About three weeks preceding the arrival of the salmon, Indians begin to assemble from all directions. Cavalcades may be seen, day after day, winding their way down the plain; and as the savage when he travels takes with him all his worldly wealth—wives, children, dogs, horses, lodges, weapons, and skins—the turn-out is rather novel. The smaller children are packed with the baggage on the backs of horses, which are driven by the squaws, who always ride astride like the men. The elder girls and boys, three or four on a horse, ride with their mothers, whilst the men and stouter youths drive the bands of horses that run loose ahead of the procession. A pack of prick-eared curs, simply tamed prairie-wolves, are always in attendance.
A level piece of ground overlooking the falls (the descent from which to the rocks is by a zigzag path, down a nearly vertical cliff) is rapidly covered with lodges of all shapes and sizes. The squaws do the work appertaining to camping, and are literally ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water.’ The men, who are all, when at the fishery, under one chief, whom they designate the ‘Salmon Chief,’ at once commence work—some in repairing the drying-sheds, which are placed on the rocks (as are also numbers of lodges) at the foot of the zigzag; others are busy making or mending immense wicker hampers, about thirty feet in circumference, and twelve feet in depth. Little groups are dragging down huge trees lopped clear of their branches—rolling, twisting, and tumbling them over the rocks, to be fixed at last by massive boulders, the ends hanging over the foaming water not unlike so many gibbets. These trees being secure and in their right places, the next work is to hang the wicker baskets to them, which is a risky and most difficult job: but many willing hands and long experience work wonders; with strong ropes of twisted bark, the baskets are at last securely suspended. By this time the river begins to flood rapidly, and soon washes over the rocks where the trees are fastened, and into the basket, which is soon in the midst of the waterfall, being so contrived as to be easily accessible from the rocks not overwashed by the flood.
Whilst awaiting the coming salmon, the scene is one great revel: horse-racing, gambling, love-making, dancing, and diversions of all sorts, occupy the singular assembly; for at these annual gatherings, when all jointly labour in catching and curing the winter supply of salmon, feuds and dislikes are for the time laid by, or, as they figuratively express it, ‘The hatchet is buried.’
The medicine-men (doctors and conjurors) of the different tribes busily work their charms and incantations to insure an abundant run of fish. One of the illustrations is drawn from a photograph of the falls. The Indians at first steadily refused to allow the photographer and his machine to come near the falls, declaring it a box of bad ‘medicine’ that would surely drive every salmon away; and not until an old Romish priest who was at the trading-post explained it to them, did they permit a photograph to be taken.
The watchers announce the welcome tidings of the salmon arrival, and the business begins. The baskets are hung in places where past experience has taught the Indians salmon generally leap, in their attempts to clear the falls. The first few that arrive are frequently speared from the rocks. They are in such vast numbers during the height of the ‘run,’ that one could not well throw a stone into the water at the base of the falls without hitting a fish: fifty and more may be seen in the air at a time, leaping over the wicker traps, but, failing to clear the ‘salmon-leap,’ fall back, and are caged. In each basket two naked Indians are stationed all day long; and as they are under a heavy fall of water, frequent relays are necessary. Salmon three or four at a time, in rapid succession, tumble into the basket. The Indians thrust their fingers under the gills, strike the fish on the head with a heavy club, and then fling them on the rocks. I have known three hundred salmon landed from one basket betwixt sunrise and sunset, varying in weight from twenty to seventy-five pounds.
From the heaps of fish piled on the rocks, boys and girls carry and drag them back to the squaws seated round the curing-houses; with sharp knives they rip the salmon open, twist off the head, and cleverly remove the backbone; then hanging them on poles, close under the roofs of sheds the sides of which are open, they dry them slowly, small fires being kept constantly smouldering on the floors. The smoke serves to keep away the flies, and perhaps also aids in the preservation of the fish. The only portions eaten by the Indians during the catching are the heads, backbones, roes, and livers, which are roasted, skewered on sticks.
When thoroughly dried the fish are packed in bales made of rush-mats, each bale weighing about fifty pounds, the bales being tightly lashed with bark-ropes. Packing in bales of equal weight facilitates an equitable division of the take. Horses are purposely brought to carry the fish back to winter-quarters, and two bales are easily packed on each horse. The fishing-season lasts for about two months: then the spoils are divided, and the place abandoned to its wonted quietude, until the following summer brings with it another harvest.
During the drying, silicious sand is blown over the fish, and of course adheres to it. Constantly chewing this ‘sanded salmon’ wears the teeth as if filed down, which I at first imagined them to be, until the true cause was discovered. I have an under-jaw in my possession whereon the teeth are quite level with the bony sockets of the jaw, worn away by the flinty sand.
I question if in the world there is another spot where salmon are in greater abundance, or taken with so little labour, as at the Kettle Falls, on the Columbia river. In all streams emptying into Puget’s Sound, in the Fraser river, and rivers north of it to the Arctic Ocean, salmon ascend in prodigious abundance. In the Fraser there are no obstructions as far as Fort Hope to the salmon ascent; hence fishing is carried on by each village or family for themselves, and not by the combined labour of many, as on the Columbia. Near the mouth of the river large iron gaff-hooks are generally used; with these ugly weapons salmon are hooked into the canoes. Higher up, at the mouths of the Sumass, Chilukweyuk, and other tributary streams, they use a very ingenious kind of net worked between two canoes, with which large numbers of salmon are taken. Stages, too, are hung over the eddies from the rocks, and round nets used as at the Cascades.
On the Nanaimo river the Indians have a very ingenious contrivance for taking salmon, by constructing a weir; but, instead of putting baskets, they pave a square place, about six feet wide and fourteen feet long, with white or light-coloured stones. This pavement is always on the lower side of the weir, leading to an opening. A stage is erected between two of these paved ways, where Indians, lying on their stomachs, can in an instant see if a salmon is traversing the white paved way. A long spear, barbed at the end, is held in readiness, and woe betide the adventurous fish that runs the gauntlet of this perilous passage!