IMAGE EVALUATION
TEST TARGET (MT-3)

1.0

I.I

JM IIIIIM

2.2

1.8

L25 1.4

1.6

6" -

►

''/a

om.

///,

Photogrdpliic

Sciences
Corporation

33 WEST MAIN STREET

WEBSTER, NY. 14580

(716) 872-4503

/ft

CIHM/ICMH

Microfiche

Collection de

Series.

microfiches.

►>

Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques

1980

Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notos techniques et bibliographiques

The Institute has attempted to obtain the best
original copy available for filming. Features of this
copy which may be bibliographically unique,
which may alter any of the images in the
reproduction, or which may significantly change
the usual method of filming, are checked below.

Coloured covers/
Couverture de couleur

I I Covers damaged/

Couverture endommagde

Covers restored and/or laminated/
Couverture restaur^e et/ou pellicul6e

Cover title missing/

Le titre de couverture manque

Coloured maps/

Cartes g6ographiques en couleur

I I Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/

Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire)

Coloured plates and/or illustrations/
Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur

Bound with other material/
Reli6 avec d'autres documents

Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion
along interior margin/

La reliure serree peut causer de I'ombre ou de la
distortion le long de la marge int^rieure

Blank leaves added during restoration may
appear within the text. Whenever possible, these
have been omitted from filming/
II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajout6es
lors dune restauration apparaissent dans le texte,
mais, lorsque cela dtait possible, ces pages n'ont
pas 6t6 filmdes.

Additional comments:/
Commentaires suppldmentaires;

L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire
qu'il lui a 6t6 possible de se procurer. Les O'itails
de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-dtre uniques du
point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier
une image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une
modification dans la mdthode normale de filmage
sont indiquds ci-dessous.

I I Coloured pages/

Pages de couleur

Pages damaged/
Pages endommagdes

Pages restored and/ci

Pages restauries et/ou pelliculdes

Pages discoloured, stained or foxei
Pages ddcolordes, tachstdes ou piqu6es

Pages detached/
Pages d^&tachdes

Showthrough/
Transparence

Quality of prir

Qualitd in^gale de I'impression

Includes supplementary materii
Comprend du materiel suppldmantaire

Only edition available/
Seule Edition disponible

I I Pages damaged/

I I Pages restored and/cr laminated/

I I Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/

I I Pages detached/

I I Showthrough/

I I Quality of print varies/

I I Includes supplementary material/

I I Only edition available/

Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata
slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to
ensure the best possible image/
Les pages totalement ou partiellement
obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure,
etc., ont 6t6 filmdes d nouveau de fapon d
obtenir la meilleure image possible.

This item is filmed at the reduction ratio ch<
Ce document est film6 au taux de reduction

10X

14X

18X

-;ked below/
indiqu6 ci-dessous.

22X

26X

30X

12X

16X

20X

24X

28X

32X

The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks
to the generosity of:

National Library of Canada

L'exemplaire film^ fut reproduit grdce A la
gin^rositd de:

Bibliothdque nationale du Canada

The images appearing here are the best quality
possible considering the condition and legibility
of the original copy and in keeping with the
filming contract specifications.

Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avec le
plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition at
de !a nettetd de l'exemplaire film6, et en
conformity avec les conditions du contrat de
filmage.

Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed
beginning with the front cover and ending on
the last page with a printed or illustrated impres-
sion, or the back ccver when appropriate. All
other original copies are filmed beginning on the
first page with a printed or illustrated impres-
sion, and ending on the last page with a printed
or illustrated impression.

Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en
papier est imprimde sont filmis en commenpant
par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la
dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte
d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par le second
plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires
originaux sont filmds en commen9ant par la
premidre page qui comporte une empreinte
d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par
la dernidre page qui comporte une telle
empreinte.

The last recorded frame on each microfiche
shall contain the symbol ^^- (meaning "CON-
TINUED "), or the symbol V (meaning "END "),
whichever applies.

Un des symboles suivants apparaftra sur la
dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le
cas: le symbols •— »> signifie "A SUIVRE ", le
symbole V signifie "FIN".

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.

BEAl

BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

^■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

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\.

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 <JUn>E-B0OK TO THE .lAPAXRaB XSLANM. '

LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HAIL

LlMITKD.

^^m

r, w. ii:

A'. i*:\ '

^^■

■J" "i V ''■r> ■•' <• ■.!<>■

,■'.* SJ '^

<^/r5''

"'" -^^l^^.

■ '■■ Pi-

y,%

AVITII

IT"*' »W

(■'N£ Cr 5,« BEARS IN VIEW A~ TUF. SAMf*. TIM

BEAR-HUNTING

IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Alaska and Brifish Columbia Revisited.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IUKKCT FROM THK AUTHORS SKETCHES, AND MAP
RY PERMISSION OF THE ROYAL GF.Or.B AriMfAL SOCIETY.

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."

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

LETTER in.

THE INLAND PASSAGE

LETTER IV.

PYRAMID HARBOUR

. H

LETTER V.

THE CiriT.CATS

LETTER VI.

FIGHTING THE STREAM

• « ] • ' «

f 68

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

100

110

131

FAQK

. 80

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

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.

Thj

No]

tivt

hitl

cor]

the

wes

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

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

*■ 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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

;

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

BEAK-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

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

THE COAST OF VANCOUVER ISLAND.

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

MtlaJsiyttMahulKM

BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

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.

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.

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

BKAK-llUNTINCJ IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

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.

BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

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.

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.

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.

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

BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

-J

<
o

I
o

I
h

o
cc

<
I-
z

o
u

tl.
o

m
o

z
<

o
<

Ir
by

StCi

rea(

thci]

U.S

ucco

wh(j

ever

beh

a SI

in s

us 1

the

run

I
rema
the
saw i
selves
old n
and i
they
maine

rVRAMID HARBOUR.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

>}■■

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.

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

BEAJl-HUNTINO IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

Khihcona and Cliilcat rivers on tlio rii^lit bank of the

former. Deep slu<j^gish .stream.s of clear water drain

these marshes into tho Chilcat River. The first one

we managed to cross by means of a fallen tree, which

bent under one's weight till it was two feet below the

surface. But the next one was too wide for any tree

to bridcje, and it was a case of wadini»' sans clothes.

