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Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre filmds i des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul cliche, il est filmi A partir de Tangle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n^cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m6thode. 1 2 3 1 I 8 BEAl I BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. m ^■W»«p»*ISW»»ip«I~»™(»Bi'«. ,1-rf •-A^ ^ll ONE OF SiX BEARS IN VIEW AT THE SAME TIME. iKkJi^! BEAR-fll'NT(NG THE wiirrF: mountains OR Alaska avd lirUisl i'lbia Revmtcd. '^!*'"^ ' ilSTBATlONS DIBKCT ?i«0» \(tf. AUTIIOB's SKlTCHr.S, AND M.\> HY PERMISSION OF THE iV)V VL «K00» Al'HIf.AL .H<>iJKt\. H\ if. W. 8{;r(»N-KARK. F.R.(».S.. En Al'THOM OK "SHOHK!^ AXn .Vr.HS Olf AL.V-KA, "TEN TKAHS' TRAVKL ANP MI'OKT FN KORKIUN MNI>H. "^ HANin E-B0OK TO THE .lAPAXRaB XSLANM. ' I LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HAIL LlMITKD. ^^m K r, w. ii: A'. i*:\ ' J ^^■ ■J" "i V ''■r> ■•' <• ■.!<>■ ,■'.* SJ '^ <^/r5'' "'" -^^l^^. ■ '■■ Pi- y,% IN AVITII IT"*' »W (■'N£ Cr 5,« BEARS IN VIEW A~ TUF. SAMf*. TIM I I< BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS OR Alaska and Brifish Columbia Revisited. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IUKKCT FROM THK AUTHORS SKETCHES, AND MAP RY PERMISSION OF THE ROYAL GF.Or.B AriMfAL SOCIETY. BY II. W. SETON-KARR, F.R.G.8., Etc., vrTHOK ov '•SHOKHS AND AhVA OK ALASKA," "TEN YRAKs' TIIAVKL ANT> Sl'OHT IN KORKicJN LANDS,' "a handy lilllDE-IJjOK TO THK .lAPANKSE ISLANDS." I J LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, Limited. 189L 2 03 879 %lohJ 'K^^t^ ;/^ CnABLES niCMlTB AND BVAWS, CkTRTAL PAI.iCB PBBM. CONTENTS. LETTER L INTRODUCTION I-AOI LETTER IL THK COAST OP VANCOUVER ISLAND 12 LETTER in. THE INLAND PASSAGE 22 LETTER IV. PYRAMID HARBOUR . H LETTER V. THE CiriT.CATS 44 LETTER VI. FIGHTING THE STREAM • « ] • ' « f 68 ^1 CONTENTS. LETTER VII. EXCELSIOR . LETTER VIII. THE GREAT BEAR-HUNT LETTER IX. SHOOTING THE RAPIDS OUR RETURN HUNTING BIGHORN LETTER X. LETTER XL AN angler's EDEN LETTER XIL PAGB 69 80 93 100 110 131 FAQK 69 . 80 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. no 131 ONE OF SIX BEAUS THE WHITE MOUNTAINS TWO CHILCATS (pROM LIFE) WE COMMENCE TO USE THE SLEDS VALLEY OF THE LOWER CHILCAT THE LAST RESTING-PLACE OF A CHILCAT DOCTOR HEAD OF BLACK BEAR FRAMEWORK FOR DRYING SALMON MOUNTAIN OF THE HOLY CROSS. HEAD OF BIGHORN SHEEP . FRONTISPIECE. LETTER IV. „ V. „ VI. .» VII. M Vll. ,, VIH. „ XI. >, XII. „ xir. MAP OF THE CHILCAT. I 1 Thj No] tivt hitl cor] oa the wes on Pasi to and BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. LETTER I. INTRODUCTION. There remains at least one mysterious corner of North America which promises to prove compara- tively accessible. This is the entirely unknown and hitherto unvisited country forming the south-west corner of British Nortjl^Yfest Territory, bounded oQ the north by Copper River, on the east by the British portion of the great Yukon, on the west by the coast-strip of Southern Alaska, and on the south by the upper portion of the Inland Passage. Some years ago Dr. Krause, a German, ascenc' id to the summit of the Chilcat Pass (4,000 ft.), and made an accurate map of the small extent u ^ BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. ; i I I of country he visited, comprising a district within fifty miles of the coast. Beyond this nothing was known. In addition to my own party, which consisted only of four whites, an American ex- ploring party had the same intentions as myself. In San Francisco they engaged one of the men we had with us in 1886.* But the leader of this rival party of explorers came up with me on the Alaska mail-steamer Elder to Chilcat. It had been an exceedingly severe and late winter, and snow was reported as lying to an abnormal depth on the mountains. Whether this would prove advantageous to us, or otherwise, remained to be seen. If the snow is firm, one is enabled to transport provisions and baggage by dragging them upon a sled, more expeditiously than they can be portaged on men's shoulders. The American expedition had given out that their objective point was Mount Wrangell, the active volcano on Copper Eiver. I was not so ambitious as that. The absence of any important tributaries on the left bank of the Yukon for many hundreds of miles above the junction of the White River and the Yi *■ Sec "Ten Years' Travel and Sport in Foreign Lands" (Chapman Si. Hall). fS. INTRODUCTION. within Qothing , which an ex- myself. le men of this on the id late to an ler this lerwise, n, one age by tiously L-S. it that 11, the not so on the f miles id the Lands " Yukon seems to show, says Dr. Dawson (who has just returned from an expedition dow^n the Pelly and up the Yukon), that the basin of the upper portion of the White River must lie comparatively low, and, situated as it is within the St. Elias Alps, this country must possess most remarkable features, both geographically and from a climatic point of view, and well deserves exploration. The Chilcat Pass was formerly employed by the Indians for reaching the Yukon, instead of going over the Chilcoot Pass, which \vas in the hands of the other branch of the tribe. They used, however, in this case to descend the Takheena River, turning east from the summit, and are said to have occupied twelve days in packing before being able to use a boat, in place of three days by the Chilcoot. The driest country is found in a belt bordering the lee side of the coast ranges^^ and the enormous height of the St. Elias rang% ' under whose lee this un- known land lies, should make it a very dry one. The White River is noted among the Indians as a moose and beaver region, but at present it is doubtful to which branch this refers. The Indians also report the existence of a burning mountain near the head waters of the White River, but it B 2 ■MHMH BEAR-HUNTIXG IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. is uncertain wlietber this refers to Mount Wrangell or not. A wide-spread and modern layer of volcanic ash of great extent was observed by my friend Dr. Dawson, in 1887, as he jioled his way up the Yukon, and also by my fellow- explorer Fred Schwatka, deposited over a large area of the upper Yukon basin. Its position seems to indicate that it came from tlie west. In some places drift-logs were observed below it quite sound and undecayed. This seems to show that there is at least one great volcano in this undiscovered country, recently active. Mr. Ogilvie's Report lately appeared ("Annual Report of the Department of the Interior," part 8, Ottawa, 1890), in which lie relates his story of the winter spent on the Yukon at the boundary line, in order to determine the approximate position of the frontier. He endeavoured to ascend the White River, but was unable, after several hours' exertion, to advance more than half a mile, owing to the swift and shallow current and numerous sand-bars. This river is very rapid and shoal, and the water, coming as it does from glaciers on the St. Elias Alps, is exceedingly muddy, and discolours the Yukon completely below their junction. He found the Takheena River also muddy, but not from glaciers. j ? /^ INTRODUCTION. rangell olcanic friend ay up : Fred upper e that ift-logs 3cayed. 3 great active. 'Vnnual part 8, of the ine, in of the River, on, to 3 swift This oming Alps, Yukon id the laciers. This river, by Indian report, is easy to descend, and heads in a large lake. The most valuable furs procured in the district are the silver-gray and black fox ; the red fox is also very common. Game is not so abundant in the vicinity of the Yukon as it was before mining began ; and it is now difficult to get any in the immediate neighbour- hood of the river anywhere along the whole length of the Yukon. On the uplands large herds of cariboo still wander, and when the Indians encounter a herd, having now firearms, they allow very few to escape, even though they do not require the meat ; in fact, they frequently kill animals just for the love of slaughter. Moose are not now often seen along the course of the Yukon, but must be sought at some distance back from it. A boom in mimng soon exterminates the game in any district. There are two species of cariboo in the country — one, the ordinary kind, found in most parts of the north-west ; the other, called the wood cariboo, much the larger and finer animal, but with antlers smaller than those of the former kind. The ordinary cariboo runs in herds, and when fired at becomes panic-stricken, bounding just as probably towards the hunter as away from him. When the Indians find a herd they take advantage of this, and 6 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. surround it, whereupon the animals are slaughtered wholesale. There are four .species of l)ear, the grizzly, cinnamon or black, brown, and silvertip, the latter being said to attack a man on sight without being wounded. In places the Arctic rabbit is numerous ; in others it is altogether absent, and in some places is said to appear and disappear in different years. The mountain sheep, or bighorn, and mountain goat exist everywhere. Near the coast there is a smaller kind of sheep, with straighter horns than the ordi- nary bighorn. Ptarmigan and grouse are abundant in places. I took the coasting steamer from Vancouver's Island up the Inland Passage — that wonderful archi- pelago which has its counterpart en the coast of Norway and the west coast of South America. We reached Pyramid Harbour Cannery at the end of April. Like all other Indians of the coast, these Chilcats are loth to accept employment, but I at length, with Colonel Kipinski's assistance, persuaded an old man and a boy, out of the three families that chanced at that time to be at the station, to take my whole party in one canoe as far up the Chilcat River as Klokwan, the last Indian camp. A man might write a volume on the rs. INTRODUCTION. f ghtered nnamon ; said to cd. In thers it is said J. The in goat smaller he ordi- bundant couver's il archi- oast of at the B coast, nt, but istance, e three at the Unoe as e last on the superstitions, wars, and murders of this same Chilcat tribe, though I found them commonplace to the last degree. They are not cursed by the fatal gift of beauty. They were frecpeutly drunk, and I am sorry to say that the whisky is supplied to them by white m«n who are to be found within a thousand miles of the Cliilcat-Chilcoot peninsula. This state of things is deplored by the managers of all three of the canneries at the head of Lynn Canal. It is slowly exterminating the Indians, who are absolutely essential as pack-carriers and guides to explorers. Without Indians white men would be helpless on great rapid rivers like the Upper Chilcat, which can only be ascended in smooth-bottomed canoes. An Indian has so few needs that he can load himself with the white man's baggage instead of his own usual trading material, and, trained to do so from infancy, can carry far^' fjar heavier packs than the ordinary white man for long distances. After four hours' tramping, a light pack (thirty pounds) seems to weigh a hundred pounds, and the pressure of the straps and bands becomes intolerable. Exterminate the aboriginal Indian for present gain, as is now being done at Chilcat, and I say that the interior will become a desert as far as human life is con- >.vs 8 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. ' \ cerned, accessible only in winter by hardy men with sledges, for in this way only can white men unaided carry sufficient food with them. Similarly an explorer can traverse more easily those parts of Africa where natives live. I speak thus boldly of the iniquities of Chilcat rum-sellers because I have no ties in Alaska to prevent my doing so ; and as a tourist I have seen the poor Indians drunk and dying beside their homes upon the upper river, whither they transport the whisky, to consume it not in moderation but in ignorance. Wherever there are no roads (and where are there roads or paths in Alaska ?) 1 say the Indian is a necessity, all humane and Christian consideration laid aside, and taking the simply practical view. This Government will be cursed by future generations if they do not stamp out this deliberate killinor off of the Indians with o alcohol. Alaska will become, so far as the interior parts of the country are concerned, *'a wilderness again, peopled with wolves, its old inhabitants." The only excuse is that testimony must be had to con- vict, and that this is hard to obtain, v ., I am fond of the Indians, and I like having them about me, yet on this occasion I was unable to employ them, owing to lack of funds. ; s. ly men te men imilarly parts of )ldly of I have and as nk ami r river, sume it er there paths in humane taking will le ; stamp IS with >r parts again, The to con- having lable to I INTKODUCTION. 9 For three clays we wrestled and fought with the current, there being no breeze to lielp u.s so that we might hoist a sail, and at length camped at Klokwan, which consists of forty large houses, besides many now in ruins ; the few Indians pre- sent afforded an illustration of the eflfects of the flourishing and hellish trade in ardent spirits which is enriching a few bold and undeserving publicans on the coast, and of the dastardly apathy of the United States Government compared with British methods of dealing with the aborigines and the liquor traffic. The Indians asked such long prices for their services as " packers " that I was unable to employ any of them to accompany me, but with a sufficient number of these aborigines in the party, white men can ^traverse almost any part of the country without much difficulty. These high prices were partly the result of the whisky trayie at Chilcat reducing the number of Indians, partly of the prices charged at stores for goods, and partly of the general cheapness of money in the Union. It makes it hard for needy miners to pay these rates, yet Indians, as I said before, are a necessity to explorers. I pass over a long period of hard travelling by canoe, poling, rowing, paddling,* hauling, towing, ■ . 1 : t rxa 10 BKAIt-IIUNTIN(i IN THE WHITK MOUNTAINS. wading, besides packing and dragging our effects over the remaining snow-slopes and snow-patches on the river flats on rough sledges. For four days wc hunted bear upon the hills overlooking what I named the Marble Glacier, killing four bears, two being black, one cinnamon, and one a huge brown bear whose hide measured by a pocket tape-measure (not by eye, which is usually in error) about sixty square feet. On one afternoon I saw at the same instant feeding on different parts of the same hillside, half a mile apart, no less than six bears. On the next afternoon I observed five simultaneously. There is no doubt in my mind that the Upper Klaheena River drains one of the greatest bear-countries in British Territory or in Alaska. We made a canoe in approved Indian fashion, besides the one I already possessed, and some weeks later commenced the descent. The most dangerous portion of the wholly dangerous Klaheena (which I waded nearly fifty times in the shallower portions) is opposite the boundary (which we marked by a hewn board bearing the letters " B. C." on one side, and on the other *' U. S.") A fearful collection of stumps and snags renders navigation dangerous. The thundering waters roll impetuously towards a steep bank and turn over on themselves, the upper current INTRODUCTION. 11 dcHceiicling when it strikes the opposing wall of earth, and sucking under whatever floats upon its surface. Here Thonuid Juhnsoii mot his death. My canoe, steered 1)y a Kwagiulth Indian, dashed past foaming towers of water, through the l)ranchcs of fallen trees, escaping destruction by a mira(;le. My smaller cauoo was instantly capsized, turning end over and nearly killing its occupant. Just as this occurred we managed to hitch on to a snag, and armed with long poles leaped ashore and pursued the wreck down- stream until it grounded on a shidlow. Having gained all the information I required about the Pass, the expedition returned to Chilcat after a total absence of two months. i^ itrnwrnrnmrn 1 I LETTER II. THE COAST OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. S.S. Elder, Departure Bay, Vancouver Island, B.C. April 'Ibth, 1890. Having crossed the Atlantic in the Teutonic — the best boat I was ever aboard of — and the continent by way of Niagara Falls, Chicago, and the Canadian- Pacific Railway, I have reached the Pacific. I spent only two days in Victoria, having on my way across Canada collected my camp outfit, which Mr. Thomson, the Hudson Bay Company's officer at Calgary, had kindly warehoused for me since 1887. I had previously arranged a shortened code with Messrs. Chapman and Hall, by which, in case tents or other things had sufi'ered from damp or moth, others might be sent out to me from London without delay, knowing that the ones suitable for my pro posed expedition could only be procured in England ; Jof V; there me ( THE COAST OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. 