Jack the Young Canoeman: An Eastern Boy's Voyage in a Chinook Canoe

by George Bird Grinnell

  CHAPTER XVIII

  MILLIONS OF SALMON

  Mr. James gave to Jack a number of letters which had come to Victoriafor him and then been forwarded to New Westminster. They were the usualhome letters which he read with great delight, and, besides these, onefrom his uncle, Mr. Sturgis, which told him that he had been detainedat the mine and would not be able to meet Jack at Tacoma for at leasttwo weeks.

  Mr. Sturgis advised his nephew to spend the time in British Columbiaand to allow himself two or three days to get from Victoria toTacoma, where they would meet. Hugh also had received a letter fromMr. Sturgis, the purport of which was the same, and the two began todiscuss the question as to how the next ten days were to be spent.

  When they had reached New Westminster Mr. James had urged them to taketwo or three days' trip with him up the Fraser River on the steamboat,partly to see the scenery, but chiefly to get to the end of theCanadian Pacific railroad which was then being built east and west. Thewestern end started at the town of Yale. The distance by steamer wasnot great, though the swift current of the Fraser is so strong thatprogress up the stream is not very rapid. This invitation Hugh and Jacknow determined to accept, but as the salmon fishing was just at itsheight, they wished to spend a day investigating that.

  In those days it used to be said that every fourth year the run ofsalmon was very great. The next year the number of fish taken wouldbe smaller, the next still smaller; then the number would increaseagain until the fourth year, when there would be a great run. As ithappened, the year of Jack's visit was one of the years of plenty. Agreat run was looked for, but up to the middle of July no fish had beentaken, though for a week previous the boats had been drifting for them.The fishermen, however, were not discouraged, for at the mouth of theriver were constantly seen great numbers of small black-headed gulls,oolichan gulls, so called, which Jack recognized as Bonaparte gulls.

  Long before they returned to New Westminster salmon had begun to betaken in considerable numbers, the first catch being made about thelast of July. The run kept increasing slowly until before their returnto New Westminster it had become impossible for the canneries to useall the fish caught, and a portion of the boats were taken off. Earlyin August the catch was from seventy-five thousand to eighty thousandfish per day, though only one half of the boats were employed. Thecanneries were all running at their fullest capacity and the enormouscatch was the talk of the town.

  The next morning soon after breakfast Mr. James called for his friends,and a little later they started out to visit one of the canneries inorder to get some idea of the method by which one of the chief sourcesof wealth of the Province was handled.

  On their way down to the wharf, Mr. James talked interestingly on thesubject. "The fish," he explained, "are all caught in ordinary driftgill nets which are cast off from the boats in the usual manner, andare allowed to drift down the stream with the current, meeting theadvancing salmon which are swarming up the river. The other day I gotfrom Ewing's cannery the record of the catch of a few of the boats, onone or two average days. For example, on August ninth five boats tooknine hundred and seventy fish; the same day six boats took one thousandsix hundred and sixty-seven fish. On August tenth, six boats took onethousand four hundred and ninety-two fish, and on August eleventh sixboats took one thousand five hundred and thirty-eight fish."

  "Now, these fish," Mr. James went on, "are chiefly sock-eyes, andaverage from eight to ten pounds in weight, but among them are a goodmany 'Spring salmon' which the books call quinnat, and these runfrom fifty up to seventy and eighty and even a hundred pounds. Theserecords I have just given you give an average of about two hundredand forty-four fish to the boat, or rather more than two thousandpounds. Now, of course, the boats cannot take up their nets and makelong journeys to the wharves to unload their fish. That would be anunnecessary waste of time, and would not pay, so that at all hours ofthe day and night steamers patrol the river, collecting from the rowboats that do the drifting the fish they have netted. When a steamergets a load she comes and ties up at the wharf and there unloads herfish. You will see them presently now, for here is where we turn in."

  Leaving the main street they turned down an alley and entered a looselyput up wooden building, from which came a strong odor of fish whichshowed it to be a cannery. Mr. James pushed through the buildingwithout stopping until they reached the wharf where they saw a tug tiedup. Great piles of shapely glittering fish were lying on her deck, andworking over them were men with poles, in the end of each of which wasa spike. Each man on the deck pierced a fish with the spike on his poleand threw it up on the wharf where lay a great pile of its fellows.They threw out the fish just as a farmer would throw hay out of a wagonwith a pitchfork.

  Hugh and Jack had never seen so many fish before, and for a littlewhile were almost stunned by their mass. No one paid any attention tothem, but each person went on with his or her work. At one end of thepile stood a couple of Indians who were taking fish from the wharf, andthrowing them one by one into a large tub of clear water. Immediatelynext to this tub stood a row of tables at which were people armed withlong knives. A woman next to the tub reached down, got a fish from it,placed it on the table before her and removed the head, sliding thefish along to a man next to her, who, by a single motion of his kniferemoved the entrails and cut off the fins and tail. The fish, thrustagain along the table, fell into a tub of clean water and was washedby an attendant. Thrown on an adjacent cutting table, it was passedalong to a cam, armed with knives about four inches apart, which wasconstantly revolving, thus cutting the fish into lengths. The pieceswere then placed in the tin cans which were filled up even-full.