Just as I was about to enter the exccecb'ngly chilly

current, hoping that the sand and mud would prove

firm, a couple of ducks flew by overhead ; I brought

both down by a right-and-left, one falling upon the

opposite bank and one in midstream, which I waded

out in time to intercept, as it drifted past upon the

current. I fervently trusted we should have no more

deep wading to do, for easy as it sounds to wade a

stream, we were already wet in those parts of one's

clothing we had not thought it incumbent on us to

remove, and there is no doubt that water below forty

degrees in temperature, as no doubt this was, does

lower the vitality when one has to endure prolonged

immersion in it. This was perhaps the reason that

my men always objected so much to wading, though

they were repeatedly obliged to, but one of their

reasons was that it shortened the lives of their boots,

and owing to the extra weight in packing spare pairs

of boots no one possessed more than one extra pair,

THE CHILCATS.

while they became stitf aud hard notwithstanding
applications of real bear's orease."*^ There proved in-
deed to be " one more river to cross " or negotiate,
but it was a comparatively shallow i^dacial stream,
and we were soon opposite the Indian camp on the
hither side of which flowed the swift and stately
Chileat. I hullooed lustily for a canoe, and should
not Iiave been in the least surprised if they had
attompted to blackmail us before Charoning us over,
in which case I should have been contented to make
the passage with the help of an air-cushion, which I
had brought for this purpose, for I was wet enough
already to make a little more water in my clothing
immaterial, either to lessen or increase my personal
comfort. I was astounded, then, to observe with
what alacrity a black-faced Siw^ash responded to my
summons by quickly poling his canoe up-stream
upon the opposite side to allow for the drift of the
current, and coming rapidly over to fetch us without
a word.

I soon found that the American party had arrived
the day before, and were located in their only tent
near our old camp beyond the bend. The first

* Notwithstanding the sharp stones and the fact of the river
being waist-deep, Hammond generally took his boots off before

wading.

E 2

BEAR-HUNTIXG IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

intimation I had of this was finding one of them
sketchine: the totems in the chiefs house ; and I wa>
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.

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

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

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.

i him-
Dm his

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.

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

BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

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 ■

H
OS
P

O
O

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.

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,

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.

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

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.

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-

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

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

BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

■J

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.

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 acr<j,ss in a
most peculiar fashion, and had formed a white cloud
below the tree, as th')Ugh there were a separate fire
there. We left her undisturbed, though these e'siojles

' C CD

probably devour many young salmon. Next morning
I *' cached" some food before starting, in order to
lighten the loads. One of the men, throuc^h a
moment's inattention, got pulled into the current
by the tow-ropes, undergoing total immersion ; but
this w^as not a great inconvenience, as the thermo-

72 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

meter in tlie sun marked ninety-five. At noon I
had reached a large mountain torrent on the left
bank of the river, being ahead of the others who
were bringing up the canoe, where I found a small
party of Indians camped, engaged in trapping and
snaring bears. Two women were seated by the
river with blackened faces ; in the thicket hard by
I found a cottonwood canoe in process of manu-
facture, shaped, but not yet hollowed out, while
spruce-l:)Oughs were piled upon it to prevent tlie
sun's rays from hardening the wood. Another
woman seemed much alarmed at my sudden appear-
ance, and walked away — at first slowly and with
dignity, then broke into a run and screamed with
suppressed fear. By this time the canoe had arrived,
and I decided to camp here. Presently an old man
came in from hunting, accompanied by a small ])oy
with a largv' spring Ix^ar-trap, and made the most
complicated signs about something which I failed
to elucidate, as ho had no knowledge of Chinook,
but spoke only the language of his tribe. On follow-
ing him I discovered their camp, composed of three
tents and some shelters of boughs and logs, the
inhal)itants consisting of two meti, three women,
two boys, and two children. They couiniencecl ii
meal of dry salmon, which I tasted, but felt un-

EXCELSIOll,

<'ertain as to wlictlier it was smoked and salted,
or might consist of choice pickings from the dog-
salmon of last season whose remains strewed the
banks.

To ascertain the vel()city (jf the current, I
measured one hundred yards with the tape, and
by noting the number of seconds a log took to
Hoat past, found it to be nine and a half miles per
hour. The Indians indicated by signs that it was
impossible to take the canoe any higher up the
river. It therefore 1)ecame necessary to " pack." I
found that the Indian dogs are made to carry packs.
The old man showed me a pair of dog saddle-bags
of mountain goat skin, each bag being eighteen
inches square when empty, and signified that they
were worn by a powerful animal which was kept
tied to a tree, a stick serving as a chain. In the
evening, with an Indian boy, I crossed the torrent
by means of a bridge of felle<I saplings, and found a
slender trail leading upwards, which, taken together
with the increased rapidity of the current, pointed
to the fact that this might be considered as the
head of canoe navigation upon the Klaheena or
Welleslcy River. At nightfall was seen the first
i'IimkI I hill had nppearcfl hi the sky for ten days,
niovjijg i'aj»i(lly from east to west, and conserpently

74 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

foi'cbodino' rainy weather, winch, sure enough, came
on during the night. The next day, the weather
still continuing wet and cloudy, a shelter was con-
structed, the foundation being of logs and the upper
l)ortion of spruce-boughs laid horizontally and sup-
ported by cross-pieces. AVhilc I was seated writing
under this rousjh but eiFe(;tive cover at four in the
afternoon, there came a slight, shock of earthquake,
and the structure descended gracefully and harm-
lessly upon me, completely sliutting me in ; while
from underneath the ruins I observed a little Indian
boy who had been hanging about the camp in order
to pick up any little unconsidered trifles we might
have thrown away — such as scraps of paper, empty
cartridges and cans — furtively, under cover of the
calling away of one's attention produced by this
predicament, fill his mouth with a portion of the
contents of one of our cooking-pots before assisting
me to release myself. I felt greatly diverted at the
idea of a child so calmly profiting by a terrestrial
convulsion. But then he was desperately hungry,
and I have never vet found a full-grown Indian
who deigned to steal.

This day we also commenced to hew a second
canoe, to be used in returning. For this purpose
a Cottonwood was selected and felled, girthinof nine

EXCELSIOR.

feet. Many of the best trees had ah*eacly l)een
marked by the Indians. Some were not straight,
others had knots, and on sonic fungi were growing,
showing that they were probably rotten at tiie core.
Finally, after two hours' work, our tree fell with
a crash and became slightly split along the upper
part, which when the old Indian saw, he seemed
greatly amused. Some one constantly worked at it
with an axe, shaping or hollowing it out, while one
of the party was liunting for grouse or whatever
else he could find in the shape of meat, to
spare the supplies as much as possible, which, I
calculated, were sufficient to last aljout four weeks.