13 jland, B.C. nic — the iiient by anadian- f on my t, which •fficer at ;e 1887. Je with se tents : motb, without ny pro- ngland ; but I found everything in even better order than when I had left them. The winter on thi? coa'^t and in the interior has been as severe as that on the east coast has been mild, and I hear that, correspondingly, in Japan the season has also been an exceptionally mild one. The snow is now still lying thickly on the mainland a few hundred feet above sea-level, and on all the elevated ground on Vancouver, Queen Charlotte, and the other islands of the coast. Sealing schooners have been for long periods unable to launch their boats, and throughout the winter the trans-Pacific steamers to Japan have had rough passages, and frequently suftered damage. After these two days at Victoria I started north by a little coasting steamer called Boscowitz, in- tending to spend nearly two weeks at Fort Simpson, Metlakatla, and at the mou|th of Skeena River, but the snowstorms with which we were greeted on the first part of the voyage, and the invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Hall, induced me to stop instead at the C.M.S. Mission, at Alert Bay, at the north end of Vancouver Ishmd. It was lucky I did so, as I there secured two promising men to accompan}^ me on my expedition. I also found that, should I go on to Fort Simpson, the delay which the tiUimMMKI»» 14 BEAR-HUNTIXG IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. ■ i I ( steamers had experienced owing to thick weather would, perhaps, cause me to miss the American mail steamer w^hich I had intended to catch by taking an Indian canoe with Indians to paddle and sail from Fort Simpson to Tongass across the water-frontier. I also learned that the Alaska mail did not now (since it is no longer the seat of the Custom House) stop at Fort Tongass every trip. 1 therefore returned to Victoria, to the dis- comfiture of the newspapers, who had heralded my departure for the north thusly : " Exploring strange lands. — One of the passengers for Fort Simpson, by the Boscowitz, will be the adven- turous ycnng Briton who tN.o years ago made a tour of exploration up the rocky side of Mount St. Elias, etc. The lieutenant is a typical English- man, his broad shoulders, etc., pronounce him a man of strength and endurance, and his blue eye conveys the impression that he w^ould not be easily deterred from accomplishing anything that he had undertaken." But after this came : " Chano^ed his plans. — The English explorer who started a couple of weeks ago to visit the unknown regions of the north, returned by the steamer Louise. His friends repudiate the statement that he has abandoned his intention, etc." THE COAST OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. 15 I had opportunities of conversing with various classes of people. On l)oarcl the Boscowitz was the manager of a salmon cannery at Port Essington, near the mouth of the Skecna River, going to his post for the summer. At these canneries the salmon are netted from dilierent rivers within a circle of many miles radius. Few canneries confine themselves to one river only, but one of these few is that at ./ilert Bay, which has the exclusive right of fishing the Nimpkish River, and from that one river obtains all the salmon it requires. The labour is partly white, Indian, half-breed, and Chinese. The fish are first laid on a slatted board, gutted, the heads, tails, and fins cut ofi", and passed on to be brushed and cleaned in a tank of fresh water, and afterwards dipped into brine. They are then cut into lengths by machine to fit the cans, into which they, arc packed by hand. The cans are then soldered down, and boiled in fresh — not salt — water, taken out in a s^s'ollen con- dition, pricked, and soldered up instantaneously, and, lastly, steamed for a given time in a retort, which completes the process. The total catch of salmon last year, both in British Columbia and Alaska, was in excess of the requirements ; and, in fact, the sale has been in- .j-jcjr-wntAJt^VUH M ittt M 16 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. juriously afifected by some canners putting up white-fleshed salmon for lack of a sufficient number of the red-fleshed. At San Francisco so many more tins were received from Cook's Inlet than could be disposed of that hundreds of thousands of cans still remain over in the dealers' hands, which will lead to a mutual understanding among cannery managers to reduce this year's total. In British Columbia some of the rivers have been over-netted, and the catch, in consequence, in these rivers will be much smaller than formerly. Dogfish oil making is also an industry all along this coast, and can be obtained by boiling the whole fish, as well as from their livers. Most of the settlers along the seaboard make their own oil. It sslls for about half-a-dollar a gallon in Victoria, and is cheaper than other oils of the kind, I was told. There was also on board the Boscoivitz a Scotch fisherman, with his two boys, going to the north for a summer's work in a salmon cannery, while in winter he fishes with long lines ofl' Victoria Harbour. Another passenger was a trader at the ports of the Skeena Kiver, and was, as he said, "running" a store there to "buck" the Hudson Bay Company's store at the same place. The Skeena THE COAST OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. 17 River generally becomes free from ice and "opens" about the first week in April, and he was going to make the ascent as soon as possible, before the current became too swollen and rapid, as it does soon after the disappearance of the ice, with a convoy of twelve canoes, to carry 12,000 dollars' worth of trading material — a twelve-day journey of slow towing and poling. During winter the route often followed to the Skeena forks is by the Naas River, and thence overland, because certain rapid portions of the Skeena do not completely freeze over, and cannot consequently be traversed on foot. He showed me a photograph of himself as he had made tho journey, in wolf-skin cap, ordinary overcoat, snow shoes, and revolver very (and I thought unnecessarily) prommently buckled round his waist. This Skeena River breaks through the mountain ranges which run parallel to the coast, as the Stikecn River also does farther north, in a direction at right angles to the general run of the valleys. From the Skeena forks a pack-trail suitable for horses leads inland, and the country is flatter and drier than the mountainous coast. This man was a fair specimen of the pushing trader. He had once made the journey from Victoria to the Skeena in a sloop, and, what with • liTl 18 BEAK-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. S calms, tidal currents, and baffling winds, he was not desirous of repeating the experience. He had also no charts of this intricate coast farther north than about lat. 52 deg., and consequently took a " blind " passage, or channel, instead of the correct one, which was much more insignificant looking, and he did not discover his error until, after several days' sailing with a fair wind, he came to the termination of the inlet. When I asked him whether he thought the good old Indians were dying off, he answered : " Yes, beautifully ; they're good Indians when they're dead — not before." The Columbia River is said to have been named by Captain Gray, in the year 1792, after his ship the Columbia, when he sailed into its estuary across the bar. But it was in the same year that Captain George Vancouver, who had served under Captain Cook, discovered and named the largest island on the west coast, Vancouver Island. The country remained almost without inhabitants until 1858, when gold was discovered on the Fraser Eiver, in which year it was created a Crown colony. Even now the international boundary from the sixtieth parallel southwards along the west coast is as ill- defined and imaginary in its position on the very of or THE COAST OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. 19 meagre maps of this colony which we possess, as any l:>ounclary line that can ])c thought of between the territories of the great nations of the world. The approximate frontier, according to the treaty between Great Britain and Eussia, formulated and signed in the year 1825, is to follow a line east- wards of the one hundred and forty-first meridian as far as the mouth of Naas River at the head of Portland Canal, which shall in no part be at a greater distance than thirty miles from the sea at the heads of inlets, and it is to follow the watershed summit wherever the latter comes within that zone. The area of this colony is, roughly, 342,000 square miles without Vancouver Island, or 358,000 with it, being more than three square miles per head for the inhabitants if it were equally divided amongst them. There are still many blanks on our maps of this continent, but the one I previously alluded to is larger, and yet more accessible and withal more interesting and mysterious than the other dark blanks, not to use the word dark in its physical or moral sense, but as implying a want of knowledge of its geography. Some bold cartographers, differing from one another in their opinions, have drawn serpentine 2 MtlaJsiyttMahulKM S^ 20 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. (I lines to indicate the course of the White, Copper, Takheena and other rivers, as their fancy may- have led them, or according to supposed Indian report, laying down in rounded symmetrical wavy patterns the arbitrary courses of their fairy rivers. This vessel has experienced an exceedingly fine passage so far, though one must not shout before one is out of the wood. My usual experience of this coast has been intermittent glimpses of fine weather and blue skies, broken by long spells of wet and occasionally a few fogs, especially towards the mouths | and estuaries of cold, glacier - fed rivers like the \ Stikeen and Skeena ; but under the conditions of | fine weather and cloudless skies, as I stated pre- 1 viously, I only know one place, and that is Yakutat, ' which I can compare to the south - east coast of Vancouver's Island. I am still as uncertain whether to call this Vancouver Island or Vancouver's Island as I am as to whether it should be Hudson Bay or Hudson's Bay. While we have been coaling at Nanaimo some of the passengers have been trying to catch some fish — rock cod or bass, which can he seen swimming about beneath the wharf — but so fail without success. People have not noticed so many ducks of different kinds before as are to be observed this year, particularly in that part of the Strait of] Geor iiiclu whic only turn& But of tl birds the £ while flying about ship, aston: them on th fish c< as th i birds I ocean luuabi THE COAST OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. 21 Georgia which lies opposite to Nanaimo and Comox, including an incredible number of that absurd bird which the miners call a *' road-maker," which can only flop along the surface of the sea, and frequently turns somersaults in its haste, and then disappears. But yesterday was so calm that standing in the bow of the steamer one could clearly distinguish these birds after they dived, about four or five feet below the surface, flapping slowly along, usiug their wings while in the water as though they were actually flying in the air. There were also numerous porpoises about, which sometimes followed and overtook the ship, mistaking us for a whale, and causing much astonishment to those passengers who had never seen them before. Owing to the entire absence of ripples on the surface, the details and forms of these beautiful I fish could be distinctly made out from the stern-rail as they followed the ship, as?' clearly as the diving I birds could be seen flying below the surface of the i ocean as one stood upon the bows, the latter seeming unable to get away fast enough, while the former appeared to be in an equally great hurry to attack and devour us. ■tata "1""^ LETTER III. THE INLAND, PASSAGE. Chilcat, Alaska, Ma>/ Isf, 1890. After taking in half a thousand and one liundred and fifty tons of coal respectively, the United States survey steamer C. P. Patterson, carrying the American explorers, and the Elder, with my own party, sailed from Departure Bay almost simultaneously at about sundown on April 25th, with the expeditions on board, so as to make Seymour Narrows during the half-hour of slack water at high tide the following morning. Most of the passengers had spent the day in reposing on the verdant slopes facing the bay, others walked into Nanaimo. I went to W' llington in a coal-truck, and descended one of the four mines there. As we steamed up the Straits of Georgia, every glittering snow-peak round the circle of the horizon was dis- tinctly visible by the light of the half-moon, including Mount Hood and the highest points of the Cascade THE INLAND PASSAGE. 28 range. There was absolutely no visible vapour in the sky. We made the aforesaid narrows at daylight. A week previously I had passed them in the small coasting steamer, the captain of which is a morose old salt, but sometimes afifable, and is said to l)e a cautious navigator, and never yet to have bumped his vessel on a rock amongst the somewhat difficult channels of the Inland Passage, like most of the other skippers, who are " piled up half their time," as some one remarked to me. The night was cloudy, with snow showers, and we drove on through the darkness on that occasion, after landing' some men at a lofrofinc: ' O CO o camp near the village of Cape Mudge. The Indians came out for them in canoes immediately in reply to our whistle. A landsman could hardly have dis- tinguished the wooded sides of the channel. Cape Mudge (so named by Vancouver after one of his officers) guards the entrance of the formidable Seymour Narrows, which, together with the narrow channel which leads to them, is bounded on the east by some large islands and by a promontory of the mainland of British Columbia which is thrust out into close proximity to Vancouver Island. The narrows commence at the head of the fine reach called the Straits of Georgia, into which open Bute 24 BKAK-llUNTINCJ IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. Ui hs Inlet, Jervis Inlet, and other of those magnificent fiords winding like rivers far into the mainland itself, bordered and walled in by precipitous granite peaks rising to a height of nine and ten thousand feet.''*' Seymour Narrows lies at about the centre of Vancouver Island, near the point at which the two tides rounding each extremity of the island meet, but a little to the north , of it. I have seen an excellent tidal almanack published by the United States Government. Though we have done the most towards charting this coast, we do not appear to have done much as regards tabulating the tides, which, in some of our inlets, are quite extraordinary, and even apparently inexplicable in their change- fulness and " infinite variety." In some inlets there is but one tide a day for some months in the year, in other inlets and other months they are abnormal altogether. Sometimes in the same inlet there are three tides a day, sa^netimes none at all. Duriug the voyage I learned what a useful thing a cedar raft is, and what an enormous bulk and weight of stuff it will bear in comparison with rafts made of other woods without capsizing. We landed a logging party on a tract of timber lands leased by * I hunted the wild white goat in Bute Inlet in 1888, seeing plenty, but killing one only. THE INLAND PASSAGE. or. an Englishman opposite Cracroft Island ; everything was piled upon one huge cedar raft (whicli .had evidently done long service, for her bottom was thickly covered with sea growths), including some tons of supplies, besides hay for oxen, who were used in hauling the logs ; on the top of all were seated the overseer and the men, and yet the structure seemed almost as high out of the water as before it was loaded with this bulky cargo. I understand that at present there are only four steamers making regular trips as far as Port Simpson, two of which quite recently ran upon rocks, one being saved by her strong build, and the fiict that there was a quantity of cement on her stem just where the contact with the rock occurred ; while the other was able to run into a shallow sandy bay without delay, where the receding tide left her dry, while there also chanced to be two skilled ship carpenters among her passengers. We continued for some hours to skirt the northern portion of Vancouver Island, beyond which lies a brief stretch of open sea named Queen Char- lotte Sound, many miles to the eastward of which, quite out of sight, lie the rainy, thickly-wooded Queen Charlotte Islands, inhabited by the finest tribe of Indians of any of those upon this coast. E 26 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. U' At noon we steamed past Alert Bay without stopping, where, as previously mentioned, I had engaged two of the men who accompanied me, situ- ated on Cormorant Island, which might as well have been named Kacoon Island on account of the number of racoons upon it, and in passing I could distinguish with a Ross telescope Mr. Hall standing upon the wharf, who is in charge of the C.M.S. school, store, and saw-mill at this place, with whom I had re- mained some days. There is also a salmon cannery, which has the sole right of fishing the Nimpkish Eiver opposite. From this point northward, most of the coast line is taken up by persons who hope that these so-called coal lands may be developed some day, and there is just now a rush for sites on Quatsino Arm, on the other side of Vancouver Island, in expectation of a railway being made thither some day, and of its becoming a port for ocean steamers, from which the v^oyago. to Japan would be shorter by some half-day or more than at present from Vancouver. I also met at Alert Bay a youthful schoolmaster sent out from England to instruct the depraved Nahwitti and Kwagiutl Indians at Fort Rupert, at the extreme north-east corner of Vancouver Island, who was doubtless sflad enough to leave that desolate spot for a few days — THE INLAND PASSAGE. 