223 THE PACIFIC SLOPE. 



are now wholly impoverislied. Since the creation of a Fish- 

 ery Commission by the State, its officers have not ceased in 

 their efforts to stay the destruction. They have restocked 

 some of the streams with native and imported fish, estab- 

 lished breeding works, and caused some passes to be made 

 over dams. Although California is a new State, the work 

 has not been begun one moment too soon, and much time 

 will be required to repair the losses already incurred. 



Of the waters of the North Pacific, tales are told that 

 would seem incredible, were they not confirmed by repeated 

 and most reliable assurances. There the salmon swarm in 

 countless numbers. They spawn all the year round ; and at 

 certain periods they fill the rivers of the Arctic Ocean, the 

 rivers of Alaska, the Gulf of Georgia, of British Columbia, 

 Puget's Sound, and all the tributaries of the Columbia whose 

 falls are not insurmountable. In the canons and contracted 

 channels, during March and April, they so crowd the rivers 

 as absolutely to impede the passage of canoes. Indians, 

 armed with long poles fitted with a cross-piece, through 

 which long nails are driven, resembling rakes, hang over the 

 rocks that confine the river, and with an upward jerk impale 

 as many fish as there are nails. It is said that Seepays, the 

 Colville Indian salmon-chief, who has a monopoly of the fish- 

 ing at the Chaudiere, or Kettle Falls of the Columbia, 

 catches 1,700 per day, weighing an average of thirty pounds 

 apiece. At this distance of 700 or 800 miles from the sea, 

 they have become so exhausted that, in their efforts to leap 

 the falls, they batter themselves against the rocks, so that 

 they fall back stunned, and often dead; they then float 

 down the river some six miles, where they are picked up by 

 another camp of Indians who do not belong to the salmon- 

 chief's jurisdiction. In the fall, the run is even greater, and 

 the river is filled with such numbers of the dead floating or 

 cast up along shore, that they poison the atmosphere, and |: 

 cause the river to stink for miles! In the head-waters, 

 horses and pack-mules fording are made to jump and plunge 



