QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS. 145 li 



ends of the two pieces of which it is made. When in use, a carved 

 wooden float is fixed about a foot from the hook, and a short distance 

 further up the line a large stone sinker. The whole being lowered Float and 

 to the bottom till the stone comes to rest, the small float drifts out 811 

 with the tide, and keeps the hook below it at a short distance from the 

 bottom. The wooden parts of the hooks and the floats are sometimes 

 rudely carved. A second form of hook differs slightly from the first, 

 in being formed of a piece of thin iron rod, bent round in a continuous 

 curve of an oval form, but of which the upper side has been somewhat 

 displaced so as to allow the passage of the lip of the fish within the 

 recurved point. These' hooks are often made small, and used in catch- 

 ing flounders and such fish. 



In the small rivers the salmon are generally caught in fish traps or wiers. 

 wiers. A wier of split sticks being fixed completely across the river, 

 cylindrical baskets made of the same material, with an orifice formed 

 of sticks converging inward, serves to entrap the fish ; or in other 

 cases, flat frames are placed in such a position that the fish in endeavor- 

 ing to surmount the wier by leaping falls into them. 



The canoes of the Indians of the west coast are similar in type Canoes, 

 through all the tribes, but differ considerably in detail of shape and 

 size. They are made from the giant cedar {Thuja gigantea), the wood 

 of which is light, durable and easily worked, but apt to split parallel to 

 the grain. This constitutes the greatest danger to the Indian canoes 

 in rough weather, especially when they are heavily laden. Among the 

 Haidas two patterns of canoes are found. In the first and most com- 

 monly used, the stern projects backwards, sloping slightly upward, and 

 forming a long spur, while it is flattened to an edge below. The bow 

 also curves upward, but has no spur, the cutwater forming a regular 

 curve. These canoes (represented on the beach in Plate I) are fre- 

 quently thirty or thirty-five feet long. The second pattern is that of 

 the larger canoes, intended for longer voyages. In these both bow and 

 stern are provided with a strong spur sloping upward, and generally 

 •scarfed to the main body of the canoe. The canoes are often about 

 forty feet long, with a corresponding beam, and were in former days 

 not infrequently constructed to cary forty men besides much baggage. 

 With the exception of the bow and stern pieces, each canoe is made 

 from a single log, which is roughly shaped out where the tree is cut, 

 afterwards floated to a permanent village, and finished at odd hours, 

 during the winter months. The lines of the canoes are very fine, the 

 requisite amount of beam being given to them by steaming with water 

 and hot stones, and the insertion of thwarts. The} r are smoothed out- 

 side and blackened, while inside they generally bear fine and regular 

 tool marks from end to end. The Haidas are great canoe makers, and 

 10 



