46 



OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



ten to thirty feet in width ; it constitutes a street, and in which 

 the carved posts and temporary fish-drying frames, etc., are usually 

 planted. Also those canoes that are not in daily use, or will not 

 be used for some time, are invariably hauled up on this street, and 

 carefully covered by rush-mats or spruce-boughs, so as to protect 

 them from the weather, by which they might be warped or cracked. 

 The rancheries are themselves never painted by their rude archi- 

 tects and builders ; they, however, soon assume a uniform, incon- 

 spicuous, gray color, and become yellowish-green in spots, or Over- 



A Haidah Rancherie. 



grown with moss and weeds owing to the dampness of the climate. 

 If it were not for the cloud of bluish smoke that hovers over these 

 villages in calm weather, they would never be noticed from any con- 

 siderable distance. 



In localities where the encroachment of mountain and water 

 make the village area very scant, two rows of houses are occasion- 

 ally formed, but in no instance whatever is any evidence given in 

 these Koloshian settlements of special arrangement of dwellings, 

 or of any set position for the house of the chief man of the village : 

 he may live either in the centre or at the extreme end of the row. 



