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

by George Bird Grinnell

"He surely would," said Hugh. "Don't you know, that the things these Indians here eat would be sort of poison to the Blackfeet? It is against their medicine to eat fish or most anything that lives in the water. They think those things are not fit to eat, and many of them would starve before they would even touch them."

The vessel ploughed its way through the strait with the land rising high on the right and lower on the left-hand side. Both coasts were rock-bound, and the heavy swell dashed against the shore great waves, whose foam flew high into the air. Away to the south rose high rough mountains, their summits white with snow. To the north the land rose gently, and green fields, dotted here and there with white houses, stretched away for miles. Beyond were hills, forest-clad.

The travellers were busy looking in all directions at the beautiful prospect spread before them. Suddenly, not far from the ship, a great head rose above the water, remaining there for a moment looking at the boat. Jack saw it and called out to his companion: "O Hugh! that must be a sea-lion or a fur seal! It's bigger than the seals that I have seen on the coast of Maine." After a moment the head disappeared beneath the water. But in a few moments several other heads were seen; and these seals, less timid than the first, swam along not far from the boat, showing their great bodies partly out of the water, and sometimes, in chasing one another, jumping high into the air. Further along, the boat startled from the surface of the water a group of black birds. Less in size than ducks, they flew swiftly along, close to the water's surface. Jack could see that on the shoulders of each bird was a round spot of white, while the legs were coral-red.

"There is a new bird to me, Hugh, and I bet it is to you, too. That must be one of the birds they call guillemots. They live up in the North and breed on the ledges of the rock. I have read about them often."

"Well," said Hugh, "there's surely plenty to see here; and I wouldn't be surprised if you and I travelled around all the time with our mouths open, just because we are too surprised to remember to shut them."

All this time the boat was moving swiftly along. Toward afternoon she rounded a sharp point of rocks; and, proceeding up a narrow channel, the buildings of the town of Victoria were soon seen in the distance. Hugh said:

"That must be our landing place, son. I'll be glad to get ashore and stretch my legs. I take it, this here land that we are coming to is an island, and very likely there won't be a horse in the place. We'll have to do all of our travelling afoot, or in one of these cranky canoes, and I haven't much of a notion of getting into one of them. I'll be a good deal like you were the first time you got on a horse—afraid I'll fall off; and yet I don't know as they'll be any harder to ride in than the birch canoes I used to travel in up in the North."

Victoria, where our travellers landed that afternoon, was a charming, quiet town of six or seven thousand inhabitants, situated on the extreme southeastern point of Vancouver Island. For many years after its settlement it had been nothing more than the Hudson's Bay fort and trading post, with a few dwellings occupied by those employed there. But the discovery of gold in small quantities on the Frazer River in 1857, and later on at the placer mines on the Quesnelle and at Caribou, made a great change in the prospects of the place. Word of the new diggings travelled fast and soon reached California, causing a world of excitement among the mining population of that State, then ripe for a fresh move. A rush took place, and all those who travelled toward the new mines in British Columbia passed by the drowsy old Hudson's Bay fort, where hitherto the only event of the year had been the arrival of the ship from England with the mail. Now the fort was startled by the coming of twenty thousand miners, who pitched their tents about it and founded Victoria. Buildings sprang up and trade was attracted. Every one going to the mines or coming from them passed through the town and paid its tribute, and high hopes were entertained of its future importance. People who lived there began to call it "the emporium of commerce," "the metropolis of the northwest coast of America." But, unfortunately for Victoria, the mines, which caused this excitement soon ceased to pay; and the town's commerce fell off. It did not fulfil the promises of its early youth, and its growth has since been slow. Now, however, there was a prospect of speedy communication with the rest of the world; for during the summer when our travellers reached there, the Canadian Pacific Railroad was being built and the loyal inhabitants of Victoria were again anticipating that the place would become a great city—"a second San Francisco." There was reason for their hopes. While the railroad could not directly reach Victoria, its terminus on the mainland would be within easy reach of the Island City, and would give Vancouver Island a market for its products. Its trade at that time was little or nothing, for the goods sent to the United States had to pay a heavy duty, which left little margin for profit.

Hugh and Jack spent several days at Victoria. The country was picturesque and attractive, and the roads good. They took long walks into the country to the Gorge and to Cedar Hill, from which a beautiful view of the city could be obtained. The panorama included also a view of the Straits of Fuca, the Gulf of Georgia with its hundreds of islands, and the mainland, rough with mountain peaks, among which, rising above all, stood Mt. Baker, calm and white, a snow-clad monarch. While they remained in the town they lived literally on the fat of the land. Victoria boasted one of the best hotels in the world; not a pretentious structure, but one where everything that was good to eat, in abundance, well cooked and well served, was furnished. There were fish of many sorts,—salmon and sea bass, herring and oolichans, oysters and clams, crabs, game, delicious vegetables, and abundance of fruit.

Mr. Sturgis had given to Hugh a letter to an acquaintance of his in Victoria, and one day Hugh and Jack called on Mr. MacTavish. He was an old Hudson Bay man, who, after retiring from the service of the Company had come to Victoria to live. He had a delightful family, and a charming house, full of a multitude of interesting curiosities, picked up during his long service in the North. Of these, one of the most interesting was a complete set of dinner dishes, carved out of black slate by the Haida Indians of the North. While the figures exhibited on these were conventional in form and of Indian type, the carving was so remarkably good that it was hard for Hugh and Jack to believe that the work was Indian. Neither had ever seen anything done by Indians more artistic than the ordinary painted skins of the plains' Tribes; and when they saw such delicate, beautifully carved work, often inlaid with the white teeth or fragments of bones of animals, it was hard for them to understand how it all could have been done by native artists.