Though low moisture-laden clouds were driving
rapidly overhead, yet the amount of rain that fell
was very slight, thus confirming what the character
of the vegetation already partly indicated, that we
had reached the climatically dry zone that lies
behind, and sheltered by, the coast ranges. We
were already under the lee of the St. Elias Alps,
and it was doubtless raining heavily upon the
coast. iu- sh snow, however, had fallen upon the
mountains at altitudes over 3,000 feet, but the
coolness had caused a daily fall in the level of
the river of four inches.

The next evening^ Michael returned with a brace of

IMAGE EVALUATION
TEST TARGET (MT-3)

i^,^

'<^ w^

1.0

I.I

MA 11^

I'M
M

1.8

1.25 1.4

1.6

.4 6" —

►

//,

Photographic

Sciences

Corporation

23 WEST MAIN STREET

WEBSTER, NY. 14580

(716) 872-4503

BEAR HUNTINti IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

blue grouse or willow grouse, having shot their heads
off with his AVinchester rifle, and reported having
seen a cinnamon bear with a cub high up the moun-
tain, where the slope was bare of brush. She
seemed the reverse of frightened, and had oven
followed him a short distance, but having used up
all his cartridges but one, firing at grouse, he had
thought it advisable to let the animal alone for
the present. I allowed others of the party, the
following day, the chance of killing the bears, having
overstrained a wrist by too liberal use of the axe ;
the bearess, if the word might be coined, and her
cub were found in identically the same place as on
the previous afternoon. My Canadian boy, John
L. Hammond, fired at her at a distance of over one
hundred yards and wounded her, whereupon she
crept into a small bush. When she emerged Michael
fired somewhat hastily, and caused both mother and
cub to make off as fast as possible downhill into
the timber without giving another chance, and
though traced for some considerable distance by
drops of blood, neither of them could again be
sighted. This mountain I named Mount Shanz.
On the 20tli, one of the Indians killed a large
dark-coloured wolf. Accompanied by Hammond, on
the same day I ascended Mount Glave again from

EXCELSIOR.

this side to a height of 5,000 feet. The lower slopes
were clothed with birch, maple, and other trees,
higher up with patches of willow, while the ground
itself was almost entirely under snow.

We killed a grouse, and found a place where a
bear had recently made itself a kind of shelter
under a tree by pawing out a hollow, and had thrust
aside and broken a branch measuring three inches in
diameter. Towards the summit the range was bare
and rocky, partly covered with grass and lichens
with a few clumps of Ijirch, so far as could be seen
on the patches bare of snow.

High overhead glimmered the topmost crags of
the mountain through the mist, and on account of
snow commencing to fall I deemed it advisa1)le to
take the bearings of the line of descent with a pocket
compass. Presently we came across three Inroad
deep tracks, ploughed up through the snow by three
bears that had recently descended valley wards ; deep
lanes across the whiteness of the snow-fields in zi.<^zaor,
while snowballs and miniature avalanches that had
become piled up on either side during their struggles
through the yielding element, had fallen, rolled, and
slid away like foam beneath the bows of a ship.
These must have been ponderous as bullocks, for
though it was afternoon we stepped gingerly and

78 BEAIt-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

lightly upon the same snow and it held us up with-
out allowing us to sink more than a couple of inches,
being without snow-shoes, whereas the broad paws of
the bears had not prevented them from sinking deep ;
while lower down, where 1 came across their trail
again on the bare earth, still descending, the impres-
sions of their paws had sunk several inches even into
the soil itself. In the remoter distance, south-east,
could be seen the Chilcat Lake, over the low range of
timbered hills below, but though a few days pre-
viously it had appeared as a sheet of pure snow, it now
showed nothing but blue-green water, wrinkled by
wind-storms sweeping across it. Along the base of
Mount Glave we found bear-paths pitted with deep
foot-holes regular as a chess-board, for Bruin or ancient
Ephraim is the chief road-maker of Alaska. In the
evening the vapours lifting disclosed the semicircle of
snow-peaks at the head of the valley, the lower slopes
streaked with snow in innumerable ravines resem-
bling the design on a zebra skin, fading away into
the westerly-drifting cloud. The vivid green cotton-
woods faced the Klaheena like a line of sentinels,
while the valley-bottom was strewn with trees par-
tially buried by the gravel amongst the glittering
channels of the river, which, seen from the moun-
tain, had appeared capable of being stepped across

JNS.

i up witli-
of inches,
I paws of
ing deep;
heir trail
e impres-
even into
)uth-east,

range of
ays pre-
w, it now
ikled by

base of
nth. deep
r ancient
In the
icircle of
er slopes
s resem-
vay into
1 cotton-
lentinels,
ees par-
flittering
3 moun-
i across

EXCELSIOR.

(Iryshod, l)ut when one stood by the margin of its
ohief branches, the fierce rusli and frigidity of the
water made it seem an uncomfortable stream to have
anything to do with, yet teeming throughout the
summer with countless myriads of salmon.

r??^5^^S#5^ri?&i.

THE LAST RBSTING-PLACE OF A CHILCAT DOCTOR.

LETTER VIII.

THE GREAT BEAR-HUNT.

Chilcat Country, Camp 12, June \st, 1890.

On the 22acl of May, I ascended the Klaheena on an
exploratory trip ahead of the expedition, taking my
half-breed Indian with nae. By exercising care we
were able to keep to the faint trail that existed
on the left bank for some distance. When I had
travelled for about four miles beyond the frontier
into British ground, I found that the valley twisted
abruptly to the right, heading exactly due north. I
wish to confine myself now to a summary of the
great bear-hunt we indulged in while waiting for
the clouds to roll by. Where the valley turns north-
ward a line of low hills projects, which I named
Frontier Point. In order to pass this obstacle we
had repeatedly to wade the river, and frequently to
take to the exasperating and almost impenetrable

THE GREAT BEAR-TIINT.

brush as an alternative. On the mountain behind,
a wide face of granite is exposed, resembliR,2: a liuge
quarry, and a brief distance higher up the stream
some immense blocks of almost pure white marble,
rounded by the action of water, and evidently brought
down to their present position ])y some prehistoric
glacier, lay alongside the bank and measured about
forty feet in diameter. I had mistaken them in the
distance for blocks of snow.

