The great extent and strength of the pectorals, which are nearly horizontal, show us that, in addition to their acting as oars and rudder, they are also powerful assistants in bringing the great fleshy mouth to bear upon anything discovered by the barbels. Female fish are taken full of roe in the Fraser during the month of June, and sometimes later; but where they deposit the ova or what becomes of the young after leaving the eggs, are mysteries. I never saw a small sturgeon, but have no doubt most of the young fish descend to the sea, although it is equally certain numbers remain entirely in the fresh-water. Madame Sturgeon’s family is by no means a small one: a bushel of eggs is not an unusual quantity for a female fish to yield; a great many thousands, although I do not know how many eggs a bushel contains. The Indians dry these eggs in the sun and devour them with oil, as we eat currants and cream. It would surely pay to prepare cauiare on the Russian plan, even to send it to the English market. A rough kind of isinglass was at one time prepared by the Fraser river Indians and traded by the Hudson’s Bay Company, but even that branch of industry has ceased to flourish since the ‘Golden Age.’ Indians are exceedingly fond of sturgeon-flesh, and usually demand a high price for it.
Few fish have a wider geographical range than sturgeon. On our own coasts, we find them frequenting the mouths of rivers and muddy estuaries. When caught in the Thames, within the jurisdiction of the lord mayor of London, it is considered a royal fish; implying, that the fish ought to be sent to the king, though how far the sovereign’s rights in the matter are actually considered, seems to be somewhat doubtful. It is said, however, that the sturgeon was exclusively reserved for the table of the king in the time of Henry I.
In the Fraser and Columbia rivers, and in all the streams of any magnitude from latitude 46°19´ N. to Sitka, latitude 53° N., the sturgeon is found abundantly; as also in Northern Asia, where it forms an article of vast commercial value, the well-known and much-prized caviare being made from its roe, and that almost indispensable household necessary, isinglass, from its air-bladder. The long ligamentous cord, traversing the entire length of the spine, constitutes another delicacy, called vesiga, much relished by the Russians. The flesh also is eaten, cooked in various ways, and held in no mean estimation. Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Greece (especially the two latter) are great markets for caviare.
Pliny speaks of the sturgeon as being in great repute among the Greeks and Romans: ‘the cooked fish was decked with garlands, as were the slaves who carried it to table;’ and altogether it was an affair of great pomp and ceremony, when a sturgeon was to be demolished.
Sturgeon arrive in the Columbia early in February, and a little later in the Fraser, although a great number above the Kettle Falls, at Fort Colville, must remain permanently in the fresh-water. They ascend the rivers to incredible distances, in the Fraser as high as Fraser Lake, quite up in the Rocky Mountains. In the Columbia sturgeon have been taken eight hundred miles above the Kettle Falls, which are, speaking roughly, eighteen hundred miles from the sea, and, in accomplishing this, several very serious obstacles have to be overcome. Up the Snake river, at the great Shoshonee Falls (a salmon-station of the Snake Indians), sturgeon are often taken. The Snake river, tributary to the Columbia, is about fourteen hundred miles from the sea.
One would never imagine a fish clad in stiff unyielding armour could ascend rapid torrents and leap falls that puzzle even the lissom salmon but the strength of the sturgeon is immense, and the power it can exert with the tail would be almost incredible to those, who have never seen the rapid twists, plunges, and other performances this fish goes through, when it has a barbed hook in the jaws, or a spear between the joints of its mail.
The first glance at a sturgeon would lead any one accustomed to fish, to decide at once that it must be a ground-feeder: the form and position of the mouth, the lengthened snout, the barbels, the ventral fins so far back, the large size of the pectorals—as I have already stated—all clearly evidence a habit of grubbing-up food of various kinds near the bottom, and browsing off shelled molluscs adhering to sticks or stones. They also indulge in small fish: eulachon are oily dainties they seem particularly to appreciate; and the Indians say sturgeon are never so fat and good as in ‘eulachon time.’ Small blame to the sturgeon for appreciating such delicious fish.
During the time the Fraser and Columbia rivers are rising,—and the rise is very rapid, about thirty feet above the winter level, owing to the melting snow,—sturgeon are continually leaping. As you are paddling quietly along in a canoe, suddenly one of these monsters flings itself into the air many feet above the surface of the water, falling back again with a splash, as though a lit rock had been pitched into the river by some Titan hand. It appears to be only play, as they never leap for insect-food; neither have I ever observed them do it during low-water; perhaps the intense cold of the snow-water begets a desire for exercise.
The systems of catching sturgeon in use amongst the Indians of the Fraser and Columbia rivers are widely different, as indeed are all their modes of taking fish. This mainly arises from the fact of the Columbia river having numerous deep falls, that impede the ascent of all fish going up to spawn. These falls, as I have said, are quite impassable for even the salmon until the snow-water floods the river. The Fraser, on the other hand, offers no hindrance at all until after Fort Hope is passed, and the principal Indian fishing-stations are all below this point: hence it is that on the Columbia, the fish, both salmon and sturgeon, are speared, trapped in baskets or weirs, and the sturgeon also taken with hook and line whereas, on the Fraser, salmon are principally taken in nets, and sturgeon speared.
I shall first describe the mode adopted by the Indians of the Columbia to catch sturgeon with hook and line. The best months for fishing are February and March, and the time of day either early in the morning, or late in the evening. The Dalles is a favourite fishing-station.