398 ALASKA INDUSTRIES 



no enemies until they go back into salt water. The lower dam will 

 still be kept in position to exclude the pirate fish. 



The gentleman recommends the passage of a law giving property 

 rights to persons producing fish under these conditions, where it can be 

 established that the fish are the product of private enterprise. 



Bearing in mind the law which forbids obstructions placed over the 

 entire width of a stream frequented by salmon, Mr. Callbreath makes 

 a distinction between barricades and dams used as a means of whole- 

 sale slaughter of salmon and those placed for the purpose of detaining 

 fish until they are ripe, and for preventing interference from pirate 

 fishes. The latter class of obstructions, while a violation of the letter 

 of existing law, is deemed not a violation in spirit. " Fencing" can be 

 done only on small streams, and if but 10 per cent of the usual number 

 of salmon were allowed to pass the barricade and spawn undisturbed in 

 the waters above, the number of small fry hatched out would be greater 

 than if no obstruction were offered, and the sea trout and other pirate 

 fish allowed to work havoc among the salmon spawn and small fry. 



HABITS OF THE NATIVES. 



The natives, as a class, are intelligent, industrious, and peaceable, 

 finding their entire means of support in hunting and fishing. A great 

 portion of the lowlands of Alaska have abundant forests of spruce and 

 pine, some trees 4 and 5 feet at the butt and running up for a hundred 

 feet without a limb. There are excellent facilities for farming and 

 herding, the climate being mild and moist. The thermometer seldom 

 gets below zero in winter, and 60 F. is the average for summer. 



While the native male population is engaged in hunting and fishing- 

 there being a separate time for each the women gather various kinds 

 of roots, berries, and barks, which are preserved in seal grease, and 

 eaten during the winter. The natives around Yukatat Bay catch about 

 1,600 hair seal every year, a portion of the flesh of which is dried, while 

 the fat is boiled down into grease. Of this great quantities are used, 

 everything they eat being cooked with it. They compare it to the 

 "Boston man's butter." 



The natives practice both polygamy and polyandry, although but 

 few instances of the latter relation exist at present. This is due to a 

 peculiar custom in vogue among them, namely, that when one of a mar- 

 ried couple dies the relatives of the deceased take all the worldly goods 

 the pair might have accumulated and divide them among themselves, 

 leaving the survivor nothing but a heavy heart and the clothes on his 

 back. To a woman left a widow with a half dozen children this prac- 

 tice works great hardship. To guard against this hardship a man gen- 

 erally becomes possessed of two wives or more, and when one of them 

 dies the surviving wives still remain joint owners of his goods and 

 chattels, and the involuntary division of his property among the rela- 

 tives of the deceased is thereby avoided. Polygamy, it would seem, is 

 a blessing to an industrious native, for on the death of one wife her 

 relations can not step in and take away that which he has been a life- 

 time in accumulating. 



The Swedish Missionary Society, whose headquarters are at Chicago, 

 has been doing good work among these natives establishing a school, 

 and taking among them a number of native children to educate and raise. 

 Unfortunately, their main building was destroyed by fire recently, and 

 the mission practically closed. But the mission owns a small sawmill, 

 and they expect soon to get out the lumber and build up again. 



