UTILIZATION OF MARINE PRODUCTS OF CANADA 203 



Eulachons, a small, marine, smelt-like fish taken principally only in the 

 river estuaries, were hung from the head on large vertical racks for 

 open-air drying and when dried were so oily that they could be ignited 

 and used as candles. Probably the earliest fishery by-product industry 

 in what is now British Columbia arose from the craving of both Coastal 

 and Interior natives for fish oil as a cooking fat and as a protective or 

 ceremonial lotion for the skin and hair. The fish were allowed to under- 

 go some decomposition to partially free the oil and were then boiled in 

 wooden tanks, the liberated oil was floated and skimmed off and stored 

 in animal skins or (after congealing) in closely woven jar-shaped bas- 

 kets. Trade in this oil with Interior tribes developed the well-trodden 

 "grease trails" over the lowest mountain passes and through the most 

 suitable valleys into direct routes that would be a credit to a modern 

 road engineer. These native fishing and preservation methods still per- 

 sist on some parts of the coast, though the modern Indian has been 

 known to visit an Interior cousin via his own automobile or a com- 

 mercial airline, taking a token of eulachon grease either upon or with 

 him, to the olfactory discomfort of any white passengers. 



With the settlement of Canada's west coast by the white man, fol- 

 lowed in 1858 by the establishment of the Colony (now Province) of 

 British Columbia, a much greater exploitation of the coast's fishery 

 resources began. Commercial salting of Fraser River salmon com- 

 menced as early as 1829 and by 1835 some 3500 barrels were being ex- 

 ported annually, principally to the Hawaiian Islands; salmon canning 

 on the Fraser River began in 1870; fisheries for herring, trout, sturgeon, 

 halibut, flatfish, dogfish, eulachon, seals and porpoises were reported by 

 1875. It is not the purpose of this paper to summarize the subsequent 

 growth of British Columbia's fisheries or to describe the nature of the 

 raw materials and the many processing methods used to turn these into 

 finished products and by-products for local consumption, trade with the 

 rest of Canada, or export. Government fisheries statistics commenced, 

 in 1876 are available for such purposes. Suffice it to state that the 

 marketed value of British Columbia's fisheries in 1911 was $13,677,125, 

 and in 1951 was $85,500,000, while the marketed values of the v/hole 

 of Canada's fisheries for the same years were $34,667,872 and $200,125,000. 

 British Columbia therefore contributes a very substantial portion to the 

 total fisheries production of Canada, which exports more fish than it 

 imports because it produces more fish than its population desires for 

 their own consumption. The 13.7 pounds per capita per annum (1951) 

 consumption of fish by Canadians is quite low in comparison with that 

 of most other countries, even some not so richly endowed with fisheries 

 of their own. 



