62 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



In the early spring, during that brief period when the weeds 

 and grasses first grow green along the outskirts of the timber in 

 warm sheltered nooks down by the tide-level, black bears come 

 below from the cold, gloomy canons above and feed upon the 

 sprouting skunk-cabbage * and other succulent shoots, browsing 

 here and rooting up there, these tender growths, just as hogs do 

 in our orchards and clover-fields. Again, late in autumn, when the 

 salmon rush up into the estuaries and through the shallows by 

 countless myriads, bruin is once more tempted down to the sea- 

 beaches, and again gets into trouble. In the same manner the 

 Indians secure the beautiful little mule-deer, f which also loves 

 tender vegetation, and in this love falls an easy prey to the silent 

 approach of a canoe with its skulking crew. Geese and ducks, dur- 

 ing winter months, spend much time on the quiet fiords in large 

 flocks, and constitute the chief gunning of the Siwashes, who shoot 

 them from their canoes with the same old flint-lock trade-muskets 

 first used by the whites a hundred years ago. The Indian admires 

 this pattern still above all other patterns despises the percussion- 

 cap, which in this damp region often fails him, and the trader, 

 knowing this weakness of the savage, always has a stock of these 

 flint-lock muskets, newly made, on hand. A supply is steadily 

 furnished by the Hudson's Bay Company at Victoria. 



But the one thing of joy, of delight, and of infinite use to the 

 native of the Sitkan archipelago is his canoe. Life, indeed, would 

 be a sad problem for him were it not for this adjunct of his own 

 creation. Upon its construction he lavishes the best of his thought, 

 the height of his manual skill, and his infinite patience. The re- 

 sult of this attention is to fashion from a single cedar log a little 

 vessel which challenges our admiration invariably, for its fine out- 

 line and its seaworthiness and strength. 



All the canoes of this region have a common model, and are simi- 

 lar in type, though they differ much in details of shape and size. 

 They are all made from the indigenous pine J and giant cedar, the 

 wood of which is light, durable, and worked very readily ; but it is 

 apt to split parallel to its grain. This constitutes the only solici- 



m sp. 



f Ceniis columbianm a well-grown specimen weighs about one hundred 

 and fifty pounds. Great numbers are taken in the Tahkoo region, though it 

 is found everywhere. 



\ Abies sitkeiisis. Thuja gigantea. 



