On the day of our arrival at Ninstints, the Indians returned with a large number caught upon banks opposite the central portion of the western shore of Provost Island. There are also banks off Sand Spit Point and Skedance. During the present spring, the Indians have caught a considerable number of black cod opposite Skidegate Channel, and also off the abandoned village of Kisson, on the north-west coast of Moresby Island. The waters just outside the entrance to Skidegate Inlet are the greatest known resort of the dog-fish on the coast; the only place where they are caught continuously from spring until fall in large numbers.
The extraction of their oil by the Skidegate Oil Company, to the amount of 35,000 to 40,000 gallons annually, give a profitable employment to a large number of Indians during the summer months.
We found Chief Skidegate and about twenty of his people catching their spring supply of a very fine small salmon, in the river flowing into Copper Bay, and met Chief Skedance en route to a river flowing from the north side of Lyell Island into Cumshewa Inlet, for the same purpose. There is also a salmon stream emptying into that inlet on the north side near Conglomerate Point.
Upon one of the streams discharging into Hutton Inlet (which I named Portage Creek, from the fact that in former times when the natives were much more numerous, they sometimes carried their canoes across the island to Bobson Inlet), there was a stone dam, evidently built for salmon traps. We also saw where bear had eaten salmon near its banks.
Enormous quantities of mussels of great size, some measuring eight and ten inches in length, covered the shores in many places, and round clams are also abundant.
MINERALS.
I carefully examined the shores and banks of the streams wherever opportunity offered, but found no minerals except copper, at and in the vicinity of veins previously discovered on the shore of Copper Bay, and opposite Copper Island in Skincuttle Inlet.
GAME,
Especially geese and duck, were plentiful on the eastern shore. Many of the bays and inlets were alive with hair seal. So many were seen in the extreme southern bay indentation of the entire group of islands that we called it Seal Cove. Several sea otter swam within rifle range on the west coast, and land otter we chased upon shore and killed. Birds' eggs, which the natives gather in considerable quantities, we picked up by the dozens on several of the little islands.
Notwithstanding the disaffection which exists among the Indians upon the Nass, respecting their land rights, I have found the Hydas friendly to my undertaking, inviting me into their houses to sleep, both at Cumshewa and Ninstints, and presenting my guides with halibut, eggs, etc.