The Ordinary Fishing Season.
Mr. R. G. McConnell reports that during the ordinary fishing season on Great Slave lake, which usually lasts from September 20 to October 10, the fish leave the deeper parts of the lake and migrate in vast numbers to certain favored waters where almost any quantity desired can be obtained. The Big island fishery supplied Fort Simpson and Fort Providence in 1887 with about forty thousand fish, besides affording constant support to a number of Indians. At the mouth of the Beaver about twenty thousand were taken, and the fisheries at the mouth of Hay river, in the bay in front of Fort Rae, and near Fort Resolution, besides other places, yielded corresponding quantities. Mr. McConnell estimated the total yield of the lake for the year 1887 at about half a million pounds. The most abundant and valuable of the fishes of the lake is the widely distributed whitefish (Coregonus clupeiformis). With the whitefish are associated the lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush), which often attains a weight of over fifty pounds, the inconnu (Stenodus Mackenzii), the pike (Esox lucius), and the sucker (Catostomus longirostris), besides others of less importance. A stray salmon was captured about forty miles below the outlet of the lake, and was described by Mr. Reid of the Hudson’s Bay Company as being identical with the common Yukon salmon, probably Oncorhynchus Chouicha, but visitors of this kind are very rare.
Mr. McConnell informed the Senate committee of 1907 that there are great quantities of whitefish in nearly all the lakes. Mr. McConnell wintered at Fort Providence, just below Great Slave lake, and in ten days there were about one hundred and forty thousand fish caught. They come into the shallow part of the lake about September 15. They are caught by the Hudson’s Bay Company, the missions and some Indians, and are used to feed the men and dogs. It is the staple food of the country, or was the year witness was there. They catch the fish at all seasons, but late in the fall is the particular time for catching them for the winter supply. They get salmon trout there also. At the Fort he had had them weighing fifteen to twenty pounds, and they told stories about catching them forty pounds in weight. There was one king salmon caught at Fort Providence—only one. They also get pike or jackfish. Mr. McConnell did not know about pickerel.
The inconnu is a fine fish, and is caught all the way along the Mackenzie and up Slave river as far as the rapids. It is a large fish weighing from ten to twenty pounds.
A Specimen Haul.
Mr. A. H. Harrison says (“In Search of a Polar Continent.”):—
“Most of the small streams which run into Slave river come from large lakes that abound with fish. To these lakes we often went up in a small canoe, and set a net, which, as a rule, if left out all night, contained a couple of dozen fish the next morning; or, to give the component weights of a specimen “haul”, we had on one occasion two pounds of whitefish, twenty-five pounds of inconnu, ten pounds of trout, and twenty pounds of pike. We had always, in fact, to throw back a great number keeping only two or three for immediate eating. In the spring of 1903 I had taken an Indian and his family with me on to this river to shoot duck and geese, and before a fortnight was out we had killed sixty-three geese and a great quantity of duck. I had trouble, however, with this Indian, who was but a poor spirited fellow, and he left me by myself at the mouth of a small river that ran down from a lake about sixty miles from Fort Resolution. Here for a whole month I was encamped alone, and had no difficulty in keeping myself—fish, wild-fowl, and black bear being plentiful. I had a net in the water, thereby securing, as I have already intimated, some two dozen fish a day, the bulk of which I threw back. In Slave river itself, which is very muddy, I have never caught many fish, but the lakes off the river swarm with them.
“Fort Resolution is a delightful place. I spent a winter there in 1902-03, making many excursions into the surrounding country. There are three trading posts there, also a Roman Catholic mission, where Bishop Breynart makes his headquarters, and a convent in which about forty native children are educated. Everyone relies upon fish and reindeer for subsistence. I heard a story of a trout weighing eighty-four pounds having been taken in Great Slave lake, but though I saw many trout that were caught during my stay there, I never set eyes upon any weighing more than forty-five pounds. While passing through on my recent journey I offered fifty dollars, or ten pounds, sterling, to anyone who should bring me a trout that scaled fifty pounds, but when I came back Mr. Harding of the Hudson’s Bay Company said that he had not in the meantime seen any which weighed over forty-three pounds. Even this, of course, is a large weight for lake trout. The whitefish, however, rather than the trout, is the chief food. It weighs about two pounds, and is caught in great quantities. The dogs never get anything to eat except fish, and they thrive on the diet. Two pounds of fish apiece daily is barely enough to keep them alive, but two fish weighing two pounds each are an ample ration for a dog.
Bishop Clut’s Testimony.
During his examination before the Senate committee of 1888, Bishop Glut emphasized the fact that an important natural resource of the Mackenzie basin lay in immense quantities of fish found in the great lakes, the Athabaska, Great Slave and Great Bear. East of those lakes there were many other great lakes which were full of fine fish.