But to return to the bears. We were having
lunch, or rather I was, as my half-breed companion
was rather fond of displaying his capacity for ab-
stemiousness while underffoinfj these exhaustius
marches, when, with a field-glass, I sighted what
resembled a round black ball moving across a
saow-slide in a valley facing us on the left bank of
a large glacier, which latter was completely covered
by moraines. On the upper part of it the ice was
visible in places, and, further off still, another wide
glacier joined it ; all round the mountains rose steep
and high, and still white with the winter's snow, a
land without one sign of human life. The animal
was, of course, a black bear having yet his thick
winter coat, ind was distant from us at least a mile
and a half. This was the first intimation that I
had that black bears, as well as brown, might be

BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

as numerous as we found them to be liei'eal)Outs.
Though it was nearly sunset we started ofT at once
hoping to intercept the animal, because the nights
were already so light that it was possible to travel
when necessary throughout the twenty-four hours. I
was carried over a portion of the river on my
companion's back, but the water came over the tops
of his high gum-boots, and he staggered so fearfully
that considering the stony bottom and the swiftness of
the current, I decided not to risk total immersion on
another occasion, but to trust to my own legs.
Having once found the bear with the aid of glasses,
it was easy to keep it in sight with the unaided eye, as
it was evidently making for the river with the inten-
tion of crossing just where the ice-cold stream issued
with a rush and a roar from a cavern in the ice at the
foot of the glacier. As we had only one rifle, which
I carried myself, I left the half-breed at this point,
but high up out of the way of the animal in case
he misrht cjive it the alarm before I had a chance of
shooting-. With all the speed I could summon I
commenced to climb the moraine, or mountainous
heaps of loose stones brought down by the ice,
intending to make a circuit to a point which com-
manded an unimpeded view of the ravine. I had
not gone far before hearing footsteps amongst the

THK GREAT BEAR-HUNT.

unstable blocks of rock behind me, and found that
Michael had decided to follow.

I found him a bold fellow in difficulties, but with
regard to bears he was a curious mixture of l)ravery
and timidity, full of queer Indian superstitions.^

HEAD OF BLACK HEAU.

I had never before observed so many and varie-
gated blocks and chips of marble as on this moraine,
not worn or blunted, but like the stones of which all
moraines consist, freshly chipped and broken with

* For instance, he believed that a bear would hold out its
paw towards a man at a distance and feel whether he war^
skookam — brave.

G 2

BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

sharp edges, just .as they had fallen from the cliffs,
heaped up in ridges, with the blue ice occasionally
showing itself below, and ready to slide down
in noisy avalanches upon the slightest pressure of
the foot. The ice below seemed to be about two
hundred feet in thickness, and I gave it the name
of Marble Glacier, covered as it was with green,
white, purple, orange, black, mauve, and gray
marble, granite, sandstone, and slate. We presently
reached the farther or northern edge of the glacier,
where I expected to find the bear below me not
more than fifteen yards away. The ravine im-
mediately at our feet, as we peered cautiously over
the edge of the ice-cliff, was partially filled up
with snow, and on the opposite side was a clump
of firs, and behind those rose the mountain slopes
covered thickly with willow scrub, but this v;as
so backward compared to the Chilcat valley below,
that it was still bare of leaves. I had been in
such a hurry to arrive at this point before the bear
got there, and so much occupied in selecting a
route across the moraine, that I had not bestowed
a glance at the mountain overhead. No black
bear was visible as we peered carefully into the
ravine below, but on the bare patches between
the willow clumps upon the declivities above were

THE GREAT BEAlMlUiNT.

no less than five black bears iu different places,
half a mile apart ; three about one thousand feet
above us, and two others lower down, all of thorn
busily employed in feeding upon the bright green
herbage, which had just commenced to show itself
above the surface, where it was bare of snow.
Wliile I was observing this curious spectacle, a
cinnamon bear slowly passed an open glade between
the spruces across the gully, and I quickly dropped
into position for a shot, but some movement or
noise we had made had given the alarm, and the
animal passed again into the thicket. Keeping
out of sight, I ran on in a parallel direction,
hoping to be able to command with my rifle an
open spot across which the bear must necessarily
pass. The wind was blowing towards us from
below, but if we had remained at the foot of the
gully, it would have given Bruin the alarm. In place
of keeping out of sight, my companion remained
upon the ridge, and the first notification I had
of this fact was his exclaiming that after standing
upon its hind legs it had galloped off as hard as
it could go. It was too late and too dark to
think of attacking any of the five bears above
us, whilst it would take until the small hours of
the morning to reach Camp 9 again by setting

BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

out immediately. On re-descending into the valley
we found that the bear, on coming to our tracks,
liad bounded away without crossing them, and had
done so somewhat hurriedly, as could be seen l)y the
heavy traces of his backward spring. We had a hard
march back to camp, nor does repetition reconcile a
person to wading deep, swift glacier streams. At
one point we followed a bear track at the base of
a steep earth-cliff, which threatened to bury ui^,
and which the river was gradually undermining.

The following day we commenced packing ji
few necessaries, together with as much food as
could conveniently be carried. If the weather
should not allow us to proceed across the pass, I
determined to devote a day or more to reducing
the number of those bears, which we were enabled
to do, as circumstances turned out. A cold rain
continued to fall all day, and at sunset we were
able to pitch Camp 11 about a mile from the
glacier in a thick patch of timber. Though in a
land of running streams, water was unfortunately
three hundred yards from camp, which caused
some inconvenience until the idea was conceived
of carrying it to camp in an oil-bag, as those
useful oil-skin sacks are named in which miners
often carry their flour.

THE OHKAT BEAR-HUNT.

In the evening 1 climbed to the identical spot
on the moraine whence I had previously seen the
six bears, and observeJ three now feeding on the
same slope. One bear seemed to oflfer a chance for
a nearer approach without being seen, and accom-
j)anied by Hammond, I made a lengthy and
fatiguing scramble, creeping and iru:.! nating one-
self upwards through the matted t^t'^ms of the
brush, until I supposed that v o were in the
vicinity. r>ut 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

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.

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

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.

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 !

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.

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

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.

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

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<T only found, so far as known, in the Cassiar
diiUrict. On the other side of the Eockies, notably
in the tributaries of the Peace River and streams
having their outlet in the Arctic Ocean, it is com-

118 BEAFt-HUNTIXG IX THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

paratively common. Althougli its HvCinge weight
is from a half to three quarters of a pound, it
sometimes reaches from three to four pounds. It
takes the fly well, and is full of fight. It is in the
best condition in winter.

The result of my visit to Spence's Bridge was
to show that fch bag^s of trout can be caught with
fine tackle and s.. fly (people in this country arc
in the habit of fishing with very large artificial flies
compared to those we use in Europe) in the after-
noon in those parts of the South Thompson which
are rocky and not too swift, but not so much
where the current is deep and rapid and the bottom
smooth.

