The Salmon of the Pacific Slope. 201 



On, towards those uprising cliffs, clothed with algous forests, 

 does the racial instinct drive our sleek four-year-old. The closer 

 he approaches these submarine foothills of a vast continent the 

 greater becomes the number of his fellows, all heading in the same 

 direction. Three spots, many hundreds of miles apart, appear to 

 be favourite rendezvous ; the most southerly of these being the 

 great shoals near the mouth of the Columbia ; the next, in a 

 northerly direction, the storm-beaten Straits of Fuca, by which 

 access is gained to the great inland ocean of Puget Sound, into 

 which numerous streams empty themselves ; and lastly, the region 

 north of the 300 mile long Vancouver Island, to the extreme 

 northern limit of salmon life, which is the Yukon. 



Of the three great rivers of the north-west the Columbia, the 

 Fraser, and the Yukon that are ascended by salmon to their 

 furthermost head waters, each has a distinctive peculiarity. In 

 the Yukon, that being the longest of the three, the length of the 

 inland journey is the greatest, namely, more than 2000 miles ; in 

 the Fraser, salmon cannot travel more than some 750 miles 

 or so, but in none other is the force of the current so great for 

 such long stretches ; while in the Columbia, in a journey of about 

 1300 miles the salmon climb a sheer altitude of 2900 or 3000 

 feet. 



Curious as is this diversity, a yet greater difference exists in the 

 temperature of the streams frequented by the Pacific Coast salmon. 

 Almost the same difference that exists between a tropical and an 

 arctic climate marks, say the Sacramento or San Joaquin rivers, 

 ^ where the water is said to reach a temperature during the salmon 

 run of 80 Fahr., and, on the other hand, the glacial water of most of 

 the Alaska streams. The water in some of these streams was 

 some hours before solid ice, for it is a well-known fact that the 

 salmon's spawning beds are often in close vicinity to the glaciers 

 from beneath which issues the trickling brook which finally 

 becomes the nursery of our fish. 



Let us follow our quinnat as he crosses those deadly shoals at 

 the mouth of the Columbia, here some seven miles wide, upon 



