The Days of a Man 1:1903 



I must here explain that for some reason or reasons 

 of which we are still ignorant, the Fraser had every 

 fourth year a run of more than three times as many 

 salmon as on the three intervening years combined. 

 This phenomenon was already familiar in 1880, when 

 Gilbert and I made our first visit to that region. But 

 now, to quote again from his recent report : 



Passing The catastrophe became irreparable before adequate measures 



"/"^'S of relief could be taken. The canyon was already full of strug- 

 y^'"' gling salmon destined for the up-river spawning grounds, trying 



in vain to force the blockade. Myriads of them subsequently 

 weakened and died, still retaining their spawn, and they formed 

 decaying masses on the bars and shores below Hell's Gate. 

 Thus the up-river spawning grounds in 191 3 for the first time in 

 any big year were left relatively bare of fish. 



As a consequence the "big year" became a thing of the past 

 and in 1917 by most strenuous exertions and an intensity of 

 gleaning never before witnessed, a pack of (only) 560,000 cases 

 was produced, little more than one fifth the pack of the big year 

 of the previous cycle. 



At Seattle we secured as seamen volunteers in the 

 United States Navy a number of lumberjacks from 

 neighboring camps. But on arriving at Alert Bay, a 

 village noted for its extraordinary totem poles, one 

 of the men came down with smallpox caught from his 

 unvaccinated fellows in the woods. We were then 

 forced to return to Port Townsend for two weeks' 

 Scouring quarantine, a period spent in cruising about the bays 

 Puget aj^(j channels of Puget Sound, dragging our beam- 

 trawls over the bottom everywhere, and thus secur- 

 ing rich scientific booty. Allowed finally to proceed, 

 we started northward again, dredging at intervals 

 along the way and making special studies of each of 

 the many salmon streams from Boca de Quadra to 



n 136 -y 



