The First Run Commenced That Year In July, While The
King Salmon, One Of The Five Species Recognized By The Indians, Was
In The Chilcat River About The Middle Of The November Before.
From this wonderful salmon-camp we sailed joyfully up the coast to
explore icy Sum Dum Bay, beginning my studies where I left off the
previous November.
We started about six o'clock, and pulled merrily
on through fog and rain, the beautiful wooded shore on our right,
passing bergs here and there, the largest of which, though not over
two hundred feet long, seemed many times larger as they loomed gray
and indistinct through the fog. For the first five hours the sailing
was open and easy, nor was there anything very exciting to be seen or
heard, save now and then the thunder of a falling berg rolling and
echoing from cliff to cliff, and the sustained roar of cataracts.
About eleven o'clock we reached a point where the fiord was packed
with ice all the way across, and we ran ashore to fit a block of
wood on the cutwater of our canoe to prevent its being battered or
broken. While Captain Tyeen, who had had considerable experience
among berg ice, was at work on the canoe, Hunter Joe and Smart Billy
prepared a warm lunch.
The sheltered hollow where we landed seems to be a favorite
camping-ground for the Sum Dum seal-hunters. The pole-frames of
tents, tied with cedar bark, stood on level spots strewn with seal
bones, bits of salmon, and spruce bark.
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