Show HYU SALMO Nl IS THE CRY indiana go to canneries for the opening of the season in the i northwest vancouver B C A little party of 0 indians from the tribes that inhabit the west coast of vancouver island trickled through vancouver in a rivulet of barbaric color on their way to the canneries these tribesmen and tribes women whose ancestral history has been more closely associated with the salmon than with anything else for hundreds of years for tho salmon has always been their principal food supply come each summer from the west coast of vancouver island to tho the fraser river canneries tle these primitive people are picturesque tur esque and attract many eyes when they pass through the city in steves ton they live in a little board and canvas village of their own and eat salmon three times a day during the cannery season many of the men are fishermen hermen ds and nearly all the women work in the canneries the sockeye run is now on in the fraser and tho the canneries are running their machinery every day A good many more white fishermen nave have talc tak en out licenses this year 0 the sockeyes soc keyes the humpbacks and the cahors and other members of the salmon family looking tor for spawning beds are seeking out the sandbars of the fraser the skeena of rivers inlet and many other brackish river mouths and salty inlets week after week school after school of these swiftly swimming sea gypsies come nosing in from somewhere far out in the pacific ocean circling around the ends of vancouver island and either meet their fate in the wide stretching arms of the waiting trap or riet net or escape to reach the rivers inland reaches there to sacrifice their lives in giving forth the eggs which the sun beat hatches batches in the shallow water which lies motionless over the yellow river beaches or the gravel shoals the simple drama always terminating in tragedy for the fish one way or the other has been enacted for or years and years and the indians have been eye witnesses of the exodus from the time the salmon left the sea |