27 where the only other white man is an old employe of the Hudson's Bay Company, to wliom the Company have sold their post at that place — and to exchange for a comfortable house his lonely log hut, where at times the only visitor he could expect was the horrid Amatze or .scapegoat Indian, wlio is sent out naked and without food beyond what roots he can pick up, into the forest until such times as he shall have become possessed by the spirit of some animal, upon which he returns, and is escorted by a body-guard of young men, and has to bite pieces out of people. These rites still take place, and the Indians are proud of showing the scars where Amatze has enjoyed a mouthful. Of course, he never ventures to bite white people, because they don't taste nice ; but they " tried it on" with the schoolmaster in many other ways. Notwithstandin;; that these Kwasjiutls have been acquainted with the ways of white people for many years, the children evince an extraordinary fear of white strangers, which fear I attribute to the habit Indian mothers have of frifyhteninii; their children with a story of a whioC man coming to oat them, like a kind of bogy akin to our own nursery fictions, which fnKuiently make white children such cowards in the dark. 28 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. I ! Though it was the end of April, 1890, snow was lying deep upon the mountains a few hundred feet over sea-level. At Alert Bay there is a moderate- sized Indian " camp " built of axe-split boards, though latterly they have been made of sawn planks owing to the erection of the saw-mill, and white- washed externally, which J never saw before as regards Indian houses. The interiors of the houses, about ten in number, consist of one largo '^m --^ blackened apartment, dark, dirty, draughty, v. ah smoke-holes in the roof ; the floor of soil and gravel ; and round the walls aio some small cubicles or sleeping rooms, raised a couple of feet above the level of the earth floor. In the centre there is always a tire burning, and round it are strewn a medley of dogs, clothes, women, children, and a multitude of utersils. Most of the tribe were absent, part fishing oolachan or candle-fish at the extreme head of that extraordinarily long arm, Knight's Inlet, and the remainder holding a potlatch on Cracrofr Island in the vicinity : one of those unlawful orgies which the law has not yet been enforced to prevent ; the natives are making the moat of their i)T»raunity from interference, so that *' drinkee for dru^ih.," noi " for drink," is probably the rule whenever they chance to have any spirituous li'^uo^-, A day or two >. THE INLAND PASSAGE. 29 3w was ed feet derate- boards, planks white- fore as houses, r, Willi gravel ; cles or ►ve the here is rewn a and a absent, ixtremc J Inlet, )racrofr . orgies 'event ; munity " nob they or two previously the old chief had died, and, as we passed, the red and white flags newly suspended could be discerned flying from long poles near his grave. An Indian of inferior social standing (for there are grades in society even among Kwagiutls) may become chief, if he has in any degree the gift of verbosity ; and if he combines with this the posses- sion of more riches in the shape of blankets, and greater capacity to plot and scheme than his fellows, and some generosity and ostentation in the givings of feasts (tea and crackers mostly), his success is certain. Even in the lifetime of the old chief he may step into his shoes, being assisted in so doing by the fact that an Indian pays Init scant regard or respect to old age. In front of the chiefs grave had also been erected a large structure of boards, covered with •otton sheeting, nailed to which were three T-shaped ;.!struments, known as " coppers," and on the tops of tices round the bay were fastened old-time boxes enclosino: the crcmateti vemain?. of other Indians, " ex- posed in forests to the casiug snow." I have mentioned that racoon are very numerous on Cormorant Island (Alert Bay) ; in fact, the boys c;;nght one or more regularly every morning while I was there. I also went out twice in a canoe and bagged eight duck, including the painted duck, the 'ii Oi 30 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. ^ n long- tail, the butterball, (ind the rxjfillard. From Fort Kupert it is twelve miles on foot across to Quatsino Arm. This end of Vancouver Island is reported by the Indians to be a favourite haunt of the native Vancouver elk or wapiti. I never heard of any white man who has hunted them systematically, or done i^iore than kill one occasionally almost by haphazard. listened to an address in Kwagiutl from Mr. Hall ; the sound of the language is musical, though interspersed by frequent thick, raucous, un- dignified gurgles or clicks produced by half closing the throat. " How much will you give us," say the Indians at Fort Rupert, "if we come to school to be taught, as we know you receive so much for each one who comes ? " It is difficult to convince them that this is not the case. We crossed Queen Charlotte Sound in magni- ficent weather, with a slow, majestic sort of ground- swell rolling in from the open sea. The whole day was a panorama of peaks and islands, looking all the more imposing from their covering of snow, in some cases so thick that massive cornices were notice- able along the crests where the wind had caught the loose snow and blown it over to the leeward side. The Patterson calls at Port Simpson for her launch. The Skeena, as I write, is still closed to navigation. THE INLAND PASSAGE. 31 At Wmngell we found the Stikeen still frozen over and two foot of snow on the ice. Here the Elder lauded a great many tons of machinery, together with tw^o separate parties of engineers and workmen, who are going to initiate hydraulic mining for the first time on the river ; one al)Ove, the other four miles below Telegraph Creek, which is the head of navigation upon the Stikeen. Some of us tried fish- ing at Wrangell, but it was not a success ; but halibut are frequently fished for wdth success a few hundred yards from the wharf in deep water, and a couple of solitary Indians were trolling in a couple of dug- out canoes for salmon. The Russians established a trading post at Fort Wrangell to gather in the pelts brought down the Stikeen Eiver, and after the United States acquired the territory a military garrison was maintained for some years. The mining excitement of fifteen years ago, when the discoveries in the Cassiar district brought prospectors and fortune-seekers from all the older camps of the coast, gave Fort Wrangell its best days commercially. The place had its boom ; tents were crowded in with the long row^ of houses border- ing the beach ; traders made amazing profits ; ocean steamers, river boats, and fleets of canoes, made the water-front a busy scene, and all went well until the 32 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. ■i Uassiar placers were about exhausted. The miners left, the Indian village fell off, and by a slow descend- ing scale Fort Wrangell has reached its present stage of quiet retrospect. Even the mission industrial school for Indian boys and girls has been given up, and there is now only the Government public school to instruct the rising generation. We got through Wrangell Narrows before iJark. This is an intricate piece of navigation, but the channel now appears to be well buoyed and marked out. At Douglass City time was given for all the tourists to w^alk up to the great mill of the Tread - well Mine, where 240 stamps keep up their thun- derous din day and night, and send out streams of muddy water. No one knows with exactness the output of this remarkable gold-mine, but 50,000 dollars have often been shipped below month f«^ter month. The ore is low grade, but the vein cropping out on the very surface of the mountain allows it to be mined or quarried so cheaply that there is abundant profit in working away at a solid mountain of quartz. Other claims on the same ledge have been prospected suffi- ciently to show that the same vein runs the length of the island, and the one mill, which is the largest of THE INLAND PASSAGE. 33 its kind in the world, is destined to have many successors. The chief topic of conversation was the Bear's Nest mine, being worked by a German company. It was reported that gold-bearing quartz from the Treadwell mine had been substituted for quartz from their own shafts, and that the deceived experts made a favourable report in consequence, whereas the reef had not yet been " struck." With over 1,500 inhabitants Juneau is quite a town in itself, and considers, as tributary to it, Doiiizlass Citv, across the channel, and the mininoj camps of Silver Bow and Dix Bow basins, a few I miles back in the mountains. At Juneau the first l)romisin2j cjold discoveries were made. I laid in a supply of stores at Juneau, and I think the leader of the American party, who is on board, did the same. The snow is reported to be very deep upon the mountains ; whether this will be advantageous to us or the contrary we have yet to learn, but I have it in mind to make a sled and thus transport our effects to [the necessary altitude of 4,000 feet, which is the leij^ht of the Chilcat Pass. U LETTER IV. PYRAMID HARBOUR. ! ; Camp 3, May 8tJi, 1890. The Chilcats at Pyramid Harbour were averse tu| packing, even for good wages, and did not want white men to use their pass into the interior. "Salmon soon be here," said they, "and then wc| make big money." It was learned by inquiry of the cannery super- 1 intendent, Mr. J. G. Laws, that natives last summer individually earned from eight to teu| dollars per day, when at all industrious, by spear- ing salmon at ten cents apiece for the three rival | cannery concerns in the harbour. To this com- fortable income they added the extortions secured I from steamboat tourists for Chilcat blankets and trinkets, and were amply able, financially as well as physically, to keep in a half- drunken condition | for the remainder of the year. , 1890. 'ersc to )t want interior, hen wc super- ;s last] Ito teu] spear- 1 ^e rival! is corn- secured ks and las well mditioii (A O -I CO I h h Ul -J < o _J I o UJ I h o cc z < I- z o u X 5 X h tl. o ID en o cc HI m o Q z < en UI o < o Ir by StCi rea( thci] U.S ucco wh(j an ever beh a SI in s us 1 the run I rema the saw i selves old n and i they maine rVRAMID HARBOUR. 35 At Pyramid Harbour Salmon Cannery, Chilcat, I remained two nights, being lio.spitably entertained by the manager, who bad come up with us on the steamer. As my expedition was then in trim and ready to start, I determined to delay no longer than was al)solutely necessary, especially as the U.S.S. Patterson was expected in a week, and accommodation would be somewhat short for those who had to land here, but to set out as soon as an Indian and a canoe larsje enoujjh to contain everything could be procured. These were only to be had in the shape of a lame Indian named Charlie, a small boy, and a canoe rather more restricted in size than I had anticipated, which was to take us to the chief Indian village up the river for the sum of twelve dollars. This is how prices run in Chilcat, There was once a missionary and his wife who remained for a season on the peninsula o ^tween the two inlets in a nice house they built. I saw it standing empty, for the Indians made them- selves so unpleasant, more particularly one arrogant old medicine man who demanded tobacco from me and astounded me by his fantastic tricks, that they went back to Juneau, where they have re- mained ever since. D 2 8t BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. I found that even Colonel Ripinski, who once was a school-teacher for these Chilcats, but is now storekeeper at Pyramid Harbour, stood in awe of this same old humbug. Taking John Hammond with me I set out along the beach, giving instructions that the canoe was to wait for us at the mouth of the river. At low tide, and when there is no snow upon the cliffs (and there is still about four feet upon the level on the north sides of the mountains even as low as the beach in spots sheltered from the sun' ays, but no snow whatever up to a height of x,000 feet upon the south-facing slopes), this walk of five miles from Pyramid Harbour to Chilcat River presents no difficulty. But now it was otherwise, and if we had known the task we had set ourselves we should certainly have crowded our additional bulks into the already overladen canoe, notwithstanding the breeze that was sweeping westward up the inlet. We had four severe climbs up around bluffs that descended too perpendicularly into the sea to allow us to clamber along their bases. The moss and cliffs were damp and rotten, but generally a friendly branch of young spruce or alder offered a solid hand-hold across the roughest and most abrupt rock faces. Having at last surmounted all these PYRAMID HARBOUR. 37 obstacles we emerged on to the partly snow-covered mud- flats of the Chilcat River. Small oolachans, or a small oily sprat-like fish resembling them, lay in scattered heaps along the shore, but of canoe or human being on the wide expanse of the Chilcat delta there was no trace or sight. However, we had shot a grouse, and that during the most difficult bit of climbing we had to accomplish, so that there was no risk of starvation. We were tired with fre- quently sinking waist-deep into Llie soft and slushy snow amongst the forest trees, while the photographic camera (smallest size Kodak, weighing about two pounds) suffered some severe concussions without apparent damage. Then we got into an exasperating thicket of long pliant elastic stems that interlaced, and that, as we tried to pass, reached out and wrapped themselves round our legs, and tied them- selves into hard knots, and threw us down and covered us with leaves and dirt. I was vowing the most retributive punishment to the occupants of the canoe unless they gave a satisfactory account of their failing to wait to pick ns up at the mouth of the river ; but it turned out that the actual position of the mouth was hard to define, as the river had more than one channel, and that they had determined to take up a position 38 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. > i well up the river for fear of our passing them. At last with glasses I found a small tent upon the opposite shore of tlie wide river bed. The structure resembled one of those we had, and we commenced to make our way towards the thin column of smoke that showed a camp fire, across trembling quicksands that quaked and (jrivered. After advancing a mile in the required direction I clearly discerned a woman. I had no such article in my outfit. It was an Indian camp after all, and we were as much lost as ever — but no, the canoe was lost, not we. Then at last far up the river, across the gcavcl-flats, the lost ones were seen. An hour later v/e floated down the stream to where the Indians had camped — as it was the best spot for the purpose, for a rivulet ran down from the mountain above, and the srround was flat in places, and covered with a convenient growth of rushes to keep off" the wind and serve foi a soft and yielding bed. Tlierc were numerous sour but palatable red berries still hanging pendant in small bunches from the bushes on which thoy had ripened in the early winter, and with a kind of scoop ne\ the Indian women of the camping party had caught more than one pailful of small fish like sticklebacks, consisting mostly of spines, of which (I mean the fish, not the spines) they gave us as PYRAMID HAPwBOUR. 39 L. At n the ucture icnced smoke ksands a mile romaD. Indian ever — at last le lost wn the —as it rivulet around 3 cnient ve foi s sour ant in y had nd of party II fish which us as many as we w\anted. Two orange-coloured spines were firmly hxed crosswise on the front part of the Lclly, and there were three spines, cleviible at will, upon the l)ack. Altogether it w^^s an awkw^ard fish to masticate. There were also a few yoiinfj salmon about four inches in length captured with them. The next day two of my party went up the mountain-side Ijehind and shot two blue grouse, while I floated out to sea in the canoe, descending the river about five miles, and endeavoured unsuc- cessfully to catch a salmon with spinning bait. We never, however, fairly got out of the turbid, brackish water of the estuary before a smart Ijreeze came on, which compelled me to turn, and swept the canoe rapidly up-stream against the swift current under sail. In the afternoon we reached Camp 2, partly sailing, partly rowing, towing, and poling. On the evening of May 4th w^. reached Klokwan, and camped a fourth of a mile Ixdow the villag*^ itself ; but were quickly surrounded by a crowd (f the natives, who were made aw^are of our arrival by the fact that I had walked through the village and back to find an eligible camping-ground at some distance from it. During our voyage up-stream the avalanches — which kept thundering down the gullies every ten minutes or so, with a noise like distant artillery — were superb. 40 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. L i each one overlapping the one preceding, and going a little further towards the valley below. The sound of these continually falling bodies of snow resembled unending successions of peals of thunder, the sky meanwhile being perfectly cloudless. We were able to supply the larder with two more grouse, both with their heads shot off by a rifle-bullet within twelve paces. I ascended a thousand feet above the village of Klokwan, on the side of the mountain above, to a bold outstanding rock, from the summit of which I made some photographs and sketches, and took the bearings of some of the principal peaks around, wh^'.ch I had previously seen from the 1st and 2nd camps. One peak resembled the summit of Mount Fairweather, according to my recollection of it as seen from the dock of the U.S.S. Pinta from the coast ; but this is uncertain until the bearings are worked out. Hi^h up as the rock was to which I had climbed, yet at the base I found a cave containing the remains of carved coffins and images, much gnawed and soiled by some species of rodent, whose dung was littered about the ground. Skulls and thigh-bones predominated, but I found nothing worth keeping. I put up a snipe lower down the hillside, and outside the cavern mouth red, edible, but rather tasteless, berries were growing. PYRAMID HARBOUR. 