CHAPTER XVIII

THE STORY OF THE SALMON FISHERIES

To compare the production of a small but old country like Great Britain with the production of a large but new country like Canada is to find oneself confronted by comic statistics. For a beginner, the daughter is doing very well with her large farm of nearly four million square miles; but the mother is doing so much better with her mere potato patch of 121,000 square miles, that the two sets of results, when placed side by side, almost smack of Gilbert and Sullivan.

True, the daughter has got ahead in wheat-growing, and also in timber (the old lady, in the latter case, having allowed her stock to run low). But in other matters the result is controlled by the greater number of hands at work on the potato patch. In comparing the results achieved by forty-five million people in a little country, with the results achieved by eight million people in a large country, we perceive what the political economist means when he says wealth is labour. In the making of wealth, natural resources are necessary. They are the bases on which human effort builds. But natural resources without population are of no immediate value. To the starving, isolated man half a dozen penny saveloys would be greater riches than a mountain of gold.

According to the most recent reliable figures accessible to me at the moment of writing, the fisheries of England and Wales (leaving Scotland and Ireland out of the reckoning) represent a greater annual money value than the fisheries of Canada—a fact that assumes considerable significance in the light of two other facts, namely, (1) that the fisheries of Great Britain have been severely depleted, and (2) that the fisheries of Canada are the largest and most prolific in the world. Great Britain, it will be noted, is the richer in caught fish; Canada is the richer in uncaught fish. In other words, Canada has more fish than Great Britain, but Great Britain has more fishermen than Canada.

The remarkable results secured by the old lady—to revert to the personal metaphor—are due to a comprehensive thoroughness of effort. Her luggers go in fleets to all the sandbanks—their trawls search each estuary that is likely to harbour a pair of soles or a pint of shrimps. At low tide the old lady examines her mud shores for every wet and glistening periwinkle.

The daughter is not in a position to do that. Her staff of helpers is wholly inadequate to cope with all the occupations and opportunities that crowd upon her. With so many fisheries available, the only ones that get attended to are those that shout for notice. The fish would not get caught unless they practically insisted upon it. British Columbia salmon assemble in such myriads in certain of the rivers that their protruding backs, at times, make a dense mat of fish from shore to shore, almost hiding the water. That statement may look like an exaggeration to the Englishman accustomed to angle all day and secure, peradventure, a couple of small roach as the reward of his patient industry. But the statement describes an actual, familiar sight; and, indeed, the natural resources of Canada scarcely lend themselves to exaggeration. Again and again I have seen and heard those natural resources not over-stated, but ludicrously under-stated. The mistake is constantly made, if quite unintentionally, by Canadians themselves.

Let me give another instance of a Canadian fish that assembles in force, refusing to be overlooked. I refer to the humble herring. “In 1903”—to quote unimpeachable testimony—“the run of herring was very large. At Nanaimo the fish invaded the harbour in such numbers that thousands were washed up on the beach, like seaweed, by the waves created by passing steamers.”

As a matter of fact, the waters of British Columbia are alive with halibut, cod, flounders, anchovies, whales, sardines, shad, oysters, clams, crabs, seals, prawns, and other useful creatures that are more or less neglected by a sparse and preoccupied human population. One of the few fish that happens to receive careful, not to say minute, attention in British Columbia is the sturgeon. It is caught, esteemed, and, as I am officially informed, subdivided into commercial uses according to the following classification:—(1) caviare; (2) isinglass, made from the swim bladder; (3) the flesh—fresh, salted, smoked, or otherwise prepared; (4) oil, which is of great value in the leather industry; (5) fertiliser, made from entrails and scrap; (6) the soft, gristly backbone, with its sheath, which, prepared, is called wesiga, and in Russia is a popular article of diet; (7) the brain and nerve cord, which, when smoked and dried, is considered a great delicacy in China; (8) the back portion of the sturgeon, or dorsal region, is made into balyki; (9) the ventral part, or belly, of the fish is utilised as a food called pupki; (10) a valuable glue, differing from the isinglass of the swim bladder, is derived from the nose, fins, tail, etc.; and, lastly (11), leather is made from the tough and dense skin. Thus there is apparently no waste in the case of this all-round fish.

With regard to the famous British Columbia salmon, the first fact to be noted is that they are not salmon. They are very like salmon, and they are as good as salmon, if not better; but they do not belong to the genus. In thinking otherwise the pioneer population of British Columbia made one of those little mistakes that are natural and excusable in the excitement of occupying a new country. The fish in question belong, as a matter of fact, to the genus oncorhynchus, of which there are five species, all represented in British Columbian waters—the sockeye, the spring, the coho, the dog, and the humpback. When a mistake of this sort has a sufficiently long start, the correction cannot overtake it. The fish that are not salmon are now recognised as salmon all over the world. Were you to ask your grocer for “a tin of oncorhynchus,” you would probably make him jump.

