290 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZIN 



Photograph by W. L. Henning 



GEOGRAPHIC HARBOR (SEE) TEXT, PAGE 20,l) 



An easy pass, with an altitude of 1,200 feet, connects this harbor with Katmai Valley. 

 About 60 miles of automobile road is all that is required to make the Valley of Ten Thousand 

 Smokes and the whole Bristol Bay region readily accessible. The white spots on the ground 

 are not snow, but ash from the recent eruption. 



mon leaping upward under the urge of 

 an irresistible instinct to reach the lake 

 above, there to spawn and die. 



Here we stood for hours, held by the 

 fascination of the sight, as fish after fish 

 leaped clear of the water and up over six 

 feet of fall into the current above. Never 

 was there a second when some fish did 

 not make the try. Sometimes there were 

 six of them in the air at once. 



After careful count, we estimated that, 

 although many fell back into the pool be- 

 low, they were going over at the rate of 

 1,200 an hour. A little computation will 

 show that in the course of a few days an 

 enormous number of fish must pass up 

 into the upper lake. What a sight they 

 must have been in the old days, before 

 overfishing by the canneries had depleted 

 the runs ! 



It is too bad that the boundaries of the 

 park do not include the falls, for there 

 is no better place in the whole world to 

 watch this wonderful sight. 



Like the bear which made off at our 

 approach, we took our toll of the "silver 

 horde" lying in the pool below the falls, 



for they added a variety to our larder 

 that was very grateful (see page 280). 



TROUT 32 INCHES LONG 



111 addition to the salmon, the natives 

 catch abundant "white fish" in gill-nets 

 set in the lake ; but we tried only the giant 

 trout, with which the lakes and rivers are 

 fairly teeming. 



We had no need of any of the artificial 

 flies which are supplied to anglers by the 

 trade. These trout had such voracious 

 appetites that our fishermen never had to 

 cast more than once or twice before they 

 had a strike that kept them busy. 



Our bait, a scrap of bacon rind, was 

 snapped up so quickly as to raise the sus- 

 picion that a piece of paper or anything 

 else white would have served equally 

 well. Our only trouble w r as that the fish 

 were so big that they soon broke up all 

 our tackle. Our catch averaged two feet 

 in length ; the largest, captured by Wal- 

 lace, measured full 32 inches from nose 

 to tail. 



Bears are abundant in this country. 

 Our work was too exacting to permit us 