41 In the afternoon the redoubtable chief of the Chilcatj, Kin-tagh-Koosh, took me to his house — a fine building compared to the others in the village, with glass in the windows and two old Russian cannon in frcnt. The interior was filled with water from the melted snow, which his family were baling out, the floor being below the level of t^e ground, they having just returned from the sea. I deposited in his charge a quantity of stores and lugoage on the dry platform round the floor in the centre. Four totems, grotesquely carved and painted, adorned the corners inside his house — hideously ugly. Kin-tagh-Koosh himself is a mild - mannered, pleasant, an<^ somewhat stoutish Indian, who shook me frankly oy the hand, and seemed not surprised to see us. i had heard numerous unpromising reports about the Chilcats, and they certainly ask exorbitant prices for their services, as I found. Very few of them are at home. Out of the some four hundred inhabitants < f the village, half seemed to be away in the intciiur, trading with the Stick Indians, and the remainder, except about fifty, including women and children, on the coast or elsewhere. In fact, most of the houses were locked and barred. I counted some forty houses, and a dozen grave- houses of doctors. 42 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. extendini^ for half n mile alonir the left bank of the Chilcat Eiver, just opposite Avhere the stream comes in from the Chilcat Lake, which is still frozen and covered with a layer of snow. In this respect the maps arc wrong, marking this river too far down below the village. I passed through the village and camped beyond it next day, suffering no opposition. On account of the vicinity of the Indian village, the jackal-like dogs prov/1 about the camp ; but, on the other hand, there are no dead salmon putre- fying upon the banks and tainting the air, as else- where ; they have .Jl been eaten up by these same dogs. The Indian women object to being photographed, and it is even hard to take them with the insigni- ficant-looking Kodak. Some loving couples are "carrying on" their love affairs on the river-bank with the utmost unconcern. I find sugar-candy a great assistance in making friends with the Chilcats. A peep through a field-glass also greatly surprised them. Many have their faces smeared with powdered black rock and oil, to preserve their complexions. Next day, with a small boy and canoe, we ad- vanced some way up-stream against a rapid current, PYRAMID HARBOUR. 43 ourselves towing and poling, and we ascended the valley of the river which is used by the Indians in reaching ohe Altsehk country on their trading ex- peditions. This river I at once named the Wellesley, in honour at the same time of Lord Wellesley and of Mr. Wells and tlie Leslie party, who are follow- mg us. Packing our things upon two snow-sleds, we ascended upon the ice or compact snow for five and a half miles, fording the river twice, which was at a temperature of 37 degrees — cold enough ! To-day I have explored it for a further distance of five miles, as it will evidently have to be conquered mile by mile ; the current rapid and turbid, rising in the afternoon, but falling in the early morn- ing. At times it encroaches so much upon the banks that we are compelled to take to the bush, which is exceedingly dense with devil's-club and thorns. . ' • To-morrow I return to the village for more supplies and to send off this letter, while my men will attempt to cut a trail for about a mile to a point which oft'ers an inviting camping-ground for a base camp pending further explorations. LETTER V. THE CHILCATS. I Camp 6, Chilcat Country, on the Columbian-Alaskan frontier, 3Iai/ nth, 1890. 1 MENTIONED in my last letter that I was compelled, for want of Indians, to leave a certain amount of material witli the redoubtable Chilcat Chief, Kin- tagh-Koosh or Kitnagh-koosh — a stout Indian with long black hair, awkward gait, and smiling but rather sly countenance. These he stowed away in his so-called treasure-house, a more civilised dwelling than the rough shanties of the other Indians, which are built of hewn split logs not sawn or smoothed, and begrimed with smoke both inside and out. The treasure-house, indeed, boasts of glass in the windows, and within, at the four corners of the raised platform which surrounds the square earth floor in the centre, rise imposing but atrociously hideous totemic emblems or massive figures carved THE CHILCATS. 45 in alto-relievOy and painted with glaring colours, the huge and protuberant features of the central figure showing the native characteristics, and shaded by a mass of artificial hair made out of dyed roots. TWO CHILCATS. The platform before alluded to was piled with large trunks, Saratogas, hide cases, blunderbusses and antique firearms like cannons, some with six barrels, and with bales of blankets. The Klinket tribe are, as a rule, of short, thick- 4r, BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. ii set stature. Tlicy dress after the fashion of the white man Ijy wearing shirts and pants, but they still prefer the native-made moccasins to our boots and shoes. They are of dark, swarthy complexion, with black, straight hair, which is worn, as a rule, cut fairly close to the head. A great many of them seem to resemble people of Mongolian descent by their small, almond-shaped eyes. They do a great deal of sitting down. Each pair of pants bears patches most suggestive of this. It is difficult to pass a correct opinion concerning the form or features of their fair (?) sex ; their mode of facial decoration and general slovenly attire renders this impossible. They wear an old cotton dress, which article is supplemented by the universal blanket drawn tightly around the neck and sometimes worn over the head. We had now advanced some forty miles up the valley, and to the east lay Mount Fairweather and Mount St. Elias, and other great mountains bordering the coast, which were now hidden from us by intervening ranges. Before quitting Victoria some weeks since, I was told a story of the St. Elias expedition of 1888, which repeated our expedition of 1886. It seems that some members of that party were inspecting \ I THE CHILCATS. 47 the Hudson Bay Compcany's premises, and, seeing a lar^e pile of my luggage in a corner, which was evidently intended for camp use, inquired to whom it might belong. "That," said the assistant commissioner, "belongs to a gentleman who started two years ago for the same place you are going to, to hunt polar bears, and was never heard of again." There w\as snow upon the Klaheena-Altsehk divide, and we also found sufficient to enable us to drag our sledges as far as Camp 5, from which my last letter was written ; but I now found that, owing to the rapidly-increasing temperature and the lengthening days, the snow had left bare gaps so large that a canoe was unavoidably necessary, and I therefore returned in person to Klokwan to secure one, accompanied by one of my men. We had made our way to the farthest point so far partly by means of a canoe hired temporarily, which I had sent back, thinking we should be able to get on without one, for the river was shallow, rapid, and very difficult to navio'ate. We had also used our sledges ; but it was nov/ necessary to return to the village, finding the way by the direct route through the scrub, and during my absence I ordered the re- mainder of the party to cut a trail through the 48 BEAR-nUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. w %s >}■■ brush to a bare promontory which projected into the bed of the Wellesley River, as the Litter appeared too deep to ford, and encroached so much upon its banks as to drive us altogether away from its bed, while the brush itself was so matted together as to render it quite a work of art for a man to make his vvav throuo^h it at all. This trail sub- soquently proved useful in a way I did not anticipate. At this portion of the valley the notorious devil's- clubs flourished with astounding vigour, their long elastic stems growing upwards in all directions, covered with millions of needle-like thorns which become detached on the slightest contact, penetrating and rankling in the flesh, while when trodden on they spring back and strike one with their club-like heads on the chest or arm with devilish malignity, though mercifully the thickness of one's clothing saves one from the shower of their venomous darts. I found that a pair of Chilcat buckskin gloves, cut and sewed in a very creditable manner by the natives, saved my hands and wrists from this infliction, for which I paid the sum of one quarter,^ though it must not be supposed that prices always rule so low here, for I had afterwards to pay the sum of fifteen dollars for a small and dreadfully * A shilling. THE CKILCATS. 49 crackccl, fTanky, and dilapidated ranoc (the only one for saK;), and the sum of seven dolkrs for a pair of second-hand gum-boots that developed a hole oa the third or fourth day of use. However, uotwithstandinL;' devil's -clubs, deep streams, and thick l)rush, we continued on our way on foot to Klokwan in quest of the necessary canoe, steering our course through the forest by the sun, or by the compass, or ^thc mountain -tops whenever they were visible. There had been ten days of fine weather, with absolutely no cloud in the sky, which was like a dome of brass, day after day. This had caused a steady increase of temperature, both in air and water, up to the date of writing, namely, May 11th, and a steady rise in the volume of water in the rivers as well as in their temperature, too'ether Avith a marked decrease in the amount of snow — for instance, the temperature at sunset on the 2nd was 40 degrees Fahrenheit, Avhile a week later at the same hour the thermometer marked 50. AVe made our \vay for some time down the bed of the Wellesley, or Klaheena, until we were forced to betake ourselves, packs and all, to the labyrinthine and partly wooded expanse of flat marsh land, for such I found it was, which is enclosed between the E 50 BEAJl-HUNTINO IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. Khihcona and Cliilcat rivers on tlio rii^lit bank of the former. Deep slu very pleased to meet them all a^]^ain, after pitch in u my spare tent near theirs. Owing to their havinn- the greater bulk of their 2,000 pounds of bag- gage in one large canoe, the}' had found three days of hard and continuous labour necessary for the ascent thus far up the Ghilcat River, varied, as our experience had likewise been, l)y frequent groundings on shallows, poling, rowing, paddling, sailing, wading in water over the tops of their rubber " gum-boots," pushing the canoe and general vexation. One of the hired men was arraved in naval garb, while all had naval peaked caps supplied tc them by the Patterson, as anything of the do- «cription of uniform, naval or military, has a good effect upon these Indians, though I doubt whether this is the case to the full extent people think, because I was thus arrayed in 1886 in order to terrorise the inhabitants of Kaiak Island (off the mouth of Cop])er Eiveiy on arrival in a trading schooner at that desolate spot, but without visibly greatly impressing them. It seems that they found a long golden woman's hair in their canoe — some mysterious white prisoner, doubtless, hekl captive by tlie Indians. THE CHILCATS. 53 thcni I was tell ill u iavin<:' f bao- tlireu iry I'd' icrl, as ■cquciit (Idling, I tlieir o'eneral ved ill applied he dc- good 'lietber think, •der to off the I trading p visibly found -sonio Ry. tive bv 1 Ma T must close this letter after adding a few other items of interest aliout the outfit of the American party, because the Indian who has agreed to convey this '"to the salt water" by canoe is impatient to set oat, and my subsequent communications will probably refer excbrlvcly to our own struggles up rhe Klaheena or Wellesley River, as here our routes Mfarcate — the American party exploring the head- waters of the Takheeua River (which they will descend), while we explore the liead-waters of the one before-mentioned, whence I hope to find a pass which leads to the Altsehk River, which is said to rise in the unknowii country behind Mount St. Elias and to flow into the sea at Dry Bay. My own party are already camped far up the Klaheena, ;'.nd by to-night will have com[)lctcd the trail as lar as the bare promontory, which I have named Point Christopher, but the other pavty keep on up the Chilcat River for yet another 'lay and a half by canoe. lor packing each hundred pounds weight of material the Indians ask forty dollars. It will there- fore cost them six hundred dollars to have 1,500 pounds weight conveyed to the lake-source of the Takheena. One larnje tent accommodates the entire party, which consists of five white men and 54 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. f>? one old Indian, who has permanently attached him- self to them, and will prove of much use from his previous knowledge of the country — all the other Indians being only willing to work temporarily and within the bounds of their own district. This old Indian who has expressed his intention of staying with the white men all through, is one who had already made the voyage down the Yukon with my friend Lieutenant Schwatka. Meantime almost the whole Chilcat tribe — and I believe it numbers fewer souls than has been represented — are ready to set off at an hour's notice on their own account to trade in the " Stick-Indian country," as they think wo have come to take their means of livelihood from them, and it will require a great amount of proof, persuasion, and inspection of what the packs contain to convince them that we arc not rival traders. Another thing the Americans have is a flat bottomed, collapsible folding canvas boat w^eighing, complete with duplicate fixings, about eighty pounds, and nor unlike the Bertlion boats. The packs are being weighed by a small portable weighing-machine, and some are as much as 120 pounds, bringing in the lusty packer forty-eight dollars by agree- ment. I duul)t if any white man could Ijc induced for hire to pack such a weight as that, even THE CHILCATS. 55 i him- Dm his f- i 'i other ly and his old staying bo had ith my ost the I s fewer to set 3 trade nk we d from proof, contain iders. tomed, mplete id not being achine, .itiging agree- lid be :, even for one day, whereas it will take at I;;a3t eight days (and more, if bad weather should come on) to reach the source of the Takheena. Yet Indians have packed as much as 200 pounds over the Chilcoot Pass. I find a white man can comfortably carry a pack of a certain weight according to his strength, iind that as every horse has its pace, beyond which, when making long journeys, he should not be pressed, so a pound or two added to that weight causes great discomfort. Thirty pounds is as much as I can comfortably manage, even w^ith the most approved and broadest shoulder straps, with a broad band across the forehead to equalise the pressure. How- ever, these Chilcats have carried packs, one might almost say, from infancy upwards, as I have seen small boys staggering for miles under a bundle almost as heavy and much more bulky than them- selves ; and they have done so for generations, because hitherto the Sticks have not been suffered to approach the ocean, and therefore the Chilcats have themselves portaged their trading material to the Sticks, bringing back in exchange bales of furs, ehietly fox skins. LETTER \I. FIGHTING THE STREAM. fli Upper Chilcat, Camp 7, Ma^ 12///, 1890. Having at last found an Indian who was willing^ to part with his canoe for fifteen dollars (a veiv old (Hie, which 1 had to patch up with lard and resin boiled together, and with pieces of tin), and bidden farewell to the Americans, I set out to pole, paddle, or tow the said canoe, with the assistance of a white man who was not familiar with punting or poling, against the exceedingly swift current of the Chilcat, and sul)sequently of the Klaheena River, in order to overtake the remainder of my party, who were, I thought, now safely camped upon the treeless summit of Point Christopher, having cut a trail thither with axes from Camp 6. I found on first setting off that the canoe wa,^ not perfectly level in the water, the oil sacks con- taining the additional supplies of food not having FKiHTIN'G THE STREAM. 57 been properly disposed upon its bottom. This having been set right so that she rode upon a perfectly level keel, I next found that she refused to tow properly. Tlic Indians standing by, who observed this, soon corrected it l)y slightly altering the position of the tow-rope, which should have been attached to the canoe at a distance from the bows of one-third her total length, after which, by sitting in the stern, the steerer directs her course with a paddle without any exertion ; but occasionallv I had to exchanofe the i)addle for the pole where the current was so swift that, even with a full strain upon the tow-rope, we could barely make headway against it. Most of the Chilcat canoes, except the larger ones which come from Biitisli territory, are made of Cottonwood, which is exceedingly tough and makes good strong craft, but they are liable to split longitudinally from stem to stern. This particular canoe had lieen repaired by tacking strips of tin across the cracks, besides whicli I had filled them in with waterproof compound, thus entirely preventino- leakagje. Progress was slow, but continuous, except where the too great depth of water for poling, combined with the impossibility of continuing to tow on one 58 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. i Lank, owing to scrub and timber, and a swiftness too great for the paddle to contend with, obliged us to cross the river. Then it was htart-breakinGf to see how much ground we lost in so doing, swept downward by the nine-knot current. In some places the depth, or rather the shallowness, was such that, if the stern had Ijeen perceptibly deeper sunk than the bows, it would have grounded, while the forward part of the canoe would have been whirled round by the force of water ; nor, on reaching the other side, whenever it was necessary to cross, was it easy to gather up the tow-rope and leap out upon a shelving bank of loose pebbles, past which the canoe was being carried with arrow- like rapidity, and then recovering one's equilibrium, to stop her, and commence the tedious work of towing her in the teeth of the rapids, with a foothold upon the yielding sand. Any bungling under these circumstances was sure to be followed by unpleasant consequences, such as a total but temporary dis- appearance under the milk-white flood, wdiich was now of a temperature of thirty-eight, owing to the amount of ice upon the banks. Towards the afternoon the temperature of the Klaheona rose five or six degrees, according to the heat of the sun, and also, as is usual with all NS. iwiftness liged us iking to :, swept a some ss, was deeper :1, while ^e been lor, on Jcessary )vv-rope pebbles, arrow- ibrium, ork of )othold L' these leasant y dis- ih was to the jf the to the th all • t ■ K r. K H OS P O O 60 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. streams of glacial origin, it was subject to a daily rise and fall which was independent of the steady daily rise of the river owing to the increasing heat of May. Thus the distance of its sources caused the water to increase in volume and swiftness from noon to midnight, after which it commenced to decrease from midnight to noon, the daily rise measurinjTf from six to ten inches according- to the heat of the weather, the diurnal fall in volume measuring from five to eight inches during the time the fine weather lasted. After a few days of cloudy, rainy weather, I found the river falling from day to day at about the same ratio as that at which it had risen during the fine weather. Another danger to which we were exposed all day, was that of contact with large blocks of ice which were floating down the current and were difiicult to see, especially round bends of the river, or in the foam of rapids with the sun in one's eyes. The man towing had also to walk upon the ice bordering the stream on either side like white walls, which the water had completely undermined in certain places, where it frequently fell into the current with an appalling noise, and. had he been standing upon it at the time, must have thrown him into the river, to say nothing of its falling upon the canoe. FIGHTING THE STREAM. 