Fish Schools Choke Harbor.
The city of Prince Rupert, B. C., Pacific coast terminal of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, has once more witnessed the yearly recurring phenomenon of having its large harbor so densely packed with huge schools of herring as to make the progress of rowboats a difficult matter. This year’s schools were exceptionally large, and so dense that the immense body of fish seemed like one solid moving mass. Men and boys on the G. T. P. docks hauled in literally millions of these fish in buckets, wire waste-paper baskets, and almost any utensil that was handy.
Some of these herrings were taken by the fish companies and frozen in boxes for use as bait in fishing for halibut. They are an excellent table fish, but so far comparatively few of them are being shipped, although several inland cities have made inquiries. Fishermen say that the herring took sheltered bays to escape the whales which prey on them in certain localities in the Pacific during their migrations.