With regard to my next stopping-place, I took
a leap in the dark, not having any reliable advice,
though in accepting advice one is usually mistaken.
I chose Shushwap, situated two and a half miles
below the outlet of the Lesser Shushwap Lake,
finding that a store existed there, and that the
east-bound train reached it at half- past five in
the morning, careless whether or no there were
any accommodation obtainable, provided as I was
with camp outfit, and quite independent of anything
in the shape of an inn.

Meanwhile, let me proceed to give the particulars

AX ANGLERS EDEX.

119

of a three clays' journey which circumstances led me
to make from Shushwap to the unexplored Adams
Lake, where I obtained first-rate trout fishing, com-
pletely justifying my choice of Shushwap as a ])ase
camp.

The Shushwap Lake is a very large and irregularly
shaped body of water, resembling in its form a four-
armed star-fish, or otherwise it mii>'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

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.

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

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<nnen and children
worked with a will in saving what eflects were within
reach, and the result was seen in piles of household
goods. The only street or highway in Hope is paved
with the greenest and closest of turf, for wheeled
vehicles are scarce. For a consideration a small
boy accompanied me for about a mile to the banks
of the Coquehahla River, as guide to a place where
fly-fishing might be had. He bore a small can of
salmon-roe and rod of his own, but I caught more
trout than he with the artificial fly — about a dozen
in all, none over half a pound. But the day was
fine, the trail picturesque and flat, and the river

134 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

easy to fish and very pretty, while there was in
many places a broad expanse of stones and gravel
between the stream and the trees on either bank,
allowing one plenty of elbow-room to cast the line.
From Hope, as every one knows, a good pack trail
leads into the interior of the country eastwards to
Okanagan across the mountains. But snow is apt
to block the pass in the early winter, about the
end of September; but a route is always available
for returning by way of Kamloops.

Has it not yet been discovered ; or if discovered,
has the fact not yet been published, that about a
couple of miles southwards from Hope, and facing
that town and the Fraser River Valley, there rises
a conical mountain, apparently about 4,000 feet
or more in height, bearing upon its dark bosom,
about the centre, and immediately below the notch
in the summit, a magnificent specimen of that freak
of nature of which the renowned mountain of the
Holy Cross is the most celebrated example ? By
walking about twenty yards from Hope Station
towards the river to a point where the path descends
to the water, one of the finest views is to be had
of any upon the Fraser, and in the combination
of dark mountains, verdant valley, and rolling river,
it is undoubtedly the best upon the line. This

HUNTING BIGHORN.

135

)ve rises

coup cVccil is framed in by the massive trunks
and dark fronds of enormous cedar-trees; and then
in clear weather in the distance glitters the great
cross of snow. The Canadian Pacific Railway Com-
pany have given us observation cars. Let them go
a step further and stop the train for five minutes
at Hope on fine days, to allow tourists to see not
only the mountain of the Holy Cross, but at the
same time the finest scene, of its class, upon the
river.

The finest portion of the Fraser River canyon,
as I stated previously, is that between Yale and
Spuzzum, where the old waggon road crosses the
torrent by a suspension bridge, a distance of ten
miles. Higher up still, between Spuzzum and North
Bend, the canyon continues grand, especially at Hell's
Gate, a1)out half-way between the two latter places,
but is less confined and narrow. I passed a day in
the gorge above Yale, abounding in wild raspberries
and gooseberries, to observe the method employed by
the Indians in netting their supply of salmon, and in
constructing the unstable-looking platforms overhang-
ing the boiling eddies, upon which they crouch while
awaiting the entry of a fish into the huge landing-
net, as well as the places they choose for the
purpose. I could see the jerk of the rope attached

13G BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

to the mesh, which the Indmii held in his hand,
and which informed me of the capture of a salmon,
which he promptly hauled up and clubbed, capturing
enough salmon to keep his squaw busily engaged
the whole day cutting up and hanging them on
the frames. I found North Bend a convenient
stopping place for visiting Hell's Gate, going by
the morning and returning by the evening train.
The best cuisine upon the line is, I think, to be
found here. The angliog in the Thompson may be
said to be comprised between Lytton and Savona,
a distance of seventy miles. I was uncertain whether
to stop at Lytton, as in any case angling, I was
told, could be had in a lake twelve miles distant,
or at Spatsum, where no accommodation was to
be had, and where it was even doubtful whether
any human being would be found at the station ;
but I finally went on to Ashcroft. I had previously
found fair fishing at Spence's, or Spencer's, Bridge.
My objective point being doubtful, I was allowed
to embark without a ticket, in order to buy one
from the conductor when I should have decided
where I was going to, and the conductor was in-
formed to that effect. My baggage occupied a
considerable amount of space in the first-class ca,r,
but the owner was nowhere to be seen. When that

HUNTING BIGHORN.

137

itunng

em on
vcnient
iiig by
I train.
, to be
may be
Savona,
whether
I was
distant,
was to
hether
tation ;
viously
Bridge,
allowed
|uy one
lecided
^as in-
|pied a

LSS Ctif,

len that

*:•

official did at length find mc, I was seated upon
the cow-catcher, and he was in a considerable state
of heat and exasperation.

Below Lytton, tlio muddy water of the Fraser
debars all use of the rod. The most promising
portion of the Thompson River for Hy-fishini?, as
far as I could judge without stopping, appears to
me to be that part immediately al)ove Lytton for
a distance of, say, twenty miles, which brings one
almost to Spcnce's, or Spencer's, Bridge. And this
is a part which seems to be rarely attempted by
the angler, yet for mile after mile 1 observed a
succession of rocky pools, to all appearance a very
paradise for trout. This portion of the country is
not often seen by persons passing in the train, as
the cVurnal communication Ijy rail takes place shortly
before and after midnight in the case of the west
and east-bound trains respectively. Above Lytton
the Thompson is broken up into deep pools and
eddies by great rocks in the river Ijcd, before one
reaches Drynock — where the ol)servation car is de-
tached — whereas in other places there are but few
obstructions in its course. The moon was at the
full, and the landscape was seen almost as distinctly
as by day, while the appearance of the bare and
stony hills — for at Lytton one enters the dry zone

«lSWWKSPBWa31»«S?='«r=*Tr>.Ti;^.ip.--. ,-,.;.

xiixi&asiiiimr^m

138 BEAR-IIUNTINO IN THK WHITE MOUNTAINS.

— was infinitely more attractive than by the garish
light of the Hun. I was .seated nn the front part
of the locomotive, which the entire al)sencc of smoke
and dust renders pleasanter than the observation
car as a place from which to view the scenery. I
have already described the angling at Spence'a
J iridge.