Another fact has to be noted in connection with the great so-called salmon industry. Its historian has not yet put in an appearance. I made that disappointing discovery while talking with Mr. W. H. Barker, president of the British Columbia Packers’ Association, than whom, I had been assured, no man in Canada knows more about the catching and canning of oncorhynchus.

“It certainly would make an interesting book,” said Mr. Barker thoughtfully, “but that book has not been written.”

“You ought to write it,” his visitor pointed out.

“I’m much too busy,” Mr. Barker declared.

“Well, do please spare just one hour for the purpose now,” was my appeal; and getting ready a notebook, I explained that my shorthand would probably be a match for his conversational speed.

“To start at the beginning, then,” said Mr. Barker, courteously falling in with this scheme for imparting reliable information to the reading public, “you must know that the pioneer was William Hume, who came from the State of Maine, where his father, a Scotsman, was a fisherman on the Kennebec River. In the early ’sixties William Hume, probably as a result of the gold excitement, migrated to California, where he located on the Sacramento River, and engaged in hunting and fishing.

“An interesting memory of those days has to do with an extraordinary gun that had been specially made for him. It was of unusually large bore, and it took a very heavy charge of powder—altogether an extremely effective weapon against ducks and geese, of which Hume and his partner shot a great many. But one slight drawback to this gun was that it ‘kicked’ pretty badly, and its owner was always very careful before firing it to protect himself with a thick shoulder-pad. Well, one day Hume went off with a wagon-load of birds for the market, leaving his partner in the shack laid up with rheumatism. It seems that the invalid came limping out into the air, and happened to see a flock of geese. Without a second thought, he took up Hume’s gun, quite forgetting about the shoulder-pad and equally forgetting his own infirm condition. He fired. How many geese he killed I don’t know, but he himself was knocked sprawling, and on picking himself up he made the delightful discovery that the rheumatism had completely left him! I have seen that gun in a museum. It certainly looks formidable enough to ‘kick’ an unwary marksman off his feet. As to the rest of the story, I merely repeat what I heard.

“William Hume caught more salmon than he could dispose of—which unsatisfactory state of affairs he discussed with a man he had known in Maine. This was Mr. Hapgood; and the upshot of their deliberations was that they jointly set to work, with make-shift arrangements, to pack salmon in tins on a scow on the Sacramento River. Such was the beginning of the canning industry that has since assumed such gigantic proportions.

“In the following year Hume and Hapgood migrated to the Columbia River, locating themselves on the Washington side, about forty miles above Astoria. There they started a cannery, packing four thousand cases the first season, the fish being put up in one-pound tins 4½ inches high. They had great difficulty at first in finding a market. A good deal went to Australia and to San Francisco, and the price realised was twelve dollars a case. The demand grew rapidly; other canneries were opened; and Hume’s brothers came out from Maine to go into the business. The brothers were George W. Hume (who is still alive, and a very wealthy man), R. D. Hume, and Joe Hume. Each started a cannery of his own; and R. D. Hume’s “Crown” brand came to be very well known in the old country.

“Everything was extremely crude at first. The cans were imperfectly packed, and many had to be thrown away. In those days all the processes were done by hand, whereas now, of course, machinery operates throughout.

“The Humes were practical fishermen. As a boy I worked for one of the brothers, and so I am able to speak from personal knowledge. The fish were, and still are, caught in what are called ‘gill nets.’ These are made from a linen thread known as shoe thread. We used to make the nets ourselves, spinning the twine and using from seven to twelve strands, which we twisted up lightly. With weights at the bottom to keep them down, the nets hang from cotton lines attached to cedar floats. They drift with the tide, and the fish, swimming up the river, thrust their heads into the meshes and then cannot extricate themselves, owing to the twine catching in their gills.

“The fishing is rather hazardous. It takes place at the mouth of the river, off the sand spits, where the water is usually in great commotion. Very good boats are used, but they are often capsized, a number of fishermen being drowned every year. Each boat carries two hands—the net man, or captain, and the boat puller. It is nothing unusual for a boat to capture in one night from two to three hundred large fish varying in weight from 25 lb. to 28 lb. This is the fish that is known on the Fraser River as the ‘spring,’ on the Columbia River as the ‘chinook,’ and in Alaska as the ‘king.’

