Jack the Young Canoeman: An Eastern Boy's Voyage in a Chinook Canoe

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Jack the Young Canoeman, by George Bird Grinnell, Illustrated by Edwin Willard Deming

An Eastern Boy's Voyage in a Chinook Canoe BY GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL Author of Jack in the Rockies, Jack the Young Ranchman, Jack Among the Indians, Pawnee Hero Stories, Blackfoot Lodge Tales, The Story of the Indian, The Indian of To-day, etc. ILLUSTRATED BY EDWIN WILLARD DEMING And by Half-tone Engravings of Photographs
NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1906 By Frederick A. Stokes Company Published in September, 1906 All rights reserved THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
The mountains which border the British Columbia coast between the mouth of the Frazer River and the southeastern point of Alaska are still unknown to the world at large. Few people have sailed up the wonderful fiords, which, as great water-floored canyons, run back forty or fifty miles into the interior. Fewer still have penetrated by land into the mountains where there are neither roads nor trails, and where progress on foot is barred by a thousand insurmountable obstacles.
Since the time that Jack Danvers made his voyage in a Chinook canoe along this beautiful coast, it has not greatly changed. The mountains still abound in game, the sea in fish; the scenery is as beautiful as it was then; and over the waters, dancing blue beneath the brilliant sky, or black under the heavy rain clouds, the Indian still paddles his high-prowed canoe.

Say, Hugh, what is that Indian doing in that canoe? I thought at first that he was paddling, but he doesn't seem to move, and that doesn't look like a paddle that he has in his hand.
To tell you the truth, son, I don't know what he is doing. This business here on the salt water puzzles me, and everything is strange and queer. This ain't like the prairie, nor these ain't like any mountains that I've ever seen. I am beginning at the bottom and have got to learn everything. But about that Indian in the canoe, you can see that the boat doesn't move; and you can see, too, if you look sharp, that he's anchored. Don't you see that taut line reaching down into the water?