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- 46 VICTORIA ILLUSTRATED.
been caught and packed at Alert Bay, Rivers Inlet, Naas, Gardner's Inlet, Lowe Inlet, Bute Inlet, and Metlakathtla. There is now a chain
of canneries extending from the Fraser River to the Alaska Boundary. These canneries give employment to quite a number of people. A large
proportion of the fishermen are Indians Siwashes as they are called on the Pacific Coast. They do their work well, and are, on the whole,
as steady and as reliable as the same class of people in any part of the world. There is very little of the " noble red man " about the
British Columbian Siwash, neither does he retain many of the characteristics of the savage. He dresses in European garb, and has a heavy,
stolid look. He takes to civilization more kindly than most Indians ; and, though he does not often rise in the world, he makes a useful and
fairly law-abiding citizen. The Siwash fisherman, in a good season, often earns a great deal of money, some of them netting, in a
few weeks, as much as eight hundred and a thousand dollars. The canners know how to manage the Indians, and it is very seldom that
there is serious trouble at the canneries. In the factories, Chinamen and Indian women are chiefly employed. The dearth of white labor makes
the employment of Chinamen a necessity. The Chinamen become very expert in the different processes of packing, and they are both
sober and industrious. The Indian women are employed chiefly in cleaning the fish, which they do thoroughly. Water is not spared in the
canneries. The establishments are kept scrupulously clean, and the work is done with extraordinary rapidity and skill. In a very few hours
the fish that were swimming in the river are safely packed in the air-tight cans. They are not allowed to get stale. They are not, in fact,
exposed to any contaminating influence whatever, but are, when packed, perfectly fresh, and as clean as water can make them. It is simply
impossible to get fish in any city, for table use, as fresh as are the salmon which are cooked in the cans of the British Columbia fish
packing factories. Not more than two or three hours are suffered to elapse from the time they are caught until they are cooked in the
boilers and retorts of the factories.
It is generally imagined that the accounts which are written of the immense numbers of salmon that frequent the Fraser River and other streams of British Columbia
must be taken with many grains of allowance; but these " fish stories " are, in the main, true. It is difficult to
exaggerate when speaking of the number of salmon that take their annual journey up the rivers of this province.
The immense numbers that are caught every year bear witness to this fact, and experienced canners say that they
are not diminishing. It has been observed from the earliest times that it is very seldom that there is a heavy run of salmon in the Fraser
for three successive years. There is, after two plentiful years, a year of scarcity. The writer was told by Mr. Ewen, the pioneer canner of
the province, that the fish in the plentiful years are now as abundant as ever they were. He can see no difference. But he has observed
that there are more salmon in the river in the " off years " than there used to be in the early days of salmon packing. If Mr. Ewen is
right --and he is a close and an accurate observer, and has had better opportunities of observation than any other white man in the province
-- the salmon in the Fraser River are more abundant now than ever they were. Whether or not the increase in the off years is due to the
numbers of fry put into the river every year from the Government hatchery,
is a point about which there is a difference of opinion.
There are some whose views on the subject, it might be
supposed, are entitled to consideration, who assert, with
great confidence, that the hatchery has done nothing
towards preserving the salmon; but there are others who
declare with equal confidence that it is owing to the work
done by the hatchery that the run of salmon in the Fraser
River has not, of late years, decreased.
The preservation of the salmon is, in British Columbia, a matter of very great importance. The pack of the
BANK OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
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