“In 1876 Alexander Ewan started below New Westminster to can the salmon of the Fraser River. These are a different variety, their local name being the ‘sockeye.’ They are without doubt the finest of all salmon for canning, being of a uniform red colour and having red oil. Their flavour is even better when they are canned than when they are eaten newly-caught. The sockeye is much smaller than the spring, running to a uniform weight of six or seven pounds. On the Fraser River, therefore, the fishermen use a smaller net, made of finer thread, only five or six ply, the mesh being six inches instead of nine.

“Such was the success of the first cannery on the Fraser that fifty have since been erected between New Westminster and the Gulf of Georgia. The season’s pack on the Fraser has been as high as one million cases, each case containing 48 lb. of salmon. One million cases would contain from twelve to fourteen million fish.”

Mr. Barker then referred to the illusory fears some persons in the Old Country have entertained on the subject of tinned salmon: “There have,” he said, “been instances of ptomaine poisoning in connection with various animal foods, including canned fish. But it has been proved on incontrovertible evidence, and to the satisfaction of the highest scientific and medical authorities, that canned fish is absolutely innocuous, and very wholesome, when eaten fresh. The process of canning it sterilises it. Ptomaine poisoning is caused by the prolonged action of the air on food that has been hermetically sealed, such as shell-fish, sausages, and canned or bottled foods. We have paid a lot of money to find that out. I will give you a typical instance—a case of poisoning in New Haven, Connecticut. We engaged one of the leading doctors of the New York Health Department to go there and investigate the circumstances. He found that when the tin was opened—in the middle of July, with the thermometer at nearly 100°—only a small part of the fish was eaten. The rest was left in the tin, and was not consumed until three days later, when this stale food caused one child to die and made two or three others sick. Cases investigated in Chicago and other parts of the United States have had a similar history. Canned salmon should be used only on the day the tin is opened.”

I asked Mr. Barker to describe the processes to which the fish is subjected in the cannery.

“In the first place,” he explained, “a machine takes off the heads, tails and fins, splits the fish open, and removes the entrails, then brushes and washes the fish inside and out. One machine will deal with twenty-five thousand salmon in a day. Afterwards they go into another apparatus, where they are scraped thoroughly with a knife, while fresh, clean cold water is running on them. Next they go into a bath of water, where they are scrubbed thoroughly with a brush made to fit the fish. Afterwards they are deposited on a revolving frame and cut into slices, which exactly fit the tins, into which they are subsequently inserted with a small quantity of fine Liverpool salt. The filled tins travel on a belt to automatic scales, which throw out any that are light weight, the others proceeding on to a machine which, having closed each tin, cleans the outside with hot water and steam. The lids are now crimped to impart strength, and then the tins are run through a flux and rolled through the hot solder, which sets on a subsequent journey along a twenty-foot belt, the process being assisted by a jet of water. A stay in the coolers is followed by a hot-water test for defective soldering, after which the cans are conveyed to the retorts and cooked, under pressure of steam, for from half an hour to three-quarters. On leaving the retorts they are vented—that is, a hole is opened in the can to allow gases to escape. A drop of solder having been dropped on that hole, there is a second cooking process, to soften the bones and sterilise any air that may remain in the tin. Finally the tin is washed, lacquered (to prevent rusting), and labelled.”

“You have some very clever machinery,” I remarked.

“Yes,” agreed Mr. Barker. “But it is all going to be altered in the near future. The new way of canning does away with soldering, the lids being fixed by crimping—that is, by overlapping the joined edges with such exactitude that the junction is absolutely airtight. This year” (1910) “much of the California fruit is being packed that way. Why the innovation affected that industry before it reached the salmon canneries is easily explained. The heat of the soldering copper was apt to candy the sugar in the syrup, making it dark and sometimes causing black specks, which looked like dirt, to settle on the fruit.”

“Does soldering involve any similar disadvantage in the case of salmon?”

“No. But soldering necessitates skilled labour, while crimping is done by machinery. That is why we are compelled to make the change, which will put the canneries to very heavy capital expenditure. Skilled labour is becoming scarce and very dear. We have a great many Orientals in the canneries. Chinamen are most reliable and painstaking: they are good mechanics, they don’t strike, they don’t get drunk, and they are specially adapted for the work that has to be done in a cannery. Previously their labour was cheap, but now that the Government has imposed a head tax of five hundred dollars on every Chinaman who comes into the country, their labour has become dear. One reason why the work does not attract English labour is because it is not constant. The heavy part of it occurs from July 20th to August 25th, though, of course, the making of the cans takes place before then.