61 which frequently had to pass below such overhangini,^ masses. Then again a light person might have been carried off his legs Avading, or a heavy one might easily capsize a Chilcat canoe l)y jumping into it too heedlessly. It is worthy of remark that during fine weather I invariably found the wind during the day-time in the Chilcat valley blowing up from the sea, commencing in the forenoon with a gentle breeze which gradually increased to a smart gale that died quite away by sunset, while during the night there was either no wind, or else it blew in the contrary direction. This regular movement of the atmosphere no doubt is an important factor in producing the regular daily rise and fall of the river. It is also of great assistance to the Chilcats, who can thus count upon a breeze to assist them up against the current by means of a sail, rendering poling unnecessary except in certain places ; while l)y starting either early or late in the day when descending the river they can avoid it altogether, since it is difficult to steer canoes with accuracy when being carried down- stream against the wind, the tendency being, as in Norwegian boats and others built high at both ends, to slew sideways, and in many parts of the Chilcat River very nice calculation is essential to avoid snags, 02 BEAR-IIUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. rooks, shallows, and especially fallen trees in the narrow channels, where the current runs as high as nine miles an hour. But here the river was fur too dangerous and rapid to make sailing desirable. The salmon-trout had arrived in the river, as I was made aware by observing an old man trying to impale some of them with a large gaff by striking upwards towards the surface with a long elastic pole on the chance of one being within range, the muddi- ness of the water prevent in"* their either seeing or being seen. That he was successful I knew, because he offered me ten previous to my departure, at the Chilcat price of a dollar each, like early strawberries. It was two hours before midnight when we reached the new camp, thankful to haul the canoe out of a river which it takes at least ten times as long to ascend as to descend. But the tents had been pitched in a conspicuous manner, and the British ensign tied on a sapling was waving over my tent, while an enormous fire, ready to dry our clothes by, had been distinctly visible to us for several hours pre- viously, and formed a cheering spectacle as we gradu- ally fought our way upwards towards it, mile by mile, against the cold and rushing torrent. The weather remained as it had been for the last twelve days, a cloudless sky and a gentle breeze probal)ly from the FIGHTING THE STREAM. G3 westward in tlie higher regions of the atmosphere. I found that along the coast, at Yakutat, tlic Copper Piiver, Prince William Sound, and the Alaskan penin- sula, wet cloudy weather was invariably accompanied by an easterly wind, while a westerly one was with- out exception synchronous with dry and usually clear weather, but as there have been no clouds or even vapour of any kind upon the mountains it has been (lithcult to decide what the direction of the wind was, though on making a partial ascent of a moun- tain I named Mount Glave, the wind wa.s found to be from the westward at an elevation ')f 5,000 feet above the river. We passed Sunday quietly in camp. A small party of Chilcat Indians came down the valley. We sighted them first at a distance of some miles on the wide expanse of the Klaheena River bed, though the number of snags, trunks, and roots of trees with which it is strewn makes it difficult to distinguish moving objects. They chiefly waded in preference to forcing their way through the bush, and, as the river has not yet risen to its full spring height, it can be waded in many places where it becomes subdivided into branches, and assumes a broad and rapid character. In choosing a place to wade a river it must be borne in mind that where it is swiftest 64 BKAH-IIUNTING IX TIIK WHITK .MOl'NTAINS. and broadest, tlierc it is also slinllow«\st. T obsorvcd these Indian^ lor some time with the fiehl-glass, and noted Lotli tlio places tliey selected for crossing and th(^ manner in wliicdi they eftected it. The party consisted of a man, two women, and a boy, and they negotiated the deeper streams in line, shonldcr to shoulder, all of them holding on to the same pole or limb of a tree held hori^iontallv, of which there were plenty lying about, the man grasping the up- stream end, and his legs l)reaking the force of the current for those below; upon the top of his pack was perched a small child. It is bettor to carry a heavy weight in wading a swift stream than to carry none whatever, as it renders one's legs less liable to be swept from under one by the force of the water, though having once lost one's foothold, no doubt a heavy pack strapped to one's back would make it difti cult to recover. On this question we shall probably have more experience in the immediate future. These Indians had evidently come from the divide, and had either been hunting or trading (probably the former), as the presence of the women and child made it unlikely that they had come any great distance. Moreover, after giving them tea and crackers, I discovered that their packs contained but a few furs of the commonest kind. AVe had bridsfcd a small clear stream, sluircisli KKJHTINli THK STKEAM. 05 but deep, on the west of our camp, by felling a tall Cottonwood, and floating one end across. It formed a footway so narrow and slippery, and the water was HO profound on either side, that I hesitated to cross it, and only did so once, and that in fear and trembling, preferring to wade. But those Chilcats walked across (except one woman, and the man informed us she was a Yakutat) without so much as thinking twice about it, turning their toes inwards after the manner of an ape, though Schwatka in- formed me that he has observed the Chilcoots balancing themselves across a log bridge by stepping sideways all the time, the feet being planted so that both pointed to the same side. On May 12th, with Michael Kalamo, my Kwagiutl half-breed, I made a tedious ascent of Mount Glave. We had to run a race with the river. I was anxious to recross it before noon, as subsequent to that hour it rises so rapidly that I feared it might be almost unfordable, particularly as we found it hard enough to stagger across in the early morning, when it was almost at its lowest. I therefore roused every one at four, and we had breaklast — porridge with condensed milk stirred in undiluted, hard tack or captain's biscuits toasted, with butter, canned roast beef, cheese, and cold boiled beans. It was im- h 60 BEAR-HDNTING IX THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. portant also to know if there was much game in the country to depend upon for food ; if possible to get a glimpse towards the St. Eli as district in case any superlatively high peaks should be visiljlc in that direction, and to obtain a general view ui the immediate district. We tried to cross at several points before suc- ceeding, using long poles as a support, but iu returning we imitated the Indians by forminu line (of two), and then, like the hundrcl pipers, "Shoulder to shoulder the brave men stood," and instead of dancing ourselves dry tc the pibroch's sound, we climbed ourselves dry to the driimmi:)Gj of numerous grouse, the sidling^ of the breeze, and the crackliug of dry stick? as we forced our way upwards through the inter- plaited stems of thickest brushwood, scaring, possibly, a bcjir whose tracks were fvesh upon the slopes. AVe presently reached a tall spruce un which a grouse was sitting, uttering its pecuhar boominoj sound wliich can be hetird at least a mile away on a still day. It re(|uircd, as usual, a careiid scrutiny of several minutes before the plump form of the bird could be distinguished, though one could almost locate the precise spot by the sound it continued to give forth, until a FIGHTING THE STREAAI. (>7 well-directed shot broudit our lunch flutterino- to my feet. The bu.sh was found to ]>c thickest at the bottom, and immediately below the snow-line ; while in the centre, beinij a zone ranmnsj from 1,000 to 3,000 feet in height, it was not so tedious to penetrate, .'xccpting on account of fallen trees and devirs-clubs. At an altitude of 4,000 feet we made our way over snow-patches alternating with thin brush, the snow being soft in places and allowing one to sink waist-deep, wliile on the surface were traces of ptarmigan, fox and hare. The ground was frequently pitted with extensive burrows of the mouse. The view from such an altitude and in such a place was of the superbest character, and unapproachable except, I think, in the Caucasus, in its Cjuaiities of mingled width of verdure and highest snow-capped desola- tion. Mount Fairwcather and a galaxy of peaks in the south formed a distant clu.,ter of glittering pinnacles fringing the sky. Before me rose and fell White cursed hills, like outer skirts of hell Seen where men's eyes look through the day to night, Like a jagged shell's lips harsh, untunable, Blown in upon by devils' wrangling breath. Bel(/W, the river wound serpentincly in glittering, F 2 68 BEAR-HUNTTNG IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. wrinkled cliannpls, and the upper Chilcat valley lay mapped out ; the lake (frozen) and the forest flecked with marshes and shining pools and streams, and snow-patclies. On the east was the main valley, with a less turbulent and more subdivided stream and more wooded bottom, and, opening from it, a gorge with steep cliffs and snow-peaks beyond. On the west stretched out some of the St. Elias Alps, the peaks just discernible over the shoulders and gaps of the rnnge, probably bordering the Altselik [fiver, and far away a high square mountain, that Heemed of colossal proportions, without any rock appearing to relieve the smoothness of its snow slopes. We hurried down, and once within the timber found it less fatiguing to descend than to ascend ; frequently making use of some fallen monarch of the forest as a kind of bridge across other prostrate trees, but with some risk, as a slip might have impaled one like a cockroach on some of the sharp spikes of dead })ranches of trees below, that radiated like chevaux-de-Jrhes. lley lay forest itreams, a less 1 more ^e with e west ! peaks of the r, and M ned of iug to timber 5cend ; :'ch of )strate have shar]) diated ■.J( ■ LETTER VII. EXCELSIOR. Chilcat Country, Camp 9, May '2Ut, 1800. One easily perceives how necessary it is to have Indians in a country like this, where long distances have to be traversed over the roughest description of ti il, but generally without any trail at all. Although it frequently happens that parties of Chilcats enter the Altsehk valley by this route, they leave but little track behind them with their bare feet, only occasionally giving a stroke with the axe upon some offending limb, but generally they are content to find a way through the thicket without leaving it any easier for the next comer. A party of Indians can take provisions with them in addition to trading material or furs, calculated to last them a far greater length of time than a party of white men, who, on the contrary, have probably not taken anything but what they consider persoral necessaries. During 70 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. ■J II a long journey the whit^ man, in short, eats more than he himself can carry ; the Indian can carry more than sufficient for his own consumption. On the 13th of May we struggled all day against the stream, first towing with one rope and keeping the canoe away from the bank with M pole ; chen I tried a plan new to us all, which I had only heard of by repute, by attaching one long tow-rope to an auger hole through the stern, another through one in the bow. A pull on the stern rope would send the canoe out into the midstream, while a slackinor of it brought her in ao-ain, and in this way it was unnecessary for any one to be in the canoe, and she consequently drew so little water that we were able to avoid running aground so much, nor was it necessary to wade so frequently in order to push and shove her past some obstruction. Some remarkably large cottonwoods were observed at this portion of the Klaheena, the largest I measured with a tape girthing thirteen feet. The shallower portions of the river were full of young salmon about an inch in length ; terns and gulls were preying upon them as they sported amongst the rotting carcases of their parents, but so many of these latter had been eaten by wild animals that the stench was not so unbearal)le as it is earlier EXCELSIOK. 71 in the winter. One of the men shot an eagle, but it ^'11 dead in the timber and could not be found. The locality we chose for the eighth camp had been used previously, but long since, by the Indians for that purpose. In front through the opening in which the tents were pitched could be seen the swift gray-green river, beyond it a narrow strip of light green young cottonw^oods, then the steep, dark green, spruce-clad slopes, and above them the domes and peaks of snow - mountains, dyed orange by the declining sun. Across the river a Ihyctg eagle's evrie was dis- covered near the top of a lofty cottonwood ; and there was visible over the top of the nest the white bead of one of the parent birds, sitting on the eggs, without paying any regard to us, although some of the smoke of our fire had drifted acrut now the wind played us false, and con . '3yed warning of our approach, for Bruin was nowhere to be seen. We descended by a difltivint route, seeing only a large porcupine which allowed us to approach it within a distance of a couple of yards without showing any inclination to stir from the bush to which it was clinging. Twenty-four hours later I was once more upon my old post at the edge of the great moraine. High up on the mountain-side above me were a couple of black bears disporting themselves, but my attention was concentrated on a huge brown bear, whose skin, skull, and paws are before me as I write (together with the skins of three others), pegged out to its full capacity. This bear was fully eight times as heavy, to all appearance, as any of the black bears, and I had an opportunity of comparing them at 88 BEAR-HUxNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. that very moment, since one of the latter was feeding not more than a stone-throw away. The tape measurements of the skin give it an area of sixty- five square feet, including head and paws ; across the narrowest portion it measures six feet, and in length nine without the head, the claws of the fore paws measure four inches round the curve, and in fur, size, and texture the hide strongly re- sembles that of a buffalo. But meanwhile one of the black bears scented danger, scampered upwards, and passing across the face of an apparently in- accessible precipice, disappeared from view. The brown bear continued feeding, sometimes standing still to gaze down upon the moraine and valley below, or sitting up to reach some of the sour red berries which yet lingered, or pawing up the stones. For several hours I watched the animal's move- ments, hoping it might take a fancy to descend, but it continued mounting, mounting upwards, the angle of the slopes being about two in one, or twenty-five degrees from the perpendicular. So colossal was it that I took the black bear at the first glance to be its cub, the second bear con- tinuing to feed, without shifting ground, in an open glade between some rocks. About dusk it THE GREAT BEAR-HUNT. 89 disappeared from view into the thicket. To be al)le during an entire afternoon to observe wild bears in their native haunts, under such favourable circumstances, would be considered by many sports- men a great privilege. But while I had passed the day alone upon the glacier, John Hammond had been more successful in a narrow ravine upon tlie opposite side of the valley. After climbing sufficiently high to obtain a good view, he sighted one