep. 



It is well known that many seals, especially males, remain on the 

 islands well into the winter. According to the statement of a hunter 

 who was on board at the time, the British schooner Bore- 

 alis, Hansen, master, raided Southwest rookery on St. oreaiis,isn. 

 Paul Island on the night of November 27, 1891, and took 480 seals, 

 which would inilicate that at that time seals were still x)lentiful on the 

 island. 



I visited the Pribilof Islands about January 23, 188G, in command of 

 the revenue steamer Bush, and was told that a "drive" had been made 