  Jack and Hugh stared at these different processes which went on withouta pause. It seemed as if each operator might be a machine. Each oneperformed a certain task and only that, and beyond that did nothing butshove each fish along, then reach back and take another. The knives, itseemed, always fell in the same place, and cut off the same parts withthe same precision. It was a rising and falling of arms and knives, inthe preparation of a food which was soon to be distributed all over theglobe.

  At length they reached the cutting table. "Here," said Mr. James, "youcan see how systematically the thing is done. It isn't enough that thefish should be cut into pieces, but it must be cut into sizes thatare just about long enough to fill the can so that as few motions aspossible need be gone through with to get the can level full."

  "There! do you see!" he went on, pointing to a Chinaman, who with twoor three motions of his right hand filled a can, just even-full; andthen slid it along the table to a man next to him, who slipped on itthe circular cover of tin and passed this on to the next man, who washandling a soldering iron and a bit of solder. In but a second, as itseemed to Jack, the soldering of the can was finished, and then witha push the can went on to join those which were being bunched up bythe Chinamen, and placed in a shallow tray made of strap iron. Whenthis tray was full a hook on the end of a chain running down from atraveller near the ceiling was hooked into a ring attached to chainsrunning to the four corners of the tray, the tray was lifted, and runalong the traveller a short distance until it stood over a vat ofboiling water. It was then dropped into this, hung there for a fewmoments; and then, rising again, moved a little farther along thetraveller, and descended on a table. By this table stood a Chinaman,holding a small wooden mallet with which he tapped each can.

  "You see," said Mr. James, "the expansion of the contents of the canunder heat makes the cover bulge, and when the Chinaman taps it withthe mallet he can tell at once by the sound, whether the solder isperfectly tight or not. If, when the mallet strikes it, the coveryields much, he knows that there is an escape for the air and the canis thrown out. There, see him throw that one out? When the Chinamantaps the cans it seems as if he were paying little attention to thework, but when a defective can comes along he detects it at once andcasts it aside, just as he did that one." This happened to be the onlyo
ne rejected of this lot, and the operator at once reversed his malletand began to tap them over again.

  "What is he doing now, Mr. James?" asked Jack. "Is he going over themagain?"

  "No," said Mr. James; "look closely at the mallet and you will see thathe has reversed it; and in this end of the mallet there is a littletack. Each time he strikes a can he punctures it, allowing, as you see,air, water, and steam to escape. As soon as this is done, the otherworkmen, with their soldering irons seal up these little bits of holes,and the work is done. Now the only thing to do is to label the cans,box them, and ship them to the markets."

  "How many fish do they put up here in a day, Mr. James?" asked Jack.

  "About five hundred cases," said Mr. James. "It's a lot, isn't it?"

  "I should say so," said Jack, "it makes my head swim to think of it,and that is being done all along the river, isn't it?"

  "Yes," said Mr. James. "It is, and it keeps up for weeks and sometimesfor months. The run of sockeye salmon usually lasts from four to sixweeks, and during that time the factories run from four in the morningto seven or eight at night; and the work goes on constantly, Sundays aswell as week days."

  "Well," said Hugh; "I don't see how there are any salmon left in theriver. I should think you would catch them all. There must be a lotof factories just like this all along the river; what becomes of thepeople living farther up the stream?"

  "I can't answer that very well, myself," said Mr. James, "except that Iknow that there are plenty of them. Here comes a man, though, who cantell you. He is an old fisherman, and has been in the canning businessfor years. Oh, McIntyre!" he called out to a raw-boned, weather-beatenman who passed not far from them. Mr. McIntyre looked at him, cameover, and was introduced to Hugh and Jack as the proprietor of thecannery. He was glad to see them, and readily talked about salmon andsalmon canning.

  "Mr. Johnson, here," said Mr. James, "was wondering that there were anysalmon left in the river for the people who live above here. He thinksyou are catching them all."

  Mr. McIntyre laughed loudly as he replied: "Oh, not all of them; thereare a few that get up. You see, this year we have not been able to useall the fish we caught, and we have taken off one half the boats. Idon't believe that one fish is caught out of ten thousand that enterthe river. Everybody between here and the head of the river capturesall the fish he wants, and in the autumn you will see fish that havespawned and died, floating down the river by the million. Of course, Idon't know how many are taken here, but I fancy more than two millionor two and a half million fish. The Indians all the way up the riverhave no trouble whatever in catching all they want. If you should go upthe river you would see their camps along the shore, and you would see,too, that they were catching many fish."

  "How do they catch them, Mr. McIntyre?" asked Jack.

  "They catch them chiefly in purse nets; scooping them up out of thewater, just as fast as the net can be swept."

  "You ought to take them up the river, Charlie," he added, turning toMr. James, "and let them see what goes on between here and Yale."

  "That's just what I am trying to do," said Mr. James. "I want to getthem to go up with me and I hope perhaps we can start to-morrow."

  Much time was spent at the cannery, for Jack and Hugh did not seem totire of watching the swift, certain, and never-ending movements thatwent on here for hours until the whistle blew for noon. Then, indeed,they reluctantly left the factory and returned to the hotel.

  AN INDIAN SALMON WEIR--_Page 234_]

  It must be remembered that all this occurred some twenty-five yearsago, and that since that time wonderful changes have taken place in themethods and operations of salmon canning. This is merely an account ofwhat Jack saw when he visited New Westminster.