black bear below him and another upon the opposite side of the gulch. Climbing down to find the former, he encountered a cinnamon bear upon the same ridge and promptly fired, upon which it leaped aside, and vanished in the brush- wood with a tremendous crashing of twigs and branches. Not supposing it wounded, he abandoned further pursuit temporarily in order to recover his hat, which had rolled some 500 feet towards the watercourse jjelovv, showing the extreme abruptness of the declivity, but on reascending the bear was discovered htonc dead, having received a bullet through the spine. The black bear on the opposite face had remained in the same h)cality as when first seen. After a severe climb he arrived at a spot '>bout twenty yards to leeward of it, and discovered the animal lying down ; upon the first 90 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. shot striking its shoulder it seemed as though it might succeed in escaping, but a second gave it the quietus, after which the successful Nimrod re- turned triumphantly to camp, as proud and happy a man as I have ever seen in my life, or expect to see. These were the first bears he had ever killed, and few men would have ventured on to more dangerous declivities than lie. The character of these mountains is entirely different from the Alps ; the smooth and slippery twigs and blades of grass, and the steepness of the mountain- sides, make the foothold perilous in the extreme. These two bears were in poor condition, but their fur was astonishingly thick and fine. The following morning I ascended to the spot where the big brown bear had last entered the brush on the previous evening, and waited for several hours impatiently hoping for its appearance. The view was considerably impeded 1)y the vegetation and the unevenness of the ground, while the wind blowing in treacherous gusts from different directions may have given it the alarm ; above me there stretched a long wall of cliffs, and as it was impossible to see more than a very circumscribed portion of the ground, I found that I should have done better had I waited THE GREAT BEAR-HUNT. 91 patiently below. The climb accorded more with my idea of chamois or wild-goat hunting than that of bears, and every footstep had to be well considered. It requires some time to elapse fox' a man to l)ecome accustomed to the extreme loneliness of these portions of British Columbia, especially in such situations as these, when he feels that in no even- tuality can he hope for assistance from any human being but himself. Before quitting Camp 11, I ascended the mountain on which I had seen so many specimens of the bear, as far as snow-level, seeing in different places two more bears, but not in such a position as to render it possible to approach them. This block of snow-peaks is enclosed between the Klaheena and Marble rivers, and is included in the White Mountains, which name was originally given to the range between the Chilcat couutry and Glacier Bav. The same day on which I left Camp 11 the big brown bear and a fine black bear met their death at the hand of Michael. His inclination led him to select the same spot upon the ^larble moraine whence I had watched the big grizzly for so long, and waited in vain for him to descend from his almost inac- cessil)le retreat. Diana smiled upon him, and the 92 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. monster descended the slope lower than it had ever done before, and actually came to within one hundred and seventy yards of where he was lying in wait. This proximity was becoming uncomfortable, and Michael fired at the brute hoping that it would retire, because a much pleasanter adversary in the shape of a harmless black bear was feeding near at hand. The big bear did retire — mortally Avounded, but it was not discovered until next morning that the bullet had entered the neck, and after traversing the chest had lodged somewhere in the neighbourhood of the heart. Whether Michael really wanted to frighten the grizzly rather than wound it, no man will ever know ; but so Hammond declared in chaff, and many a true word is spoken in jest. But it turned out no joke for the grizzly. After routing the brute Michael next attacked the black bear, and killed it in two shots at a distance of about fifty yards, and leaving further operations till next day, re- turned to camp. LETTER IX. SHOOTING THE RAPIDS. Chilcat Country, Camp 15, Jane 15th, 1890. How we killed four bears in the White Mountains was described in my last letter while we were camped at the junction of the Klaheena River and that which issues from what I named the Marble Glacier. From this point I found little or no defined Indian trail in the direction of the pass which leads over to Dry Bay and Yakutat, al- thoujGfh parties of Indians had frequently been met by us passing to and fro ; the reason being that they keep as much as possible to the dry por- tions of the river beds and avoid the brush, pre- ferring to wade. But wherever we came across it we have left the Indian trail three or four times easier than we found it by a liberal use of the axe. i ! 94 BEAR-Hl'NTIXr; IX THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. In its upper reaches the Klaheena entirely changes its character, and becomes a mere mountain torrent confined in a narrow rocky channel. The trail dis- appears, but the timber is moderately " clean.'* A wide valley is next crossed in which flows a tributary of the Chilcat, after which two canyons have to l)e passed, and then bare open ground above timber-line with temporary fields of snow ; in the latter portion of the pass the ground is broken up into steep ridges along which it is difficult to find the way. One evening I was greatly astonished at the sudden appearance of a white man in camp, whose clothes were all in rags. I found that he was a "prospector" who had become separated from his two companions on their way over the pass at the foot of which we were now encamped, and that he had already crossed it in 1887, on which occa- sion he had descended the Altsehk to Dry Bay. I gained the following particulars from him. The valley of the Altsehk once entered, the smaller streams are found flowing west instead of east, and the way becomes comparatively easy as one reaches the wide flat bottom in which the river meanders with a current as rapid and a fall as great as that of the Klaheena. Below timber-line a deep canyon is passed, and at a distance of about thirty miles jf ■*►'■■ SHOOTING THE RAPIDS. 95 from the divide the main branch of the Altsehk is met in the shape of a broad stream a])out the size of the Chilcat, and with a slow current, which, according to my informant, appears from this point upwards to be suitable for steamboat navigation. I now learned again that the natives rarely descend the Altsehk in canoes, thus confirming what I had been told by the Yakutat Indian chief, and by white men who had been to the mouth of the river at Dry Bay. This large, deep, slow river, flowing in from the north-west, is clearer than the other branches. At this point are four or five houses used by the Chilcats as storehouses for purposes of trade with the interior or Stick Indians, whom they will not sufi'er to carry their own furs to the coast at Chilcat. There are other trading posts of the Chilcats higher up the river, some of whom have amassed considerable wealth by acting thus as middle-men. At the point where these rivers join there appears to be land available for agriculture — a rare thing in these regions. He also said that the inland tribe was burning off the timber, so as to form a trail from the divide down the Altsehk, in anticipation that the advent of white men would deliver them from the oppression of the Chilcats. Below the forks there is a dangerous canyon, which 96 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. forms the chief impediment to the navigation of the Altselik ; consequently, travel up and down the river is chiefly confined to the winter months, when it can be traversed on the ice. There arc, however, portions of the river which, owing to the rapid current, are not frozen over. On nearing Dry Bay the Altsehk valley appears to be completely blocked by a great glacier (evidently the Grand Plateau Glacier of the U.S. coast survey), but on approaching it the river abruptly swerves to the right, and, running alongside the edge of the ice, emerges at Dry Bay — a great tidal lagoon and network of mud channels, with a dangerous bar and a few Indian hovels. There are other Indians resident between Dry Bay and Yakutat, which places are connected by a chain of lagoons forming a water communication between them. At the canyon west of the divide (which is many hundred feet in depth) wild goats are abundant. One of the Indians of the party killed a cariboo on the pass. Salmon, of course, run in the Altsehk in the same profusion as in other rivers on this coast. These discoveries may be summarised briefly as follows : The Altsehk is reached in nine days on foot from the sea at Chilcat ; at the great canyon SHOOTING THE RAPIDS. d7 II fine river comes in from the north -westward, witli deep slow current, apparently rising in the heart of the St. Elias Alps ; the climate is dry ; and the Indians are friendly, and less offensive in their dealings than the Chilcats. To bring our hea'*y bear-hides and baggage down we constructed a raft, for the brown bear's skin alone weighed fifty pounds. Before it had proceeded far, however, the raft capsized. ^Michael got ashore without delay, but John Hammond clung to a tree, which presently broke, and he disappeared below tbe surface with two guns strapped to hi^^ back. The first things that appeared were tbe black muzzles of the firearms. Lower down the river our two canoes were waiting, one of which we had hewn from a fine Cottonwood. The latter still required some completion. After supporting the ends on two logs, it was partly filled with water. We next made a huge fire, and heated forty or fifty round stones, of the largest size we could find, until they were almost red-hot, and, seizing them in a wood- tongs or split stick, we placed them in the canoe until the water was boiled, which made the sides so pliable that we were able to stretch them to a greater width, and fix them in that position with cross-pieces. Into this I placed Hammond and the W BEAR- HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. furs, which were secured with ropes. The remainder of the baggage was placed in tlie other. We took the wrong channel, and got into a dangerous predica- ment, where the river pressed against the bank and turned over upon itself, while great trees, uprooted and bending downwards, formed veritable canoe-traps, interspersed with others under the surface against which the rushing waters foamed. I shot by safely with Michael in the larger canoe, in fear and trembling, but the other was capsized and turned a complete somersault endways, but presently ran aground, and was recovered. A few packages became loosened from the lashings, and floated down-stream, but were fortunately picked up. Thus twice within three days did Hammond suffer shipwreck, attended by considerable risk. There had appeared no signs of the two other white men, the lost companions of the miner who had joined my party. They were Norwegians, named Louis Lund and Thomas Johnson, and, as I learned afterwards from the survivor, were likewise capsized in the same whirlpool. These men were no in- experienced landlubbers, but sailors from Arendal, below Christiansand. Johnson held on to a snag for a few moments, and was then swept away and quickly drowned, doubtless stunned by the violence SHOOTING THR ItAPIDS. gg Of the water The other searol.od in vain for several .lays for the body, with the help of an Indian whom l.e pmd to assist him. We continued steadily npon our way southwards, floating down the river, now "0 longer a brawling cataraet, and thus took our revenge upon it for many days of labour H i ^H!B8SBW!?= un^b^ LETTEU X. OUU ItETniX." Sitka, Alaska, July l.s/, 1890. The weather was rainy as we paddled down the swollen Chilcat River, which was turbid and high, and bore us southwards at a rapid rate, about three times as fast as we had travelled while ascendinu. Near the mouth of it we visited a party of Indians camped on the site of our first stopping- place, consisting of a dozen families, who were employing themselves in boiling masses of small fish in a putrefying condition in their canoes, by means of heated stones. The oil w^hich floated was then skimmed off, and collected in old paraffin cans to serve as an article of diet. These fish were not the oolachan or candle-fish, which they resembled in oiliness ; real oolachan-oil, however, is brought up for sale to the=3e Indians from places where this OUR RKTIIIN. lOl li.sli is found, siicli as the estuary of the Naas lliver. One and all wcic dabblini-' and luxuriatin-' in the rancid fluid, the sclent of which impregnated the surrounding air. We reached Pyramid Ilarhoiir Cannery after a calm crossing of the Chilcat Fnlct, Hammond gallantly paddling the small canoe. The south wind frequently blows with great force Tip this long salt - water channel, which is named Lynn Canal. On either hand rise steep rocky peaks, from three to five thousand feet in height, with a few glaciers, some hanging on the slopes, others coming down as low as the shore, and extending themselves in ftui-shaped segments at the valleys' mouths. Here I remained for some days waiting for the steamer, camped with my men, Hammond and I indulging our mountaineering propensities by occa- sionally attacking the steep hill behind the camp. One day some wild (white) goats were seen in an almost inaccessible position, but, fortunately for them, it was Sunday. Every day we had long lines out across the httle harbour, baited wi h fresh fish, on which we caught more flat-fish and rock-cod than we could eat. I also caught a few sea-trout with rod and 102 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. line, using mussels as bait, by standing on the small wharf of the cannery. The salmon were not expected for two or three weeks, though a few might have been taken even then ; but it was not considered worth the wear and tear to the nets and gear. The fishing-boats (large safe craft belonging to the owners of the cannery, carrying a single sail, and. fitted with centre-board) were still anchored near the shore, while the men were employed in making the tins, and in building, and in other ways ashore, a large number of them being Chinese. At length the steamer arrived, on which we embarked for our journey southward — my men for Vancouver Island, myself for Sitka. But first we visited Glacier Bay, with its giant snow-peaks, its innumerable icebergs, and its ice-clifi's, where frozen masses are continually breaking ofi" and falling into the ocean below. The forested shores at the entrance give way to bare granite slopes, from which the glacier masses have so recently melted that no soil or vegetation has had a chance to grow. Bergs as large as a house floated with only their seventh part above water, their surfaces weather-worn and honeycombed until they shone with the dazzling whiteness of snow. OUR RETURN. 103 The following day we readied the sea-girt c.ipital of Alaska, quaint and hospitable, in the island- studded Sound, where I disembarked, intending to stay for a while at Sitka. Of course I meant to sketch as much as the rainy weather w^ould permit, notwithstanding the annual rainfall of eighty-three inches on the coast, and, as a humble disciple of Izaak AValton, had hopes of a few Alaska trout. The Alaska salmon disdain a fly, and seldom take a spoon. The trout, too, sometimes will not rise to a fly, but I had brought a few with me. We had a number of anglers on board, but almost all had left their tackle at home, and had to content themselves with fishing over the side of the steamer at every stopping-place w^ith hand-lines for torn- cod, flounders, and halibut. One stout old gentle- man fished comfortaljly from a steamer-chair, taking naps between the ])ites, waking wdien the tug on his line warned him that he had a fish. The first evening I tried black-bass fishing, which I had found good sport during previous visits to Sitka. A white artificial sand-eel thrown like a salmon-fly I found an admiral)le bait. The scientific name for these so-called bass is Schastlclithys mcla7i02)s, but they are commonly known as sea-bass, rock-fish, and black-fish. At first glance they resemble the 104 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. fresh-water black-bass, and have many of the game qualities of that fish. They do not jump from the water when on the line, but make a very determined resistance, darting backward and forward and towards the boat, jerking the line violently, and trying all the usual ways of freeing themselves from the hook. One beautiful fish, weighing four and a half pounds, tested my tackle severely. We had a hard fight for fifteen minutes, and I was okd that he o"ave up when he did, for I was almost as tired as he w^as when at last he turned on his side and let us slip the landing-net under him. I caught one mysterious fish that + .ok the hook, settled down on the bottom, and was as immovable as a boulder ; once in a while he sprang into activity. Finally, the line broke. It may have been a halibut, as these are frequently taken on the coast, generally in favourite spots in deep w\iter, and sometimes of enormous size. I also caught a few sea-trout at the mouth of Indian River. Mount Edgecumbe, Sitka's weather prophet, rose in grand sweeping curves from the ocean, eighteen miles away, the late afternoon sun turning its snow- and-lava-streaked sides to a pure rose colour. We engaged rooms at the comfortable little hotel, where Lady Franklin stayed years ago, and transferred OUR RETURN'. 