310 PREHISTORIC FISHING. 



painted inside with a mixture of oil and red ochre. Sometimes charcoal and oil 

 are rubbed on the outside, but more commonly it is simply charred by means of 

 long fagots of cedar splints, set on fire on one end like a torch, and held against 

 the side of the canoe. The surface is then rubbed smooth with a wisp of grass 

 or a branch of cedar twigs." (Page 35, etc.). 



Swan (James 6r.): The Haidah Indians of Queen Charlotte's Islands, British 

 Columbia; Washington, 1874; No. 267 of Smithsonian Contributions to Knowl- 

 edge. " The Haidah Indians, living on an island separated from the mainland 

 by a wide and stormy strait, are necessarily obliged to resort to canoes as a means 

 of travel, and are exceedingly expert in their construction and management. 



" Some of their canoes are very large and capable of carrying one hundred 

 persons with all their equipments for a long voyage. But those generally used 

 will carry from twenty to thirty persons ; and in these conveyances they make 

 voyages of several hundred miles to Victoria on Vancouver's Island, and from 

 thence to the various towns on Puget Sound. 



" These canoes are made from single logs of cedar, which attains an immense 

 size on Queen Charlotte's Islands. Although not so graceful in model as the 

 canoes of the west coast of Vancouver's Island and Washington Territory, which 

 are commonly called Chenook canoes, yet they are most excellent sea boats, and 

 capable of being navigated with perfect safety through the storms and turbulent 

 waters of the Northwest Coast." (Page 2).* 



Meares (John): Voyages made in the years 1788 and 1789, from China to the 

 IT. W. Coast of America, etc.; London, 1791. [Inhabitants of Nootka Sound, 

 Vancouver's Island]. " Vast quantities of fish are to be found, both on the coast 

 and in the sounds or harbours. Among these are the halibut, herring, sardine, 

 silver-bream, salmon, trout, cod, elephant-fish, shark, dog-fish, cuttle-fish, a great 

 variety of rock-fish, &c. all of which we have seen in the possession of the 

 natives, or have been caught by ourselves. There are, probably, a great abun- 

 dance of other kinds, which are not to be taken by the hook, the only method of 

 taking fish with which the natives are acquainted, and we had neither trawls or 

 nets. 



" In the spring, the herrings as well as the sardines, frequent the coast in 

 vast shoals. The herring is from seven to eight inches long, and, in general, 

 smaller than those taken in the British seas. The sardine resembles that of 

 Portugal, and is very delicious : they are here taken by the people in prodigious 

 quantities. They first drive the shoals into the small coves, or shallow waters, 



* A canoe of this kind, procured through the agency of Mr. Swan, is in the National Museum. It attracted 

 much attention during the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, on account of its large size, being fifty-nine 

 feet long, and eight feet wide by three feet and seven inches in depth amidships. It is made of a log of the 

 yellow cedar (Thuya gigantea). 



