The most available and desirable of the lands of this character noticed, are situated upon Skidegate Inlet, Copper Bay, Alder Creek, four miles south, Gray Bay, along the central portions of the south shore of Cumshewa Inlet, Hutton Inlet, Henry and Robson Inlets, and on the narrows of Skidegate Channel.
GRAZING LANDS.
The level grazing country is also of small extent, a tract of about 400 acres situated on Sand Spit Point, south of the entrance to Skidegate Inlet, being much the largest found. It bears a scattering growth of coarse beach sand grass.
On the sides of the mountains, however, and in some places reaching up to their summit, are several thousand acres suited for stock ranges, producing a thicker growth of more nutritious grass, of the red-top variety.
Of such pasture lands we found about 1,000 acres in crossing from Hutton Inlet to Robson Inlet, surrounding a beautiful lake about a mile in length, and about 500 acres in each of the following bays, viz: Carpenter, Provost, Luxana, Henry and Robson, and also several hundred acres on the northern slope of the mountains lying south of Canoe Passage into Skidegate Channel.
TIMBER LANDS.
As already stated, a dense forest of spruce, hemlock and cedar covers nearly the whole surface of the country.
It contains in the aggregate great quantities of valuable timber, and many places where small mills could obtain an abundant supply of spruce, but no location I think, where a large lumber manufacturing establishment could be profitably operated. The Douglass fir and yellow cedar or cypress, furnishes the only lumber which can be profitably exported from the Province. The former is not found on the Queen Charlotte group of islands, and the latter does not grow in sufficient quantities south of Skidegate Inlet to furnish saw-logs in any considerable quantity. The best bodies of timber seen were on the south shore of Skidegate Inlet on a small stream flowing into Copper Bay on the north side of Louise Island, bordering a river flowing into Cumshewa Inlet, about ten miles west of the village of Skedance, on Hutton Inlet, Carpenter and Henry Bays.
FISH.
Nearly all of the choicest varieties of fish found in this region abound in the waters traversed. There are several halibut banks besides those located on the charts, where the Indians obtain the most abundant supplies of these, their principal article of food.