At Ashcroft 1 hooked and hjst some fine trout,
but caught many small ones. On all parts of the
Thompson one catches, without wishing to do so,
while fly-fishing, numbers of young salmon from
five to seven inches in length, distinguishable by the
row of dusky bars along the side. Few of the
piscators I met were aware of the fact, but had
always considered them to be some kind of trout.
Some even refused immediately to credit my state-
ment. It is the custom in Scotland to return these
" parr " to their element, but it is doubtful if the
few thousands taken from the stream by anglers
can have any appreciable efFe*'3t upon the amount
of salmon which return as full-grown fish to the
Fraser.

After passing the hamlet of Spatsum, which
shows no signs of life, and following the Thompson
through several deep, stony gorges, the train stops
at Ashcroft at 1.30 in the morning, meeting the

HUNTING IiU;j£OUN.

130

cars bound in tlie contraiv^ direction. Ashcroft is
not an attractive place — hot and dry in siunnicr,
))Ut in the afternoon a breeze invariably springs
up from the southward, dying down at nightfall.
The local anglers flog the water industriously, and
fishing is consequently not so good as elsewhere.
The small Bonaparte River flows into the Thompson
a mile above the town from the northward, in which
small trout and young salmon are fairly numerous.
Some miles up this stream there is a fall, where
I observed a salmon vainly leaping in the attempt
to ascend. The salmon have commenced spawning
in the gravel reaches, and the trout are eagerly
feeding on the ov\a.

I have had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Dawson,
who has just arrived from the north, and is camped
near the mouth of the Bonaparte ; he was interested
in hearing that there is a rival at Hope — as I stated
previously — to the Mountain of the Holy Cross
in Colorado, which latter is best known through
the chromo reproductions of Mr. Moran's great oil
painting of the scene. Dr. Dawson gave me the
particulars of an interesting tour which any one
might make in the summer, but as I shall not have
any opportunity for undertaking it I give the par-
ticulars here : Leave the railway at Ashcroft, tind

140 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

go by pack-horses or take the mail car to Barkervillo
in Cariboo ; proceed thence to Quesnelle on the
Fraser, and thence to Fort St. James on Steuart
Lake — a Hudson Bay post. Continue the journey
over the H. B. C. pack-trail over the Pacific-Arctic
water-shed to Fort l^Tacleod on the Parsnip River
— another of the Company's posts. The remainder
of the way is a long and easy canoe trip down tne
Pcuanip and Peace rivers to Fort Cb'pewyan on
Lake Athabasca, the only obstacles being jome rapicls
round which the contents of the canoes may have
to be portaged a short distance. At Fort Chipewyan
the Hudson Bay Company's steamer can be caught,
and the return made the usual way by Fort
Edmonton.

From Ashcroft I ►; carted northwards on a
shooting trip in order to kill one specimen, and
no more, of the wild sheep of tlie Rocky Mountains,
or, more correctl}^ of the Cascade Range of British
Columbia. There are three places from which
people usually start when the; arc ])ound on a
hunting expedition in B.C. from the Canadian
Pacific Railway — Hope, Ashcroft, and Kamloops.
I found a freight-waggon, which happened to be
going in the direction I had decided to pursae,
very convenient for sending on a few storefc: and

HUNTING BIGHOllN.

141

kerville
on the
Steuart
journey
;- Arctic
) River
nainder
►wn ttie
yan on
3 rapids
ly Lave
pewyan
caught,
y Fort

on a

3n, and

iiitains,

British

which

on a

inadian

mloops.

to be
pursue,
Q.i-i and

///;,

tent». I bought a quiet horse from two men who
had returned somewhat prematurely, owing to an
accident, from an expedition they contemplated
making northwards, and also secured a saddle, and
made arrangements for disposing of the horse on
my return for half the price originally paid for
it. I also used a pair of light saddle-bags, to
contain what I needed until I should rejoin my
heavy baggage.

I quitted Ashcroft on horseback, keeping with
the waggon containing my supplies. After following
the Bonaparte for some miles, we turned to the
westward up Hat Creek — a small affluent, being
the road to Lillooet, while the main road continues
northwards to Clinton and the Cariboo mining
district — and camped near an Indian farm, where
fodder could be obtained. Further on I found the
bunch-grur.s plentiful near the road, but in the
ncii^hboLirliood of farms and settlements lifrazinff is
very poor. The whole country is exceedingly dry,
being situated in the arid zone, wliich lies in lee
of the coast ransjes of the Cascades, and the stn^ams
are small and few. Timber grows thinly, and
small species of cacti abound. In fact, the con-
trast to the coast climate is very great, where it
constantly rains. The mountains here are also

142 BEAll-HUNTIXG IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

easier to climb, and can often be traversed on
horseback, while those on the seaboard are ex-
tremely difficult, even for a mountaineer on foot.
Indeed, they are too steep even for Oris niontana ;
for only bears and wild goats can cope with their
abrupt declivities. Deer, of course, are found upon
the ishinds.

The road from Ashcroft to Lillooet is un-
necessarily hilly and circuitous, for it was paid for
at so much a mile, and resembles in this respect
the railway from Maritzburg to Durban, or Baron
Hirsch's line to Constantinople. Next day, during
which it rained, I rode through the Marble Canyon —
a fine precipitous gorge with tremendous cliffs, which
looked all the wilder from the masses of vapour
drifting across their faces, and curious rock towers
and pillars ; and then along the edge of Pavilion Lake
for six miles, the water of which is the clearest
and most intense blue colour I ever saw. There
are no trout known to exist in this lake, althousfh
some have been turned in. Some men encfaired
in repairing the road said they had seen an im-
mense snake swimming across, and the Indians
have a tradition that any one seeing a fish there
is izoing to die at once. Pavilion Mountain has
several fiu'ms and much orazinsj land on the sum-

HUNTIXG BIGHORN.

143

ed on
•e ex-
1 foot.
^itana ;
I their
[ upon

s un-
lid for
respect
Baron
durinor

lyon—
which
srapour
owers
Lake
earest
There
louojh
gaged
im-
idians
there
has
sum-

mit. No one would guess from below hov; much
fine grassy table-land there is on the summits of
most of these mountains, where the herbaiije cjrows
thick and green. I stayed here several days with
an English family, who have been in the country
some years. The first morning I rode up the
mountain by a cattle trail, and dismounting when-
ever I put up any blue grouse, killed seven brace
in a short time. These birds invariably fly up
into the branches of the trees, where they are
exceedingly difficult to distinguish.

