200 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
of dwellings, stores, etc., and it has therefore been necessary to con- 
struct the town in the manner mentioned. Another cause for building 
the city this way was that the river was shallow at this point, and 
it was necessary to extend the limits of the town some distance into 
the stream to get the requisite depth of water to enable ships to float 
while loading. In recent years some private residences have been 
built on the side of the hills back of the business portion of the town. 
There are few places in the world that are centers of greater activity 
than Astoria during the salmon season, but at other times it is compara- 
tively quiet and uninteresting. 
The Cascades is an unimportant settlement of a few hundred people, 
composed chiefly of persons engaged in building the locks around the 
Cascades. Some railroad men and a few fishermen make their homes 
at this point. It has some importance, from a fishery standpoint, as 
large consignments of fresh salmon are shipped from it. 
The Dalles, a town of about 2,500 inhabitants, has a salmon cannery, 
which is the farthest one from the sea on the Columbia River. Like the 
Cascades, it is a point for the shipment of fresh salmon eastward ; but 
beyond this it has no special importance in connection with the fisheries, 
though a large amount of wheel fishing is carried on in the vicinity. 
Ilwaco, Washington, is a small settlement of a few hundred inhabit- 
ants, situated on Baker’s Bay, in the center of the pound-net fishery. 
It is the southern terminus of the railroad line to JShoalwater Bay. Its 
inhabitants are engaged chiefly in fishing and in operating the lumber 
mills of the region. There is a cannery located at Ilwaco. A large 
percentage of the catch taken at Baker’s Bay goes to other canneries 
on both sides of the river. 
Importance of the fisheries .— -The canning industry on the Columbia 
supports the most important river salmon fishery in the world. It has 
built up and still maintains many settlements, and gives employment 
to much capital and a large number of people. The annual product is 
measured only by millions of dollars, and it is doubtless safe to say that 
nowhere else on the globe has a like area of water produced such an 
immense yearly yield of wealth. There is little fishing except for salmon $ 
sturgeon are taken to some extent, and a few fish of other varieties are 
caught to supply the local markets ; a small amount of crayfish and 
clams is also secured and disposed of locally, but in this region the term 
“ fishing” is generally applied oniy to the capture of salmon. 
Species, seasons, etc . — Five species of salmon enter the Columbia 
River, but only three are sufficiently abundant or valuable to be com- 
mercially important there. One species of trout (Salmo gairdneri) is 
commonly, though erroneously, termed a salmon, its popular name 
being “steelhead salmon.”* 
* Many of those engaged in the salmon industry on the Columbia have fallen into a 
great error concerning the number of species of salmon in that stream. On account 
of a lack of knowledge of ichthyology certain individual differences in appearance 
