A RECLAMATION PROJECT. 



in the big years 1901, 1905, 1909, and 1913 originated there. The runs 

 of those years produced an average pack of 1,927,602 cases and at 

 the same time afforded in the first three named years a sufficient 

 number to seed the entire spawning area. Therefore the amount of 

 the average pack of the big years 1901, 1905, 1909, and 1913 may 

 be safely taken from the run without an overdraft, whenever the 

 spawning-beds are as abundantly seeded as they were in 1901, 1905, 

 and 1909. The spawning area of the Fraser has not been lessened 

 or injured. Its spawning-beds have not been damaged or interfered 

 with by settlement, factories, mining, or irrigation. Its gravel-beds 

 and shoals are as extensive and as suitable for spawning as they ever 

 were. Its lake-waters are as abundantly filled as ever with the natural 

 food for the development of young sockeye. The channels of the 

 Fraser are open and free to the passage of fish. All that is required 

 to reproduce the great runs of the past is a sufficient number of 

 spawning fish to seed the beds as abundantly as they were seeded in 

 1901, 1905, and 1909, and in former big years. The fishery cannot 

 be restored in any other way. 



Neither Canada nor the United States acting singly can provide 

 measures that will ensure the seeding of the spawning-beds of the 

 Fraser. That can only be done by concurrent action. Joint and 

 uniform regulations that will afford free passage for the fish through 

 both Canadian and American waters must be provided and made 

 effective. Sufficient fish must be permitted to pass through the fishing- 

 waters and to reach and seed the beds. The interests of both Canada 

 and the United States in this question are great. It is not alone a 

 Canadian question. It is not alone an American question. It is an 

 international question, and cannot be dealt with except in an inter- 

 national way. Recognizing these facts, both Great Britain and the 

 United States, as far back as 1908, signed a convention dealing with 

 the Fraser River situation. This convention failed to receive the 

 approval of the United States Senate and was withdrawn. But, as 

 we have already seen, in the years that followed matters went from 

 bad to worse, and in 1918 an International Commission was established, 

 consisting of the Honourable Sir J. D. Hazen, Chief Justice of New 

 Brunswick, G. J. Desbarats, Deputy Minister of Naval Service, 

 Ottawa, and William A. Found, Superintendent of Fisheries for the 

 Dominion of Canada, representing Great Britain ; and the Honourable 

 Wm. C. Redfield, Secretary of Commerce and Labour of the United 

 States, Edward F. Sweet, Assistant Secretary of Commerce and 



