Iron County register., 1892-01-28
BRITISH COLUMBIA INDIANS.
They Are Splendid Sailors and Ingenious
WOrkmen.

They Are Splendid Sailors and Ingenious
Workmen.
You will find that seven in ten among
the more intelligent British Column
bians conclude these Indians to be of
Japanese origin. The japanese cur
rent is neighborly to the province, and
it has drifted Japanese junks to these
shores When the first traders visited
the neigh ghborhood of the mouth of the
Columbia they found beeswax in the
sand near the vestiges of a wreck. and
IT is said that one wreck of junk was
met with, and twelve thousand pounds
of this wax was found on her. Whal-
ers are said to have frequently encoun-
tered wrecked and drifting junks
in the eastern Pacific, and a local
legend has it that in 1884 remnants of a
junk with three japanese and a cargo
of pottery were found on the coast
south of Cape Flattery. Nothing less
than all this should excuse even rud-
derless ethnologist for SO cruel a reflec
ton upon the Japanese, for these In
dams are SO far from pretty that all
who see them agree with Captain But
Ter. the traveller. who wrote that IF
they are of the Nougolian type, the
sooner the Mongolians change their
type the better"
The coast Indians are splendid sailors,
and their dugouts do not always come
off second best in racing with the boats
of white men. With a primitive vet
ingeniously made tool. like an adze. in
the construction of which a blade is tied
fast to bent handle of bone, these ma
tives laboriously pick out the heart of
great cedar log. and shape its outer sides
into the form of a boat. When the log
is properely followed. they fill it with
water and then drop in stones which
they have heated in fire. Thus they
steam the boat that they may spread
the sides and fit in the crossbars which
keep it strong and preserve its shape.
Theses dugouts are sometimes sixty
feet long and are used for whaling and
long VOYAGES in rough seas They are
capable of CARRYING tons of the salmon
or oolachau or herring, of which these
people, who live as their fathers did.
catch sufficient in few days for their
maintenance throughout a whole year.
One gets an idea of the swarms of fish
that infest those waters by the knowl-
edge that before nets were used the
herring and the oolachan or candle
fish. were swept into these boats
by an implement formed by stud
ding n ten-foot pole with spikes
or nails This was swept among
the fish in the water. and the boats
were speedily filed with the creatures
that were impaled upon the spikes
Salmon. sea-otter, otter. beaver, mar
ten. bear and deer Tor caribou or
moosel were and still are the chief re-
sources of most of the Indians. Once
they sold the fish and the peltry to the
Hudson Bay company. and ate what
parts or surplus they did not sell Now
they work in the canneries or fish
for them in summer, and hunt, trap or
loaf the rest of the time However.
while they still fish and sell furs, and
while some are yet as their fathers
were, nearly all the coast Indians are
semi-civilized. They have at least the
xvhite mans clothes and hymns
md vices They have churches;
&hev live in houses; they work
In c,nneries. What little there was that
Was picturesque about them has van