292 Our Forth Land. 



The mouth of the river has become pretty much rilled with 

 debris brought down by the current, so that notwithstanding the 

 banks are bold the water is shallow. The mountains on either side 

 as you ascend the river are steep, and pretty much covered with a 

 dense forest. Their summits, though scarcely ever over 4,000 feet 

 high, are generally covered with snow until early in July, and at 

 any season large patches of perpetual white will always greet the 

 beholder. In a few cases wide areas of bushes and swampy meadows 

 seem to occupy the higher slopes, but frequent large bare surfaces of 

 solid rock are visible, from which snow-slides and land-slips have 

 removed whatever covering of soil may have originally clung there. 

 The tide flows up the Skeena for a distance of eighteen or twenty miles 

 above Port Essington. At this point the river valley narrows some- 

 what, and a mass of bare and rocky mountains appears on the north 

 bank. The slopes of these are exceptionally steep, and end at the 

 river bank in bluffs and cliffs of considerable height. Between the 

 head of tide and the mouth of the Lakelse River, a distance of 

 thirty-six miles, the Skeena receives several streams of some 

 importance. The valley has an average width in the bottom of 

 from one and a-half to two miles, the mountains bordering it every- 

 where reaching 3,000 to 4,000 feet at a short distance from the 

 river. At about half way between the two points mentioned, 

 however, the height of the mountains appears often to surpass 4,000 

 feet, and they probably reach 5,000 feet on both sides of the river 

 west of the Lakelse. Near the Lakelse, with a decreasing altitude, 

 they assume more rounded forms and show less bare rock, being 

 covered with trees nearly up to their summits. The quantity of 

 snow which accumulates on the higher mountains is evidently very 

 great. 



Through the greater part of the Skeena its dull, brownish water 

 flows at the rate of four to six miles an hour, sweeping round its 

 many islands, and pouring through the accumulated piles of drift 

 logs with a steady rushing sound. No reaches of slack water occur. 

 The river is evidently quite shallow, although it is navigable for 

 steamboats for a considerable distance, or five miles above the 

 Kitsumgalum, where the Sipkiaw Rapid is met with. Islands are 