105 our luggage from the steamer to our uew quarters. Next day I strolled out to the ^lission to visit the Indian school and hospital, and climbed the rickety stairs to the old castle. I ascended through the great rooms, all but one unoccupied and fast falling to ruin, to the cupola. The sleepy little town lay below ine. The roofs of the old Russian houses are green with moss, and most of them time - stained and dilapidated. The cross on St. Michael's, the Russian church, shone in the rays of the setting sun, and around the spire hovered the ravens that are such a feature of Sitka. A mile east of the town was Mount Verstovia, over 3,000 feet high, the summit uf gray rock looking as sharp and clear-cut as an Indian stone arrow. On the east and north, as far as the eye could see, stretched the islands of Sitka Sound, 130 in number. The castle itself is built on what was once an island, which the Russians joined to the town site by an artificial parade-ground. On this clift' once stood a strong fort of the Sickan Indians, which was destroyed in 1804 in revenge for the cruel massacre at the Fort of Archangel, the first Russian settlement, six miles from the present site of Sitka. Those that have never visited Alaska can have no idea of the wonderful growth uf vegetation 106 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. there. It is impossible to make with comfort any excursions on foot in the neiij^hbourhood of Sitka. The only road is that to Indian River, three-quarters of a mile away. The mountains slope steeply to the water's edge, and a dense growth of evergreens, covering earth, rock, and fallen trees, makes walking a very difficult matter. There are a few trails on the mountains ; but they are seldom visited, except by mining prospectors. But Avith tlie large canoes, paddled by natives, deliglitfal excursions can be made for many miles around the town. In the Indian village there are several Hydah canoes, with good rowers ; but a Sitkan wishes to be paid for every trifling service rendered in addition to the labour of paddling. A pleasant excursion from Sitka by canoe is to Russian Redoubt. The narrow Fjord is enclosed on three sides by bold mountain peaks, and at its head we saw the old Russian earthworks and the dam built across the rapids that connect the waters of Ozerskoi Lake with the bay. An old block- house and the foot-bridges are still standing, but the fort, chapel, saw-mill, and other buildings erected in the time of the Russian- American Company have fallen into ruin. A salmon cannery has been built here recently. OUR RETURN. 107 The lake is twelve miles long and one wide, and winds about like a river. At its head rises a grand, snow-capped mountain, about 2,500 feet in height, bearing a glacier on its rocky sides. Wc walked across the foot-bridoes and saw the little Indian boys catcliing salmon. With a long, stout pole and a strong gaff fastened to one end they bent down over the rushing water, and, as the salmon darted up the stream, with a skilful motion they struck the gaff into their silvery sides and brought them struggling up to the bridge above. Below the rapids, in the little coves, great Hydah canoes filled with natives were awaitini"- the arrival of the salmon from the outer bay. The fish seem to come in schools at uncertain intervals, all bound for the spawning grounds in the lake above the rapids. Each (-anoe was manned by eight Indians, with their heads tied up in bright-coloured hand- kerchiefs to keep off the swarms of gnats and black Hies. Six rowers sat in their places, with oars in readiness, while one Indian stood in the bows watching the movements of the fish and ready to <>ive the sii»nal of starting'. The ureat net was piled up in the stern of the boat, with one end held fast on shore. On a previous visit I had found that the salmon 108 BEAPt-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. took a spoon-bait readily in salt water, and had experienced good sport here. The wonderful growth of the giant kelp and other seaweed shows the influence of the warm Japan current that bathes these shores and makes the sea life have almost tropical luxuriance. The stems of this kelp sometimes attain a length of three hundred feet, while the broad, crinkled leaves are often thirty and forty feet long. We passed through great beds of the weeds surging up and down in the waves, and suggesting stories of the sea-serpent as the immense coils showed from time to time above the surface of the water. In the days of the Russian occupation a hospital and other buildings stood near the Hot Springs. The hospital was destroyed by the Indians in 1852 and the inmates turned adrift, to make their way, with many hardships, over the mountains to Sitka. Only a few small buildings are now standing, which have been turned into rough lodgings for picnic- parties from Sitka and Juneau, who stay here some- times for several weeks. An old man lives here and takes care of the place ; but visitors have to bring their own provisions, bedding, and camp outfit. We found a tiny cooking stove, two broken chairs, and a table in one of the little houses, and took possession. OUR EETUKX. 109 Four springs bubble out of the billside only a few yards from the houses, the principal spriuo- ha^■lng a temperature of 1551° Fahrenheit. They contam sulphur, iron, magnesia, salt, and other substances, and are very beneficial in cases of rheu- matism and cutaneous diseases. A clear cold spriu..- slightly impregnated with iron, is very near one of the hot springs. I„ our cabin we found several neat little bath-rooms, to which the hot and cold water had been brought in pipes, and even here the water was too warm to bear one's hand in it. |. T.ETTER XT. AN ANGLERS EDEN. Adams Lake, Shiishwap District, British Columbia, July Voth, 1890. After a few clays in Victoria, T joined, by invitation, an excursion, on July 4th, by steamer across Puget Sound to the new town of Anacortes, promoted l)y an enterprising real estate agent, wliich was now- being "boomed." There were orations, sports, and canoe-races between whites and Indians, and various other amusements. After wliich experience, so cha- racteristic of the West, I went eastwards, by the Canadian Pacific Railway, in search of ** angling experiences" on the almost unknown waters of the upper Thompson River. Nothing can be a greater contrast in scenery, climate, modes of locomotion, and methods of travel than the coast ranges of British Columbia (more especially the northern parts) and those regions of "'V'^^ ^^- •'•.■^.*i *^%^^v^ :^^ •^S^ #y (•'■'i' ■ -i BRITISH C0i_UM3IA —FRAMEWORK FOR DRYING SALMON ON THE LOWER FRASER. AX ANGLERS EDEN. Ill the interior from wliicli I date tlii.s letter. I passed the last two months in the former, in the neigh- bourhood of latitude Gl" N., entering; by the C^hilcat River, mcetini;' every day some new and difficult obstacle to progress, in the shape of rapid rivers, impenetrable thickets, rugged mountains, or driving mists. But here the risers are less rapid, and interspersed with long lakes, the timber is thinly scattered, and occasionally the country consists of patches of prairie ; the hills are low and rounded, and can be climbed in any direction, even a\ hen no paths exist ; continual damp no longer festoons the trees with moss, but the climate is comparatively dry. A corner of the so - called great American desert {shown to be no desert at all) has been insinuated like a wedge into Columbia, broken up into patches, and diluted, so to speak, with an admixture of timber lands. An explorer has a right to travel comfortal)ly sometimes, even when engnged in exploring. 1 share with others a passion for exploring the angling capa- cities of this reoi'ion, althou2,h no one seems to have tabulated any reliable information on the subject, and except one or two prospectors, no one seems to have visited Adams Lake. The daily apprehensions and perils we had under- 112 liKAll-IIlJNTINC} IN THK WHITK MOUNTAINS. < 5^0110 during' the last two months iu the far and misty north hud Ijcconic monotonous, luwl I was in search of a region where we couhl travel out of the heatcn track, yet with some degree of comfort, and it is U> be found in the drainage basin of the North and South Thompson rivers. It must also be rocollccted that in Alaska and Northern Columbia, with tw(j insignificant exceptions, there are no horses, nf>r would the difHcult nature of the country allow of their being used if there were ; whereas here pack- horses form the usual means of transport. I commenced my investigations as an angler so near New Westminster as the Coquitlam iliver, but without any success worth chronicling, owing to the fact of its being so well known and the absence of any trail up the bank. I remained a day en route at Harrison Hot Springs, and without wishing t(» intrude any remarks upon so comparatively civilised a spot in my descriptions ui the wild places of Columbia, I might remark that, while I have visited many warm and boiling springs in diflferent parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia, I found this one exceed- ingly interesting, issuing below the surface of the lake itself, and rising in level only a few inches above it, within the enclosing woodwork of the bath- house. A desirable addition would be the means of AN ANGLERS EDEN. 113 enjoying" a cold plunge in the lake, so conveniently near, after coming out of the hot water, this forming the safest and best of baths for the robust, though ignorant persons generally suppose the contrary. This forms the principle of the Indian, the Russian, the Persian, and the Turkish baths, though not always carried out in practice — all of which 1 hav<' experienced in the countries named — and was also adopted in the Ivths of the ancient Romans. It much resembles the hot baths of Miyaiioshitn, in Japan, taken in conjunction with the scenery except that in place of a lake there is a deep valley. More recently I visited Hammam Meskoutinc, in Algeria, where the water issues from numerous open- ings on the summit of an immense dome of white carbonate of lime, which it has deposited, and at a temperature two degrees above boiling-point ; in the vicinity is a large underground lake with numerous ramifications, which one navigates in a small iron boat capable of containing just two persons and a lamp. I remained for a day at Spence's Bridge, where the train arrives in the early hours of the morning, and there is an inn, but no one remains out of bed in connection with it ; the arriving guest finds his way down the hill, enters the first house he sees (which is the hotel), and chooses a room for I 114 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. himself, provided that it is not already occupied. This proceeding struck me as an original idea, Avhicli might with advantage he adopted in some larger towns than this hamlet upon the banks of the South Thompson. Some persons connected with a survey of the line were camped here, and informed me that they had angled with natural fly every evening in the mail} river, but had never succeeded in capturing more than one trout apiece. However, with artificial fly I took eleven, the largest about a pound in weight, on the only evening I was there ; they were so bright and silvery in colour that I supposed them to be salmon-trout fresh from the sea, whereas two others I took in the afternoon in a small tributary stream were dark in colour, with black or green spots, and a red band down the sides (Sahno purpuratus). I was informed that the Indians occasionally fished in the latter stream, and often brouoht back loni>' strings of trout; but I found the bushes uncom- fortably thick on either bank, whereas on the South Thompson the banks are usually bare. One has to climb round a picturesque waterfall which the aforesaid stream makes close to its entry with the Thompson, which occurs half a mile or so below AN ANGLERS EDEN. 115 the bridge, whence is drawn the supply of water which irrigates the picturesque fruit and flower garden on the north bank of the former. This reminds one how dry the climato is, the rainfall annually ranging from seven to twelve inches. A similar phenomenon, but with more abrupt demar- cation, can be observed in the Himalayas, where the line of change in seme places is so defined that from a region of rain one enters one of continual sunshine, tlic transformation being confined to within a mile of the same spot. Though rain falls so seldom at Spence's Bridge, yet it rained heavil}^ for a couple of hours on the single afternoon I remained there ; indeed, I am un- fortunate in this respect, for so recently as February, 1890, I found myself in the oasis of Biskra, situated on the edge of tiie Sahara Desert, where for two years together no rain may chance to fall, or where in any case no more than an occasional shower of rain can be anticipated. On the very day of my arrival there came some hours of very brisk rain, to the astonishment of the nomad Arabs. But on the distant Aures Mountains rair. is frequently observed, while the dry bed of the Oued Biskra becomes filled with water brought down from these heights. I 2 IIG BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. This reminds me that, if a few palm trees could be made to orow at Yale, the resemblance would be perfect to the celebrated pass of Chabet- el-Akhira, between Bougie and Setif, in Algeria ; and I take this opportunity to recommend pedes- trians who are admirers of the grand in nature, to follow the old waggon-road on foot from the flag station of Spuzzum — where the west-bound train is due at a quarter after nine in the mornini; — as far as Yale, a distance of twelve miles, com- prising some of the finest portions of the Frascr River canyon, the advantage of stopping at Spuzzum for the purpose being that at this point the old road crosses the Fraser and joins the railway on the right bank, while above Spuzzum as far as Lytton (near which phce the railway crosses the Fraser), the road keeps the opposite bank, and is consequently not to be reached except by crossing in a canoe. A few words on the subject of the game fish of British Columbia may not be out of place. If there is one thing more than another that will attract the attention of the stranger on his arri\ i1 here, it is the excellence and variety of the food fish, while the gameness of some of thoni will especially commend them to the sportsmt\n. There ■•I AN ANGLERS EDEN. 117 are five varieties of salmon in British Columbiau waters ; three of them may be spoken of as game fish, viz., the Cohoe, the Sockcye, and the Tyhee, or spring salmon. These are emphatically angling fish, unci are plentiful in March and April, and when the rivers are full. They may be taken with the fly, minnow, or spoon-baii, in the sea, almost at all times. The trout of British Columbia are of two kinds, the ordinary trout {Salmo 2^^i^^yuratus), having black spots, and the steel-head {Salmo Gainhieri), The former occasionally attains the weight of tei\ pounds, but three or four pounds may be considered the weight of a good fish. The steel-head attains from twenty to twenty-five pounds. Ill this province there arc two varieties of char, .' L ' -. 'i.h red spots, and the other brown with yellow strip^'. It is not often that either of these fish are caught with the fly, the last named variety having a fancy for the spoon -l)ait, the minnow, or a piece of bacon. The grayling is seldom seen in British Columbia, it bein'ht be described as two long parallel lakes connected with each other about their centres. From the \vest end of the north arm the water flows into the Lesser ShushAvap Lake through a sluggish channel about two miles in length. The latter lake is five miles long, and is drained by the South Thompson. At Shushwap I found a few scattered farms aloni>- the south bank of the river, many of the settlers having married Indian wives, one instance being that of the settler in whose house I found accommodation. Others I found living with, but not married to, squaws. The opposite bank of the South Thompson is the Shushwap Indian reserve, where the natives are largely engaged in c:iltivating hay, oats, and po- '^atoes ; they also pos&ess large numbers of hand- some ponies and a few head of cattle, the country being comparatively free from timber in places, and suitable in consequence for pastoral purposes. The 120 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. hills arc rounded in form, in height rising to 2,000 feet above the valley, and sparsely covered towards the summits and round the Shushwap Lake with trees of moderate size, chiefly varieties of fir. The water of the South Thompson is very clear at this point, more so than lower down its course ; the current seems to vary from one to two miles per hour, the depth ranging from about ten to twenty feet. There is another small store at the point Avherc the Thompson leaves the Lesser Shu- shwap, probably for the purpose of trade with the Indians from the village immediately opposite in the reserve. I was told that a boat might be pro- cured here, but found after walking thither — a distance of three miles — that this was not the case. The settlers, in fact, are not well provided with boats. By reaching a point immediately opposite the Shushwap Indian village at the outflow of the lesser lake and shouting, a canoe came across, and I was able to make arrangements with an Indian to come down with the horses on the follow^ing morning to a point opposite Shushwap, in order to transfer myself and camp to Adams Lake, a distance of fifteen miles northwards, for the consideration of two and a half dollars a day and food. AN ANGLERS EDEN. 121 The (;aiiocs in use on the Sliushwap lakes seem very much iuferior to those in use on the coast, l)eing narrow, roughly hewn, and easily capsizablo, not having ])een "spread" hy placing water and hot stones in the interior and stretching them with cross -pieLx.s. But the Shushwap tribe, being an equestrian one, never walking when they can ride, can hardly be familiar with the art of making salt- water canoes, though trees large enough in cir- cumference are to l)e found in the neighbourhood. As it was