“I well remember when the Chinese first started. I worked then for a man named John West, who had a little cannery on the Columbia River. George W. Hume was the first man who hired Chinamen. He was forced to do so because of the lack of white labour and the unreliability of what he did get. In order to keep sixty or seventy men for two or three months he had to engage from three hundred and fifty to four hundred, because they kept leaving, and they were constantly getting drunk or striking. They were largely runaway sailors and men of that class, who just drifted around, earning a few dollars here and a few dollars there.”

“You took your share,” I suggested, “of the actual practical work?”

“Oh, yes,” said the president of the Packers’ Association. “Besides making nets, I fished and lent a hand in all departments.”

“No doubt,” I further suggested, “there were some interesting human characters in the salmon fisheries in those days?”

“There was Lighthouse Sam for one,” Mr. Barker answered. “They called him that because he had once worked in a lighthouse. He was the most reckless man I have ever known, and always getting into trouble. Again and again his boat was capsized and several of his partners were drowned; but Lighthouse Sam seemed to have a charmed life. I well remember the day when one of our men came running in—it was Phil Williams, from Orkney Island—and shouted: ‘Lighthouse Sam is gone at last!’ Then he told us that the poor fellow’s boat was pitching about, bottom-up, in the breakers, and that both hands were drowned. It seemed that he had left two men trying to rescue the boat—which they did not succeed in doing until an hour afterwards. Then they made an amazing discovery. Lighthouse Sam was underneath, and, although exhausted, quite unharmed, there having been enough air in the bottom of the boat to keep him alive. His mate, as usual, was drowned. After that, I am sorry to say, Lighthouse Sam took to drink, and in the following year he stole a boat, and, securing a partner, sailed up the Pacific coast to do a little fishing on his own account in Shoal Water Bay. The wind blew strongly from the south-east; they were in danger of being swamped, and the reckless mariner headed straight for the shore, undeterred by the sight of heavy breakers. The boat was smashed to pieces, the partner was duly drowned, but Lighthouse Sam got safely ashore. After that he was put into the penitentiary for stealing the boat, and I lost sight of him.

“By the by, Lighthouse Sam was not the only salmon fisherman who survived a cruise with his upturned boat on top of him. A man named Harriman was capsized at the mouth of the Columbia River one Friday at midnight, and when his craft was recovered, on the Monday afternoon, the poor fellow and his boat were high and dry on the beach. He was uninjured—in fact, was soon feeling quite fit again, and, so far as I know, he is fishing there to this day.

“Among the fishermen are a lot of English, Scotch, and Irish, and some of the very best are Norwegians and Danes. There are also many Italians and Greeks. On the Columbia River the boats and nets belong to the fishermen, while here on the Fraser the canneries own all the vessels and gear. The pay is very good while the work lasts, varying from 150 to 350 dollars for a month and a half or two months.

“Last year,” said Mr. Barker, referring to 1909, “the pack was the highest in the history of the business, and amounted to 5,340,000 cases. It was all readily sold. The consumption of tinned salmon in this country is increasing, of course, with the rapid growth of population. Then, too, the English market is again brisk, while we find it impossible to keep pace with the demand from New Zealand and Australia, where the salmon does not occur. This year we could have sold five and a half million cases, but the pack only reached a little over four millions. You may be surprised to note the difference in the quantity caught and canned in 1909 and the quantity caught and canned in 1910. But that was a normal and expected difference. The year 1901 witnessed a tremendous run of salmon, as did the year 1905. There will be another great supply of fish in 1913. It occurs every fourth year with such absolute regularity that we prepare for it by making an extra number of tins. Moreover, new canneries are always set up in the recurring ‘fat’ year, which is invariably followed by a ‘thin’ year. The life history of the salmon—from the time spawn is laid in the river to the return into that river of the full-grown fish—is four years; and it is natural, therefore, that the productiveness of each year should be echoed, as it were, in the fourth following year, and in each succeeding fourth year. That may or may not be the explanation. Some people, indeed, seek to identify the recurring ‘fat’ year and ‘lean’ year with a corresponding variation in the rainfall. But whatever the cause, it is constant and can be depended upon.

“Apart from that fluctuation in the available quantity of salmon, the supply of fish of almost all sorts on the Pacific coast is beyond anyone’s power to gauge. I have seen 35,000 salmon caught in one haul of a seine net. That was in Alaska, where the bulk of the salmon are caught. There is, of course, a tendency for that fish to retire before the advance of a human population. Pollution of the rivers is the actual cause of that retirement, and in British Columbia pollution takes the form of sawdust from the lumber industry. Here, then, we touch the reason why, in my opinion, the Fraser must rank as the finest salmon river in the world. You simply cannot pollute the Fraser.”