The Indians of this part of the coast, of dozens of petty tribes, all speaking different languages, or, at all events, varied dialects, are not usually prepossessing in appearance, but the male half-breeds are often fine-looking fellows, and the girls pretty. The sailor will be interested in their cedar canoes, which on Vancouver Island are beautifully modelled. A first-class clipper has not more graceful lines. They are always cut from one log, and are finely and smoothly finished, being usually painted black outside, and finished with red ornamental work within. They are very light and buoyant, and will carry great weights; but one must be careful to avoid rocks on the coast, or “snags” in the rivers, for any sudden concussion will split them all to pieces. When on the Vancouver Island Exploring Expedition, a party of men found themselves suddenly deposited in a swift-running stream, from the canoe having almost parted in half, after touching on a sunken rock or log. All got to shore safely, and it took about half a day of patching and caulking to make her sufficiently river-worthy (why not say “river-worthy” as well as “sea-worthy?”) to enable them to reach camp. The writer, in 1864, came down from the extreme end of Bute Inlet—an arm of the sea on the mainland of British Columbia—across the Gulf of Georgia (twenty miles of open sea), coasting southwards to Victoria, V.I., the total voyage being 180 miles, in an open cedar canoe, only large enough for four or five people. The trip occupied five days. But while there is some risk in such an undertaking, there is little in a voyage in the great Haidah canoes of Queen Charlotte’s Island (north of Vancouver Island). These canoes are often eighty feet long, but are still always made from a single log, the splendid pines of that coast[107] affording ample opportunity. They have masts, and carry as much sail as a schooner, while they can be propelled by, say, forty or fifty paddles, half on either side, wielded by as many pairs of brawny arms. The savage Haidahs are a powerful race, of whom not much is known. They, however, often come to Victoria, or the American ports on Puget Sound, for purposes of trading.

“How,” it might be asked, “does the trade communicate with so many varieties of natives, all speaking different tongues?” The answer is that there is a jargon, a kind of “pigeon-English,” which is acquired, more or less, by almost all residents on the coast for purposes of intercourse with their Indian servants or others. This is the Chinook jargon, a mixture of Indian, English, and French—the latter coming from the French Canadian voyageurs, often to be found in the employ of the Hudson’s Bay Company, as they were formerly in the defunct North-West Company. Some of the words used have curious origins. Thus, an Englishman is a “King-George-man,” because the first explorers, Cook, Vancouver, and others, arrived there during the Georgian era. An American is a “Boston-man,” because the first ships from the United States which visited that coast [pg 168]hailed from Boston. This lingo has no grammar, and a very few hundred words satisfies all its requirements. Young ladies, daughters of Hudson’s Bay Company’s employés in Victoria, rattle it off as though it were their mother-tongue. “Ikte mika tikkee?” (“What do you want?”) is probably the first query to an Indian who arrives, and has something to sell. “Nika tikkee tabac et la biscuit” (“I want some tobacco and biscuit”). “Cleush; mika potlatch salmon?” (“Good; will you give me a salmon?”). “Naāāāwitka, Se-ām” (“Yes, sir”); and for a small piece of black cake-tobacco and two or three biscuits (sailors’ “hard bread” or “hard tack”) he will exchange a thirty-pound or so salmon.

The Chinook jargon, in skilful hands, is susceptible of much. But it is not adapted for sentiment or poetry, although a naval officer, once stationed on the Pacific side, did evolve an effusion, which the sailor is almost sure to hear there. It needed, however, a fair amount of English to make it read pleasantly. Old residents and visitors will recognise some of its stanzas:—

“Oh! be not quass of nika;

Thy seahoose turn on me;

For thou must but hyas cumtux,

That I hyas tikkee thee!

Nika potlatch hyu ictas;

Nika makook sappalell

Of persicees and la biscuit,