This handsome and delicious fish, one of the Salmonidæ, is most valuable as an article of food to the Indians, west of the Rocky Mountains, the White-fish (Coregonus albus), or ‘Attihawmeg’ (which means ‘reindeer of the sea’), being of like importance to those residing east of the mountains. There the Indians frequently have to subsist entirely on white-fish, and, at many of the fur-trading stations, the traders get very little else to eat during nine months of the twelve.
‘In one small lake (Lake St. Ann’s), near Fort Edmonton, forty thousand white-fish were taken, of an average weight of three to four pounds, in the course of three weeks.’ (Palliser’s Exp.)
Two modes are adopted for preserving them—one that of sun-drying, the other by freezing, in which state they may be kept perfectly sweet and free from taint for the whole winter.
The Round-fish is seldom taken over two pounds in weight, and prior to spawning they are loaded with fat, which on the shoulders almost amounts to a hump, but becomes thin, watery, and insipid, after the all-important duty of providing for their offspring is accomplished. I am not quite sure when they return to the sea, as nothing is seen of them after the ice sets in, towards the end of November, until their arrival on the following year. The ova are deposited in much the same way as that of other Salmonidæ: a hollow made in the gravel contains the eggs and milt, which are covered over and abandoned—the young fish, on its emergence from the egg, taking care of itself as best it can.
One may journey a long way to witness a prettier or more picturesque sight than Round-fish harvesting on the Sumass prairie: the prairie bright and lovely; the grass fresh, green, and waving lazily; various wild flowers, peeping coyly out from their cosy hiding-places, seem making the most of the summer; a fresh, joyous hilarity everywhere, pervading even the Indians, whose lodges in great numbers lie scattered about. From the edges of the pine-forest, where the little streams came out from the dark shadow into the sunshine, up to the lake, the prairie was like a fair. Indians, old and young; chiefs, braves, squaws, children, and slaves; were alike busy in capturing the round-fish, that were swarming up the streams in thousands: so thick were they that baits and traps were thrown aside, and hands, baskets, little nets, and wooden bowls did the work; it was only requisite to stand in the stream and bale out the fish. Thousands were drying, thousands had been eaten, and as many more were wasting and decomposing on the bank. Supposing every fish escaping the Indians, otters, and the various enemies that it meets with in ascending the rivers, succeeded in depositing its ova, where or how they find room to spawn, or what becomes of the offspring, is more than I know.
Round-fish are cured by splitting and sun-drying, precisely in the same manner as salmon. I have had very good sport angling for round-fish, by using a rough gaudy fly. They rise readily, and struggle obstinately, when hooked, but soon give up; turning on their side, they permit themselves to be dragged upon the bank without attempting a flap of resistance.
Some of these fish remain permanently, or at any rate for some time, in fresh-water. I have often taken them in the Na-hoil-a-pit-ka river, to get into which they must have leaped the Kettle Falls during a high flood, being quite 800 miles from the sea; and as they are caught in the spring, I think it fair to conclude they do not invariably return to the sea after spawning.
Herrings.—The Vancouver Island Herring (Malletta cœrulia, Grd.).—Sp. Ch.: Head, about one-fifth of the total length of the body, slender, its shape in profile somewhat fusiform; back, bright steel-blue colour, shading away on the sides to brilliant silvery-white; fins, yellow-white, but uniform in colour; posterior extremity of maxillary bone extending to a vertical line drawn through the middle of the orbit; eye, subcircular, large; colour, copper-red in the freshly-caught fish; anterior margin of the dorsal fin, nearer the extremity of the snout than the insertion of the caudal. The average length is somewhat about ten inches. Indian name along the coast, Stole; Skadget Indian, Lo-see.
There are three distinct herring arrivals, one beginning in February and March; these fish are small, and somewhat lean. About the beginning of April the run commences; these are finer, full of spawn, and in high condition: in June and July, and extending through the summer, small shoals occasionally make their appearance, but never as fine as the April fish.
Toward the middle of April herring legions commence arriving from seaward in real earnest; brigade follows brigade in rapid succession, until every bay, harbour, inlet, estuary, and lagoon is literally alive with them. Close in their rear, as camp-followers hang on the skirts of an army, come shoals of dogfish, salmon, and fish-eating sea-birds.