30 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



I suppose there are some of }'ou who have no idea of what a 

 caiij^ou looks like. If you have not yet done so, go out some time 

 and see that valley near Dundas. It is one of the prettiest pieces 

 of scenery in this part of the country, and is almost two hundred 

 feet deep, I believe. Imagine a valley ten times its depth and yon 

 will have some idea of the magnitude of the canyon of the Fraser. 



Along this canyon the Canadian Pacific Railway picks its way. 

 You travel along for quite a distance till you come to the little town 

 of Yale. I stopped off at Yale once because I was attracted by the 

 name. It reminded me of the university. I found it to be occu- 

 pied mainly by Chinamen. It was the head of navigation and 

 therefore of some importance. Farther down the Fraser becomes 

 quite a broad stream one or two miles wide. 



We now come to the Skeena and Stickeen, and the other im- 

 portant rivers. The Skeena is a very much slower river than the 

 Fraser. The other rivers, Peace and Athabasca, are still and shal- 

 low. There are some big areas of coal along some of the tributaries 

 of -the Skeena. 



I took a steamship from Port Simpson to Essington, and then 

 on up to Hazelton. The first thirty miles of the river is tidal and 

 therefore slow. Above that it is a series of rapids, and I wondered 

 how we would get up in a steamer. The steamers on the river are 

 all stern wheelers and use wood for fuel. They draw very little 

 water and, while they cannot sail across a meadow in a heav}' dew, 

 still they are able to get along in pretty shallow water. 



It was interesting to see how they fed the fire. The engineer 

 would open the door, throw in a couple of sticks of cord wood, close 

 the door, take a look around, then open the door and throw in 

 more wood. A cord of wood did not last long. The fire would 

 roar up the smokestack and send up great flakes to fall hissing into 

 the water behind us. 



The steamer would burn several cords of wood a day. There 

 were great piles of it at intervals along the bank, and w^hen the sup- 

 ply on board got low the steamer put m to shore, a gang-plank was 

 thi'own out, and the creW— -who, \s(ith the exception of the captain 

 and mate Were all halfbreedf^-^all went aslmre, and harried a Biipplj^ 



