19033 Red Salmon Characteristics 



remedied by executive orders. Nevertheless, in spite 

 of regulations, each year has seen greater encroach- 

 ments on the stock, and the vast and valuable red 

 salmon 1 industry has in several districts met with 

 partial extinction. For the costly system of hatch- 

 eries, both public and private, counted on to keep up 

 the supply has apparently entirely failed to do so, 

 and there is even reason to doubt whether the natural 

 undisturbed breeding of the fishes taken for spawn at 

 the hatcheries would not have given a better yield of 

 young. Fortunately, so long as a river remains open 

 its salmon can never be wholly exterminated. 



According to Gilbert's observations, each red Adjust- 

 salmon stream has its own race or breed distinguish- f^/ 



1111 i i 1 1 breeds to 



able by the expert, and physically adapted to meet river 

 the distance it is forced to traverse. Thus the Boca 

 de Quadra salmon, which enter their stream shortly 

 before spawning time and with less than ten miles to 

 go, could not possibly make the long trip to the lakes 

 of Fraser River. And fishes bound for the headwaters 

 of their own stream may be hopelessly worn out 

 should they meet any unusual obstacle on the way. 



This latter fact was most disastrously illustrated 

 by the great blockade, in 1913, of Yale Canyon in the 

 Fraser, the obstruction being due to the collapse of Hell's 

 the side of a railway tunnel at "Hell's Gate," so that G c % e astrophe 

 masses of debris fell into and choked the river. Such 

 an impediment would at any time be unfortunate, 

 but in this particular case it had ruinous results. For 

 1913 was one of the regularly recurrent "big years," 

 and "untold millions were fighting- their way through 

 the rapids to the unequaled spawning grounds." 



1 The four other species of salmon found in Alaska were then of little com- 

 mercial importance, though all are now (1920) utilized by the canners. See 

 Vol. I, Chapter ix, page 226. 



n 135 3 