Sunday, the whole tribe, almost without exception, was present, and as I reached the village the bell commenced to ring to summon them to attendance in the very diminutive buildiug, measuring about twenty feet by ten feet, which formed the church. One of the Indians performed the office of a priest. The interior boasted no ornamentation except a few tawdry pictures of the Virgin ; but a larger church is in process of erection, and nearly completed, made by themselves. The land on the Indian reserve side of the South Thompson is much higher than that on the opposite bank, and stretches back as a bare plateau about half a mile in width, which, as before men- tioned, is being largely cultivated. There is also an Indian village, which I visited on my way to 122 BEAU-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. Lake Adams, at the head of the Lesser Shushwap Lake, but the Indians are now taking up and clearing ground along the river Ijetween the upper and the lower lakes. The profusion of wild berries in the vicinity of the lakes is very large. I was able to gather as many as I wanted without searching far — goosel)erries, a few strawberries, two kinds of raspberries, a purple berry, popularly known in the neighbourhood as service - l)erry, a bright red berry of a tart and peculiar taste, and other kinds not perfectly matured. After chapel many of the Indians resumed a game they were playing, resembling draughts, others bathed in the lake. The number of grasshoppers this year was un- usually large, but in the neighbourhood of the Indian houses their quantity was something phe- nomenal. On July 1st, the Indian having kept his ap- pointment and made his appearance with the horses, I set out for Adams Lake, having first to be ferried across the river in a canoe (of white man's manu- facture, and more stable than the average Shushwap article). I placed everything in a pair of saddle- bags, made in London, of light, strong, waterproof canvas, which are much more easily packed than AN ANGLERS EDEN. 123 a pack-saddle, and can be thrown across a riding- saddle and easily secured, as was done in this instance. For the first three miles the road was excellent, as far as the village ; then came five miles along the l)order of the lake, the first two of which were exceedingly rough, as the usual path was yet under two foot of water. Only an Indian pony could have managed to krep its foothold among the loose boulders without falhug. After this the path became excellent, and I have rarely travelled a better pack trail than the seven miles which inter- vene between the second Indian village and Lake Adams. Adams Kiver runs into the upper or large Shushwap Lake near its outlet, on the north bank ; the Indians say there is sometimes a dan- gerous whirlpool where it enters, but I observed nothing of the kind from the opposite side, though perhaps I was too far away to see with certainty. Adams Eiver is a very swift stream, only avail- able for canoe navigation at lowest water, and rarely attempted by the Indians. There are good pack trails on both banks between Adams and Shushwap lakes, that on the east side being rather the l)ctter but the less used of the two ; the route along the Avest or right bank being the one I employed. The way at first rises gradually and mostly keeps along 124 BEAK-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. terraces, higU above Adams Kiver, wliicli can be heard thundering' below, but is not approached until the lake is almost in .sight. The woods are thick with scented underbrush, and I picked as much fruit as I wanted from the saddle without drawing rein. At one spot an Indian log bridge is passed which has been thrown across a small stream. Signs of the district having once been more thickly populated by Indians than at present are observed, in the shape of very old salmon-drying frames, chiefly near Adams Lake, and the square excavations which mark the site of ancient, partly underground houses, so old that firs sixty or seventy feet in height and four feet in circumference have grown in these curious rectangular hollows in a compact cluster and almost filled them up. Then there are also discernible the holes, now overgrown with brushwood, in which salmon refuse was boiled or roasted to extract the oil. The path descends and Adams Lake bursts sud- denly upon the view. This body of water probably took its name from some more ordinary person than our common ancestor ; but the Garden of Eden might well have been situated in a less pleasing spot. One of its chief negative recommendations, especially to persons in the garb of primeval man, AN ANGLER S KDEN. 125 is the fact that ihcrc arc hardly any mosquitoes at Adams Lake. AVo reached tlie water at the outflow of the river and camped upon a large grassy pro- montory projecting into the lake in a horn-shaped curve, enclosing a pool about an acre in extent, from which the river commenced its course in a series of white-crested rapids, wliile a steady stream from the lake flowed into the pool through its wide end. The surface was of glassy smoothness, reflectinor the wooded hills and hifjh bare bank upon the opposite side ; but upon the breast of the rapids, where the water toppled over and sank rushing away with gradually increasing speed, the surface seemed elon^jjated and furrowed with chanojins: lines as though drawn and sucked downwards with the growing velocity. Collected by the concen- tration of the waters from all parts of the lake, were floating to destruction myriads of large and small moths and flies, unable to rise from the su^ f;ice. The smoothness of the water above this point was constantly being broken by the splash of the great trout as they fed greedily upon the plentiful harvest of the air. After having picketed one horse and belled the other, my Shushwap uncovered a canoe which he possessed, concealed in the bush. As the deeper water 12G BEAR-IIUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. wlicro the trout were rising lay uudcr the farther shore, I had myself ferried across, as the sun had barely set, and there remained at least half an hour before it would become too dark for fishing. The canoe was as cranky and danf;erous as any of those on the lower lake, and if some one were to build a boat on this lake it would prove a great convenience, as the trout fishing here is undoubtedly the l>est in the district, and future anglers would then be able to ply their craft in safety, because the best fishing is on the very brink of the rapids, where any delay or accident might result in one's being carried down a mile in five minutes. On landing I immediately set to work, with a fine cast and moderate-sized brown flies, and enjoyed the best sport I have met with since I fished the Shellefteo Eiver in North Sweden, the Vuoksa in Finland, or the Sardinian Fluemendosa, or the Umeo, or the Saguenay, or other of the best pleasure- o^rounds of the enthusiastic anofler. I found a large, bright spoon-bait for the Indian, with which he caught nearly as many as I did, but of rather larger size. The slopes of the mountain above descended in a bare bank steeply into the crystal stream, and left a clear hundred yards in the best portion free AX ANGLERS KDEN. 127 from any bushes to humper tlic casting of the flics. The banks, however, are so abrupt that the ccuitre of the river, which was tlie best part, coukl only be reached safely by means of a steady boat, of which there was none. My rod was of greenheart, one of the most durable kinds of wood of which rods are made, twelve feet in length and as many years in nge. Many large trout fought stubbornly in the rapid current and tore themselves loose ; while, from the excited cxchimations of the Siw i.sh I knew he was having as much success as myself. In half an hour we returned to camp in the canoe with the total of eleven trout and one white fish ; the largest trout weighed three and a quarter pounds on a small pocket scale which I carried, while the aggregate weight of the twelve fish was twenty- one and a quarter pounds, being an average weight of a little under two pounds each. The hills round Adams Lake seem to vary in height from one to two thousand feet, and are closely timbered; but along the east shore, up to a height of nearly one thousand feet, there are fine open grassy slopes, where numerous Indian ponies are turned out to pasture. The length of the lake is said to be about forty miles, but it rarely exceeds two miles in width at any part. 128 BEAR-HUVTIXG IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. It: the o-eneral direction beincj north and south. (Jne mile from the lo^vor end, on the east bank, a wide promontory e^ flnt grass land, rising from the water at a gradual slope, affords a good situation for a village, of which the Indians have taken advantage by building several houses at convenient spots, and raising several patches of potatoes, of which they are very proud. About two miles farther on, upon the same side, some high cliffs descend abruptly into the lake. Upon the side opposite our camp, the other trail, to which I previously alluded, reaches the lake at a convenient place for landing, and a hundred feet above the watei- is one of the most charming places for camping groi ids imaginable — a small bare platcai partly shaded ])y a few pines, and commanding an ex- quisite panorama of the foamiijg rapids below as they issue from the lake, together with a view of the distant reaches of the lake itself to the north- wards, and the timbered valley to the south as far as its junction with the Shush wap. Wild raspberries were as numerous here as lower down, together with wild currants and gooseberries ; but while the flavour of the tirst-mentioned hardly equalled that of the cultivated fruit, this deficiency was atoned for by its a])undance. ; AN ANGLERS EDEN. 129 . One a wide i water I for a spots, which farther descend opposite iviously t place e watei' camping partly an ex- low as 'lew of north- nth as Wild down, s ; but hardlv iciency W w 1 ^ I endeavoured to make up next day for the lack of a steady boat by lashing two canoes together alongside with cross-pieces, but not firmly enough to warrant any rough usage, as th^ Indian was unwilling to do it permanently or securely, and used merely some small bits of string, which soon gave w^ay, beinij^ passed through small holes which we bored in the ed2:e of the canoe. The better way would have been to have passed ropes round the underside of the crafts. Our largest trout the next day scaled four and a quarter pounds. Some Indians passed, to whom I 'j,ave a plentiful supply of fresh fish, and they reiterated the statement I had previously heard, that very much larger trout are found at the north end. I also salted a large number of out and broui]^ht them down in a sack on one of the horses, as I 1 ave a disinclination to wasting fine fish of one's own capture. John, the Siwash, spoke a l)asta"'d English of the dullest description, but perfectly understandable, which he had picked up ^v'hilc working for white people in the Spallumchecn district, with which he enlivened the return journey. The day of our arrival I had barely pitched the tent when a severe thunderstorm commenced ; but the weather 130 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. was now cloudless and exceedingly sultry, apropos of which John remarked that it was "too much hot " for him. I suggested it must likewise be uncomfortable for the horses, upon which he said : " Nothing for hot horse." The elucidation of this curious sentence is easy when the key has once been found to the grammatical arrangement of similar sentences, of which this one is an example. s^S. apropos much wise be le said : of this as once lent of ixample. MOUNTAIN OF THE HOLY CROSS AT HOPE LETTER XII. HUNTING BIGHORN. Kl Vancouver, B.C., September btJi, 1890. After returning once more to Victoria to fetch the remainder of my outfit, I again travelled eastward in order to hunt wild sheep in the interior. On the way I "stopped over" at several places on the line which I had omitted on my previous journey. The first place was the Catholic school at Mission for Indian boys and girls, a flourishing farm at the mouth of the Eraser Valley, command- ing a magnificent view of the delta. The Father Director showed me all there was to see, the 2farden was one mass of colour ; most of the boys were absent with the tribe, at work ; the other Brother was drowned a few days later while saving the life of one of the pupils who was in danger. The next place was Hope, a few miles further on. There is no edifice in the immediate vicinity K 2 132 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. of Hope Station. The entire population dwells upon the farther bank of the Eraser. A few Indian families have the monopoly of ferrying people across for a consideration, but at other times of the day there is no certainty about being able to find Charon. In fact, I stood and shouted for fifteen minutes without producing any sign of human life visible to the naked eye in the neighbourhood of the Siwash ?'ianty across the water, from which a blue smoke was curling upwards, while amongst the trees I could distinguish the red flesh of the split salmon hung up to dry, and some canoes hauled up upon the beach. But it is doubtful if I should have done well, even had I succeeded in getting over on the evening of my arrival. The mail-carrier had already gone, and there was nothing left but to pitch my tent beside the railway track. Comfort- able accommodation for the night at the little hamlet of Hope — the ambitious Fort Hope of former days — would have been problematical, because there were only two inns there, and these had both been burned to the ground the previous day. Similarly the young city of Vancouver was razed to the ground by the destructive element on the very eve of my arrival in 1886. In the morning, however, I dis- covered an Indian family encamped near the landing- HUNTING BIGHORN. 133 I place, and a man with a canoe willing to be hired. Hope is one of the most Ijcautiful and picturesque villages I have seen on the Eraser, or indeed any- where. But its glory has passed away, it is a dead-and-alive hamlet. It is surrounded by moun- tains riot so rugged as to be repellent, l)ut high enough to lend a grandeur to the scenery. Here the Fraser Valley first commences to narrow, but the actual canyon does not commence till one reaches Yale. I first visited the black and still smoking ruins of the two inns, and heard the tale of woe from the lips of their once proprietors. It seems that male assistance was scarce on the out- break of the conflagration, but w. HUNTING BIGHORN. 155 less in le flat, unable L'endiDg rit. So nuntain Iragged Id pass enough wanted that it J preci- used to after capital if river river •revent in the freely, •med a lortions mense [ntirely trary. I tlie dorsJ fms and portions of the backs of myriads of them projected above the muddy surface of the stream, which in consequence seemed in places almost black. They were so plentiful that I managed to touch several with my hand, and even jerked some out of water with the hanslle of my umbrella, as they swam and drifted near the edge, apparently tired out, many of them with wounds about the head, perhaps caused Ijy sharp rocks in the turbid current. The Indians were, of course, drying some for winter use. If I had had any need of them ] could have landed plenty with a gaff or spear of any kind. I was not surprised also to hnd that the white inhabitants of Lillooet were not drying any for food, as people in British Columbia do not care much for salmon. Lillooet is an odd little hamlet. I^eople with chest complaints sometimes come to stay in the little inn, for the climate is very warm and dry in summer. Eain rarely falls, though the sky sometimes looks threatening. Nothins: can be grown without irrigation, and water for that purpose is scarce. The scenery round about is exquisitely beautiful. The clear Seton River joins the Eraser just below the town, flowing through a gorge with 156 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. fine cliffs on either side. Tlic Indians in the neighbourhood are mostly employed in agricultural pursuits, farming their own land. Previous to the completion of the C. P. K. the route to the coast used U) be across the Seton and Anderson lakes, and thence by waggon to Harrison Lake, and by steamer down the Fraser. THE END. ClIABLBS DICKBNS AND KTAITS, CBTBTAt/ FALACB PR88S. f;^« :ns. ia the iculturaJ. •i to the be coast n lakes, and by M,...:' T 20 1 1 ____, to 4 10 2tf m i:n' \tu Marftle iiU/ifiijUf '%^'";^' \\Klok\van r I ># Pff-^^' ■^-;-f-~ '5-;. s|# ;-^|i W Chvff THE GHILCAT COUNTRY ALASKA AND BRITISH COLUMBIA To accompany the Paper by Lieut. H. W. Seton-Karr, F.R.C.Sl .i« in :{o •JO llio .•'<^ !*#*■ '■■'H, :%^' Tfe^e^fl f M* "tS: •■''.vfr ;.A ■:s-^*. ^^:.. r«,^Mr ^- ■ y. 070 Villi moil •^730 ■iji„- 'A'*j fT''^ v-cW* ^"/ - j,,!*^ >fevvriJi)fe 1/' l,;^y J 6640; SjilV^V-"'*' ^ ■ ■%(/((l,""'!>Mii'™"' ■■ If^^':^:, M« css^" '^'mi^ J'tiiWi 1 i'S \finlhin ilSaftura \ \ t^^ y #^ r\ iiHiilt^ ;^.^-.;;l(»is--= 'm, GfuT/.sor (Hfu'it.'Hf \ \V7l/f«»\j/, '%\ Ch !<„ » .,^^'" ^»«V4 , 0, 'e/lnrllfni T ',rA*''t/ .j™->«(;>v. W. *\SuUlvHn f tXuBivari Ri>ck. l-.M — tP >" , -Lj y: ia« ^0 20 las' I 401 Uoi 10 150° ,V .M Bliuj. H-iinbiir^b I Lijiid'j d€ ki If in t] C li c NOTE. Since my return to England rumours have reached me of the death of Messrs. Wells and Price, within the confines of the un- known district alluded to at the commencement of this volume. If funds were available I should be ready to enter this part of the interior in search of them in command of an expedition composed exclusively of Indians. The basis of the map given in this volume is taken from that published in the Annual Keport of the Geological Survey of Canada to illustrate the journey made by Dr. Dawson m 1887. My thanks are due to the Editors of those periodicals who have allowed me the use of my former contributors as ^ correspondent. a