TWO HUNDRED MILES UP THE KUSK0KW1M 



87 



FRAMES FOR PRYING FISH 



swelled in the fishing season by accessions from the Yukon to 

 a total of perhaps seven or eight thousand. There is a portage 

 of sixty miles from the Yukon to the Kuskokwim, which has 

 been traveled for a century by employes of the Russian Fur 

 Company and others since. The salmon are taken chiefly in dip- 

 nets along the banks, and our travelers measured a specimen 

 which weighed 41 pounds and measured three feet in girth and 

 nearly four feet in length. 



Though the Yukon is the great arterial drainage conduit for 

 the summer meltings from the snow-capped mountain ranges 

 w T hich traverse the interior and are consequently filled with 

 glacial mud, big salmon are found in it, and in some of its clear- 

 water tributaries there is an abundance of large grayling and so- 

 called salmon trout. 



Leaving the steamer (in which they had taken passage from 

 San Francisco) at the mouth of the river landing stores, the mis- 

 sionaries proceeded up the stream in company with four freight- 

 ing barges destined for upper posts. Their own private convey- 

 ances were native bidarkas, or sealskin canoes decked over, each 

 with three manholes, the passenger occupying the central hole 

 and the paddlers the end ones. A three hours' sail brought them 