From here I mio-ht have reached Lillooet in a
day, but I was induced to put up for the niglit
at a farm about ten miles (leaving fifteen miles for
next day) from the lake, in order to examine some
ruins of the ancient semi-subterranean dwellings of
the aborii^inal inhabitants. Next mornino- I visited

o o

a plateau on the hillside covered with circular ex-
cavations like diminutive craters, now overgrov/n
with shrubs ; after excavating in the centre of one
of the largest, I soon came upon cinders, at a depth
of eighteen inches, and turned up a flint arrow-head
nearly perfect. A covey of blue grouse were re-
garding my proceedings with great curi<^sity from
a distance of fifteen yards, and at length ficw into
a tree. The heat of the sun was so intense that

144 bear-hu:;ting in the white mountains.

I was forced to be content with my arrow-head
and a few bones, and the same afternoon I rode
on to Lillooet, stopping at the Indian village of
La Fontaine to try and engage an Indian for my
trip, and bought two fine jade hatchets. There seems
to be some mystery about these ancient jade im-
plements, as no jade has yet been found in the
country, except in the shape of knives picked up
round these ruins. The Indian chief himself followed
me down to Lillooet, and next day I engaged him
and another Indian with a pack-horse, both riding
their own horses, to accompany me into the moun-
tains, and the following morning, " bright and
early," we set out, the Indians having turned up
at the little inn in good time.

We made a long "drive" that day in order to reach
good grazing for the horses, first following the right
bank of the Fraser upwards for some five miles
(the Fraser has recently been bridged at Lillooet),
as far as Bridge River, which, as its name implies,
has long ago been bridged by the Indians at the
part where it joins the Fraser. At this point is
an Indian villasje with its small Eoman Catholic
chapel. We followed the left bank of Bridge River
upwards for fifteen miles along a narrow path,
across the face of the mountains, where steep slopes

HUNTING BIGHORN.

145

and land-slides left one little choice, and where
I frequently found it advisable to dismount; the
Indians occasionally did the same. Down below
in the canyon roared the river, and small huts and
irrigation channels were frequently observable on
the other side, where Chinese labourers were washing
the alluvial, gravelly strata for the free gold which
it contains. Most of them were using flumes, but
sometimes, owing to the scarcity of water, they
could only use a rocker. The bed of Bridge River
is sure to contain a large amount of gold, but I
should imagine that a capital of five thousand
pounds is needed to get any of it out.

At last, at sunset, we reached the North Fork,
and prepared to ford it. On the other bank lay
the promised land — grass thick and green, flowers,
edible berries of many kinds, and game in plenty.
The Indians affected to make light of the fording
of this turbulent stream ; but it was high and
rapid, and the bed was composed of huge, smooth,
round boulders, amongst which the ponies floundered
dreadfully. We camped at once on a flat near a
stream. I picketed my horse with a long rope, the
Indians belled one of theirs and hobbled another ;
they take saddle and blanket off their horses as
soon as they camp, however hot they may be.

146 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

and it seems to have no ill eiFect, but the air is
warm.

We set off betimes next day ; but not before
one Indian had fired at a deer, and the other had
prepared a supply of kanikanik to smoke in his
pipe, mixed with a little tobacco. I had observed
him plucking fronds of this plant (which grows
close to the ground and bears edible red berries),
and roasting them in front of the fire by placing
them in a slit at the end of a stick stuck into
the ground, and could not imagine what he was
about. I smoked some of the mixture, and found
it milder than tobacco alone, and the perfume not
unpleasant.

It is wonderful what gifts of nature lie ready
to hand in the woods and forests for those who
know the secrets. What an untold number of
berries, plants, and roots are good for food ; only
for fear of being poisoned one is unwilling to make
experiments ! Most of these are known to the
Indians ; but the race itself is dying out, and the
secrets of the plants and berries is dying out with
them. But now the Indians take white man's food
with them, instead of subsisting, as they used,
wholly from the earth's wild bounty and game.
However, on this trip, Kilipoudken, the Indian tyee

HUNTING BIGHOllN.

147

or chief, taught me to eat five kinds of berries new
to me, which, untaught, I should not have ventured
to taste. I also munched the wild celery, and sipped
the sap of the black pine, besides feasting on other
wild fruits which I already knew — some sour, some
sweet — and smoked, as I said before, the dried leaf
of the kanikanik.

On leaving camp, Kilipoudken led the way on
his sorrel pony, hi.s legs, Indian-like, working un-
ceasingly, and thumping against the pony's sides,
as though to urge it to go faster than a walk, which
it never did ; but, as green bunch-grass was growing
in profusion, it kept snatching mouthfuls as it went,
as did all the four ; for we were in a grass-heaven
compared to other parts of this arid district. The
trail ascended constantly in a westerly direction,
gradually leaving the clear w^aters of the North Fork
(the water of Bridge River is thick, coming from
glaciers evidently, in a country which has not yet
been explored). Then we had to cross a deep gully,
which took us down and up at least 500 feet. Here
we saw some bear-tracks. After this the ascent was
continuous, mostly keeping along the summits of
ancient moraine ridges, through small but close
timber, where the Indians pointed out to me on
all sides plenty of deev-tracks.

L 2

148 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

At last we reached the table-land on the summit,
and I found myself in a country like a Scotch moor
or deer forest, with bogs, grassy plains, and stony
hills. We camped at the head of a valley, which
led down to Bridge Kiver. After supper I walked
round a hill ridge with the two Indians — one taking
his own Kemington rifle — and we saw below us a
great basin, partly wooded, and speckled with small
ponds and marshes. After looking about for some
time, and seeing plenty of tracks on the hill, we
saw some deer feeding about a mile off on the
plateau below. The sun was sinking, so we started
for them at once, the wind favouring us, and after
climbing over much fallen timber, we thought they
must be near at hand, and I went on ahead, and
soon caught sight of a young stag. I fired twice,
and killed it, and at the same time five or six
others bounded away across t'.e rough ground. The
young Indian ran after them, and kept firing shot
after shot, making me anxious lest he should kill
more than we needed, for an Indian's lust for
slaughter is insatiable. He kills for the sake of
killing. I was thankful to find, however, that all
the shots were fired at the same animal, which
he succeeded in bagging — a young stag like mine.
Leaving the Indians to bring in the meat, I took

HUNTING BIGHORN.

1 49

ow us a

both rifles and returned alone to camp. Next
morning I cut up most of the meat into strips,
salted it, and hung it on bushes to dry ; and
when we returned, four days later, I found it per-
fectly hard and solid, and likely to keep for years

HEAD OF BIGHORN SHEEl'.

in that condition, for the weather had continued
fine and sunny. The exterior becomes hard at once
when put out in this manner to dry, preventing
the flies from harming it. Wilful waste of good
venison is inexcusable when there are means of
using or preserving it.

