In every stream and rill, where they can by any possibility work a passage, you find these salmon; they remain until January and February in the succeeding year, becoming fearfully emaciated and worn, from a long and tedious abstinence; for I believe these salmon feed sparely, if at all, after leaving the sea. The fish in January is of a pale dirty-yellow colour; the sides, showing a bright purplish stripe (sure sign of waning vitality), are flattened and compressed; the back is straight until near its posterior third, when it dips down suddenly, and rises again at the tail just as if you had cut a notch out. The belly, instead of being silvery-white, is rusty yellow, and hangs pendulous and flabby; the eye is dull and sunken.
But the most curious change is in the head of the male fish: the nose becomes enormously elongated, and hooks down like a gaff-hook over the under-jaw, and the under-jaw bends up at the point into a kind of spike that fits into a regular sheath or hole in the upper jaw, just where it begins bending into the hook-like point; the teeth become regular fangs, sticking out round the jaws at irregular distances, and having a yellow bonelike appearance. I have often seen the teeth more than half an inch in length. It is quite clear that these teeth grow during the time the fish remain in fresh-water; no shrinking of the gums could account for such a length of tooth; and their use, I believe, is for fighting.
My own observations lead me to assume that at least there are eight or ten males to every female; and as one spawning-bed is used by many females, terrible battles ensue between the males as to which shall impregnate the ova; and it would appear, reasoning from analogy, that the same law holds good with fish as with gregarious mammals and birds—the stronger and more able male always begets the offspring. I hardly think the ova of a female fresh-run salmon, impregnated by the milt of an old and spent male fish, would produce as strong and healthy an offspring as the male fat, fresh, vigorous, and healthy. I cannot help thinking there must have been some purpose—as antlers are given to the deer tribes, spurs to the males of gregarious birds, and like examples—in giving such formidable weapons to these salmon during their breeding-time; and why not the reason above stated?
Quoting from Dr. Scouler: ‘Observatory Inlet (which I should imagine to be just such an inlet as Puget’s Sound) was frequented at the time by such myriads of the salmon, that a stone could not have reached the bottom without touching several individuals—their abundance surpassing imagination to conceive.’ He goes on to say, that in a little brook they killed sixty with their boarding-pikes. Then, he says, the hump before the dorsal fin consists of fat, and appears to be peculiar to the males, who acquire it after spawning-time, when their snouts become elongated and arched.
The Fall-salmon (Salmo lycaodon) differ most extraordinarily at different periods of their growth—so much so, that I quite believed the adult, middle-aged, and young were three distinct and well-marked species; but Dr. A. Günther has very kindly investigated the matter, and knocked my three species into one.
Indians take the young of this salmon in large numbers in the bays, harbours, and fiord-like inlets surrounding the island, and along the British Columbian and Oregon coasts; also in the Sumass, Chilukweyuk, and Sweltza rivers, and indeed in all inland lakes that are accessible to fish from the sea. These handsome, troutlike young salmon are easily caught with bait of any kind; they rise readily to a gaudy fly, and seize even a piece of their brethren if carefully tied round a hook; from six ounces to a pound is about the average size. When they go to sea again from the lakes I had no opportunity of proving, but I imagine they go down with the floods, as the spring salmon come up.
The second form in which I mistook it for a distinct species is that of the Humpbacked Salmon (Salmo proteus, Pallas; Salmo gibber, Suckley; ‘gerbuscha,’ Kamtschatka; ‘hud-do’ of the Nesqually Indians; ‘hun-num’ of the Fraser river Indians). In its general outline it differs altogether from the Hook-nosed Salmon. The back is much more arched; nose curved, but not nearly as much as in the mature Salmo lycaodon, and the under-jaw turns up and terminates in a protuberance or knob; teeth much more numerous, sharper, and smaller; tail deeply notched, and thickly spotted with dark oval-shaped marks. The most conspicuous feature is a large hump of adipose material situated on the shoulders, a little anterior to the dorsal fin, and only found in the male fish. It has generally been stated that this hump grows upon the male fish after entering the fresh-water: this is a mistake, for I have seen them again and again taken in the sea, before going up into the rivers, with this hump well developed. On cutting it open, it appears to be a sort of cellular membrane, filled with an oily, semifluid kind of material. The use of this deposit, there can be no doubt, is to supply the male with this material in some mysterious way during the spawning-time, for, after that period has passed, the hump entirely disappears. They arrive about the same time as the older fish, but only in very large runs every second year—have the same range, and die in thousands.
At Fort Hope, on the Fraser river, in the month of September, I was going trout-fishing in a beautiful stream, the Qua-que-alla, that comes thundering and dancing down the Cascade Mountains, cold and clear as crystal; these salmon were then toiling up in thousands, and were so thick in the ford that I had great trouble to ride my horse through; the salmon were in such numbers about his legs as to impede his progress, and frightened him so, that he plunged viciously and very nearly had me off. They are never at any time good eating; the flesh, in fresh-run fish, is white, soft, and tasteless. The Indians only eat them when they are unable to obtain anything else. These salmon work up to the very heads of the tributaries, and I have often seen them where the water was so shallow as to leave their backs uncovered.
The Salmo canis of Suckley (Dog-Salmon, Spotted Salmon, ‘Natural History of Washington Territory,’ p. 341), which he says arrives at Puget’s Sound in September and October, I believe to be only the old males of the Salmo lycaodon (Hook-nosed Salmon), that have had a turn in the rivers perhaps a year or two before, and have got safely back again to the sea, recruited their wasted energies, and returned again for another perilous cruise up the streams. The large fanglike teeth, from which they derive the name of dog-salmon, are the large teeth grown and developed, as I have previously described them, whilst spawning in the fresh water.
Salmon is of the most vital importance to the Indians; deprived or by any means cut off from obtaining it, starve to death they must; and were we at war with the Redskins, we need only cut them off from their salmon-fisheries to have them completely at our mercy. If salmon-fisheries—well managed, and conducted by persons who thoroughly understood salting, barreling, and curing salmon—were established on some of the tributaries to the Fraser and Columbia rivers, I am quite convinced they would pay handsomely. Some few attempts have been made by speculators, but always failed for want of capital and proper management. The Hudson’s Bay Company, in some of their inland and northern posts, feed their employés on dried salmon during the winter. At Fort Langley, on the Fraser river, the Company generally salt in several hundred casks of salmon, and these principally go to the Sandwich Islands or to China. There was one large salmon-curing establishment at the mouth of the Puyallup river, but I have been told it did not pay; the fish, being badly put up and carelessly packed, often spoiled before reaching the markets for which they were destined. In Victoria, salmon is now a very important article both of food and commerce.