Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1874-02-25
The Columbia River and the Salmon
Fishery.

| don't know where | got the belief that
the Columbia was seron l-rate river.
There must be some blunder in the geog-
raphies out of which | got my lessons
and notions of the Northwest coast ut
school. Possibly, too, the knowledge that
navigation is Interrupted ny rapids ut the
Cascades and DalleS contributed to form
an impression conspicuously wrong. In
fact, the Columbia is one of the greatest
rivers of the world. 1t seems to me lar
yer, rs it is infinitely grandtr, than the
Mississippi. Between Astoria and the june
ton of the Willamette, its breadth, its
depth. its rapid current, and the vast body
of water it carries to the sea reminded me
of descriptions | had read of the Amazon
and | suspect that the Columbia would
rank with that stream were it no. for the
unlucky distractions at the Cascades and
Dalles, which divide the stream into two
unequal parts.
For ten miles above Astoria the river is
so wide that it forms really Il vast bay.
Then it narrows somewhat and the chan
mel approaches now one and then the other
of its bold, picturesque shore, which often
for mi es resemble the Palisades of the
Hudson in steepness and exceed that in
hight. But even after it becomes narrow
er, the river frequently widens into broad
open lakes like eXpanses, which are stud
d I'd with lovely islands, and wherever the
shore lowers you see beyond, grand noun
tain ranges, snow-clad in spots and amaz-
ingly fine.
The banks are precipitous nearly all the
way to the junction of the Willamette, and
there is. singularly, little farming country
on the immediate river. Below kalam;t
there are few spots where there is even
room for small farmstead. But along
this part of the river are the salmon
factories" whence come the Oregon sal
mon, which, put up in tin cans, are now
to be bought not only in our Eastern
st ties, but al over the world. The fish
are caught in weirs, in gill nets, as shad
are caught on the Hudson, and this is the
only part of the labor performed by white
men. The fishermen carry the salmon in
boa. to the ftclory-ns tally Il large frame
uilling erected on piles over the water
an here they fill into the hands of tn
Chinese. who get for their Labor a dollar
u day and their food.
The salmon are flung upon n stage,
whore they lie in heaps OF a IN ,usand H. Il
time, II surprising sight to an Eastern per-
son, for in such II pile you may see fish
weighing from thirty to sixty pounds.
The work of prep tring them for the cans
is conducted with exact method and great
cleanliness, water being abundant. One
Chinaman seizes a fish and cuts off his
head the next slashes off the fins and dis
embowels the fish; it then falls into a
large vat, where the blood soaks out-a
salmon bleedS like b lll-and after soak
ing and repeated washing in different watts
it falls at last into the hands of one of a
gang of Chinese whose business it is, with
heavy knives, to chop the fish into chunks
of suitable size for the tins. These pieces
are plunged into brine. and presently stuff
Ell into the cans, it beng the object to fill
each can as full us possible with fish, the
bone being excluded. The top, which has
a small hole pierced in it, is then soldercd
on, and five hundred tins set on II form are
lowered into a huge kettle of boiling wa
ter, where they remain until the heat has
expelled all the air. Then a Chinaman
neatly drops little solder over each pin
hole, and after another boiling. the object
of which is, [ believe, to make sure that
the cans are Theoretically sealed, the pro-
cess is complete, and the salmon are ready
to take IL journey longer and more remark
able even than that which their progeni-
tors took when seized with the curio is rage
of spawning they assembled the Col linhia,
to deposit their eggs in its head waters
near the center of the continent.
l was assured by the fishermen that the
salmon do not decrease in number OF size,
yet in this year. 1873, more than two mil
lions of pounds were put up in tin cans on
the Lower Columbia alone, besides fifteen
or twenty thousand barrels of sailed sal
mon.-Harper's Magazine.