SALMON AND SALMON FISHERIES OF SWIFTSURE BANK 
775 
Abundance of Cycle Ending in 1933 
The big year cycle, ending in 1933, 1929, 1925, etc., was tremendously abundant 
from the earliest records of the commercial fishery in 1877 up until the cycle following 
the Hell’s Gate disaster of 1913. In earlier years the catch was so strictly limited by 
the capacity of the canneries that the index of abundance was always too low. All 
one can say is that the cycle was far more abundant than the others. In 1897 the 
trap index is considerably lower than in 1901, due largely to the fact that many of the 
traps were driven for the first time in 1897. That the big-year cycle was somewhat 
higher, as indicated by the combined index of abundance, in 1897 and in 1901 than in 
any of the succeeding years is undoubtedly true. In 1901, for instance, one trap in 
Boundary Bay caught 680,000 sockeyes between July 10 and August 29, which is 
as much as the entire trap catch of sockeyes for 11 out of the 21 years since 1913. 
The 1901 catch of 25,800,000 sockeyes was, next to 1913, the largest in the history 
of the fishery. The trap catch in 1901, with less gear, was equal to that of 1913, 
and the gill net catch of 11,800,000 was 3,000,000 higher than that of 1913. In 1913 
the power purse-seine fleet, which was nonexistent in 1901 (only hand-propelled 
seine boats were then in use), took 10,000,000 fish. 
However, the difference in the catches of 1901 and 1913 was not due in any 
measure to a difference in the amount of gear, but rather to the great increase, by 
1913, in the canning capacity of the plants. The number of sockeye wasted in 1913 
was as nothing compared to the squandering of a natural resource that took place in 
1S97 and 1901. Rathbun (1899) says: 
The run of 1897 was one of the largest, if not the largest, in the history of the region. Prepara- 
tions had been made in anticipation of a good year, both on the Fraser River and in Washington. 
The great body of sockeye first made its appearance about the middle of July and continued until 
about the end of the first week in August, a relatively short season, but during this period the cannery 
pack was completed and in addition an immense amount of fish was thrown away, the daily catch 
being often much larger than could be disposed of. It has, in fact, been claimed, though this is 
probably an exaggeration, that more fish were caught and wasted than were utilized. 
Concerning the waste of sockeyes in 1901 the Report of the British Columbia 
Commissioner of Fisheries for 1909, page I 11, says: 
The catch that year (1901) was so great that every one of the canneries on both sides of the inter- 
national line filled every can they had or could obtain; and in addition to the millions of fish which 
they packed that year, many millions more were captured, from both the Canadian and American 
waters of the Fraser River District, which could not be used, and were thrown back dead into the 
water. The waste of sockeye of our own catch and of that of the Americans in 1901 is believed to 
have been greater than the number caught and packed by all the canners on the waters mentioned in 
any year since, with the exception of 1905 and this year. 
Despite catches averaging 24,700,000 sockeyes per year in the big years from 
1901 to 1913, huge numbers escaped to the spawning grounds. The spawning ground 
surveys made by the Provincial Fisheries Department estimated millions in 1901 and 
1905. In 1909 estimates made by counting, for a portion of each day, the number 
of sockeyes ascending the fishway at Quesnel Dam showed that over 4,000,000 fish 
entered the lake. The sockeyes were thicker in the Chilco River than the observer 
had ever seen them in any unobstructed stream. Fully 1,000,000 were estimated 
to have entered Seton and Anderson Lakes. Shuswap and Adams Lakes were better 
