RECREA TION. 



183 



and a-half were lying under a salmon- 

 berry bush on the bank the angler 

 remarked to the small boy by his side 

 that they might as well have the even 

 two dozen. When that number had 

 been landed the supply was not ex- 

 hausted, so he gathered in still another 

 dozen. When the other anglers in 

 the boat heard this story they concluded 

 there were no more trout in Indian 

 river, so they passed on. 



By and by they met a fleet of great 

 canoes which was returning to the 

 Indian village, loaded with halibut and 

 carrying many curious totems, or im- 

 ages, carved by these strange people, 

 from wood, stone, horn, etc. The 

 boatmen were singing a dolorous 

 chant in intervals of thirds and fifths, 

 thereby expressing their anticipation of 



mouth of a large stream, a short distance 

 up which the Russians had a saw mill 

 years before. 



They went up this to the large pool 

 just below the old dam, where they made 

 fast their boat ; and here we will leave 

 them and consider how the pool came to 

 be full of salmon and salmon trout. 



Eastward from Sitka lie Mount Vos- 

 tovia and the Three Sisters, little moun- 

 tains which look down on the quaint, old 

 town and on the many islands that dot the 

 bay all the way out to the sea. From 

 the melting snow on these mountains 

 there rise three little streams, which 

 rapidly grow in size as they go down the 

 deep ravines under the shadows of great 

 fir trees and yellow cedars, with here and 

 there long ripples and little cataracts 

 that break the solemn silence with merry 



TOTEMS, CARVED BY ALASKAN INDIANS. 



delicious feasts of dried halibut served 

 with a relish of sea-urchins stewed in 

 porpoise oil.* Our anglers greeted the 

 halibut fishers with the conventional 

 salutation of the country, da-hi-ya-six y 

 and sailed on until they came to the 



*Note. They take the halibut with a peculiar hook, 

 a slender bit of strong wood, to one end of which the 

 barb, a piece of sharply pointed iron, is firmly lashed at 

 an acute angle. The wood is covered with carvings of 

 all sorts of grotesque features and distorted animals, 

 the bait being thereby rendered more attractive and 

 killing. 



music, until at last they come out with 

 a dash into Silver Bay. Indian river, 

 the smallest of the three, nearest the 

 town, and the only one which then had a 

 name, is frequented by the smaller trout. 

 The large ones probably never run up it. 

 Near the head of the bay another stream, 

 a large one, comes rushing down in a 

 succession of rapids too turbulent to be 

 navigated in a boat, but easily run up 

 by the fish. Between these another 



