222 Sport and Life. 



into Puget Sound are in the habit of running these traps in 

 conjunction with the nearest cannery. The latter furnish the 

 traps, and send small steamers or scows to collect the catch. 

 In one instance I heard of 40,000 salmon being caught by a single 

 trap. 



The salmon frequenting Alaskan streams are repute,d to be the 

 largest on the Pacific Slope. We hear of salmon weighing i3olb. 

 and i5olb. in the Yukon and Kadiak regions. The waste of fish- 

 life going on among the Alaskan canneries appears to be greater 

 than anywhere else, if we can believe the Canadian Blue Books, 

 where it is stated that at one cannery in one day 20,000 fish of an 

 average weight of lolb. each were thrown away because of the 

 inadequate appurtenances of the establishment and the suddenness 

 of the run. The same Blue Book refers to the land-locked 

 salmon of British Columbian lakes, but though I hold strong 

 views upon the matter, the scientific evidence which has been 

 summed up against the presence of true land-locked salmon in 

 any British Columbian lake makes me afraid of giving an outsider's 

 views. 



To the native population dwelling on the upper reaches of 

 Pacific Slope streams, and who, from time immemorial, relied 

 exclusively upon the salmon run for their winter provender, more 

 exclusively even than did the Indians of the Plains upon the 

 "buffalo," the immense diminution in the number of salmon that 

 reach the upper waters has been a most serious matter it spells 

 starvation. For, unlike his brother east of the Rockies, who could 

 kill other big game when the bison became scarce, there was little or 

 nothing to fall back upon in the interior of British Columbia, and 

 the chase of occasional deer or bear in the dense forests was ever 

 a matter of dangerous uncertainty. 



It was said that every tie of the Panama railway cost a human 

 life. It would be an exaggeration to say that every cwt. of salmon 

 which is dipped out of the muddy water at the Columbia or Eraser 

 estuaries condemns one native to starvation ; but it comes 

 unpleasantly near the truth if we remember that, by depriving him 