150 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

The following day wc crossed the mountain, jind
halted for some time at the farther edge to spy for
sheep. A bitterly cold wind was blowing from the
Chilcoten Valley below, and from the Hnowpeaks of
the Cascade range, which fringed the entire horizon
to the westward. Then wc commenced the descent,
and immediately scared three fine ewes (Ovis mon-
tana^ or bighorn), which we ought to have seen
before. I left the choice of camping-place to Kili-
poudken, and, after descending 'bout a thousand
feet along the old trail, we crossed a ridge to the
northwards, and camped in a charming spot near a
brook, amidst slopes covered with the thickest and
greenest grass and flowers knee-deep, in which the
tired ponies luxuriated to their hearts' content.

The view of the snowpeaks and this beautiful
valley, with its abundant food and gentle slopes
so easy to climb and traverse, the abundance of
game and absence of any human signs, made it one
of the most attractive landscapes I have ever seen
in North America ; the extremely steep and rugged
mountains 1 have been accustomed to on my journeys
to Alaska made me enjoy it all the more.

We looked about that evening with field-glass and
telescope, but saw no sheep.

Next day we hunted some of the best ground.

HUNTING BIGHORN.

151

We kept too low dowD, instead of scalinp; the heights
above us, skirting the timber line where the deer
love to dwell, of which we saw ten or twelve. The
walking was easy, mostly over grassy slopes, the
scenery superb, and the weather tine. Not having
seen any bighorn, I determined to shoot a deer in
returning, and the chance soon came — a fine stag
standing broadside among some trees. He was first
sighted by Kilipoudken. I do the old man the
justice to say that his eyesight was wonderful, yet
I was the first the following day to sight a band
of bighorn.

While I was creeping laboriously up into posi-
tion for a shot, the Indians lost patience and ad-
vanced, scaring the deer away. It is better to hunt
alone when one once knows the ground, unless a man
is afraid of being lost.

Next morning we shifted camp, but only for a
few miles, intending to hunt the mountains to the
southward, as a last chance, before returning. We
set out about noon. The younger Indian had over-
eaten himself, and remained in camp, for which I
was not heart-broken, for 1 felt that two had a
better chance than three. First I allowed Kili-
poudken to take the lead, and the old man was
proud and happy ; but I soon saw it was useless to

152 BEAll-HlJNTINO IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

keep so low down, feeling sure the sheep were upon
the cool and rocky heights above, so T was obliged to
depose him and make him follow mc, which he did
very unwillingly, seeming to take no further interest
in the chase. I knew the mountain we were on to
be cone-shaped ; it was composed of limestone, which
lay in loose masses upon the slopes, in great Ijlocks
and slabs, which often moved when one stepped
upon them. The wind was blowing across from
below, and I saw the only hope was to climb the
peak and descend the other side. We must already
have scared any sheep there were on this side, and
if there were any upon the other face they would
be less suspicious of danger from above than from
below.

We reached the summit and commenced the
descent upon the other side, which I found was like-
wise composed of loose pieces of rock. Suddenly,
upon a grassy ledge, I saw four bighorn appear, as
they fed upwards, climbing from the depths. I
made a sign to Kilipoudken, who was some forty
yards behind, and we both sank down as if shot,
not to move a muscle for nearly three hours. Five
more bighorn soon joined the four, and then three
more, making in all a ram, eight ewes, and three
lambs. After feeding about they presently scratched

HUNTING BKJIIORN.

153

ire upon
iliged to
. he did

interest
L'e on to
e, which
,t Ijlocks

stepped
iss from
imb the
; already
side, and
y would

an from

iced the
kvas like-
addenly,
Dpear, as
iths. I
le forty
if shot,
,. Five
n three
d three
ratched

the stones away with their fore-feet, to make a
smooth place, and all lay down. Then some of
them rose and grazed again, and then lay down
once moie. H()})ing they might feed nearer yet, I
refrained from firing. One of my legs was cramped
and without any feeling. My seat, so suddenly
chosen among sharp rocks, was most uncomfortable ;
in fact, I had almost lost the power of motion for
the time being. Presently a ewe rose and forced
some of the other bighorn to do the same by poking
them in the back with her horns.

The view of the distant snowpeaks and the
whole landscape was superb; it was most interesting
to watch these creatures eating, resting, and playing
together, the lambs taking their natural nourish-
ment (it was near the end of August) exactly
like those domesticated. But three hours was
enough ; I was so uncomfortably placed that I
felt that I should be permanently paralysed if I
remained any longer. I determined to end the
scene.

The distance was about 200 yards, almost directly
downwards ; the ram was lying in the centre, sur-
rounded by the ewes. I pressed the trigger and
fired ; in a moment all was confusion. Kilipoudken
sprang yelling to his feet ; the ram lay struggling

154 BEAR-HUNTING IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

vainly to rise. The band of bighorn, one less in
number than l)efore, were racing across the flat,
followed by the larnl^s, one of which was unable
to go the pace, and was lileating in a heartrending
manner ; next moment they passed from sight. So
ended snccessfully my six-days' hunt for mountain
sheep. Kiiipoudken cleaned the ram, and dragged
it down the mountain to a spot we should pass
on our way back in the morning, taking enough
meat to (^amp for supper and breakfast. He wanted
i;0 throw the carcase down the slope, so that it
might come bounding and rolling down the preci-
pices to the very dcor of the tent ; but 1 refused to
permit this for icar it might bruise the horns.

Two days later 1 wl\s back in Lillooet, after
an absence of just a week, and enjoyed some capital
trout fishing in the three or four miles of river
between Lake Seton and the Fraser. The river
was full Ox salmon, though this did not prevent
the tiout (sumc up to three pounds), and in the
lake the white fisli, from taking the fly freely.
The salmon in the Fraser at this point formed a
sight that was phenomenal. As in other portions
of the river I had not observed such immense
numbers, j)ossil)ly because they remained entirely
below the surface, whereas here, on the contrary,

■>.

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.

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

____,

2tf

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«

:{o

•JO

llio

.•'<^

!*#*■

'■■'H,

:%^'

Tfe^e^fl

"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

iiHiilt^

;^.^-.;;l(»is--=

'm,

GfuT/.sor (Hfu'it.'Hf

\ \V7l/f«»\j/,

'%\

!<„ »

.,^^'"

^»«V4 ,

'e/lnrllfni T

',rA*''t/

.j™->«(;>v.

*\SuUlvHn f

tXuBivari Ri>ck.

l-.M

— tP >" , -Lj y:

ia«

las'

401

Uoi

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.