presented to
Xibrarp
of tbe
of Toronto
sir chives Edition
CANADA AND ITS PROVINCES
IN TWENTY-TWO VOLUMES AND INDEX
(Vols. I and 2)
SECTION I
NEW FRANCE, 1534-1760
(Vols. 3 and 4)
SECTION II
BRITISH DOMINION, 1760-1840
(Vol. 5)
SECTION III
UNITED CANADA, 1840-1867
(Vols. 6, 7, and 8)
SECTION IV
THE DOMINION:
POLITICAL EVOLUTION
(Vols. 9 and 10)
SECTION V
THE DOMINION:
INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION
(Vols. ii and 12)
SECTION VI
THE DOMINION:
MISSIONS; ARTS AND
LETTERS
(Vols. 13 and 14)
SECTION VII
THE ATLANTIC PROVINCES
(Vols. 15 and 16)
SECTION VIII
THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC
(Vols. 17 and 18)
SECTION IX
THE PROVINCE OF ONTARIO
(Vols. 19 and 20)
SECTION X
THE PRAIRIE PROVINCES
(Vols. 21 and 22)
SECTION XI
THE PACIFIC PROVINCE
(Vol. 23)
SECTION XII
DOCUMENTARY NOTES
GENERAL INDEX
GENERAL EDITORS
ADAM SHORTT
ARTHUR G. DOUGHTY
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
THOMAS CHAPAIS ALFRED D. DECELLES
F. P. WALTON GEORGE M. WRONG
WILLIAM L. GRANT ANDREW MACPHAIL
JAMES BONAR A. H. U. COLQUHOUN
D. M. DUNCAN ROBERT KILPATRICK
THOMAS GUTHRIE MARQUIS
VOL. 22
SECTION XI
THE PACIFIC
PROVINCE
PART II
CANADA
AND ITS PROVINCES
A HISTORY OF THE CANADIAN
PEOPLE AND THEIR INSTITUTIONS
BY ONE HUNDRED ASSOCIATES
ADAM SHORTT
ARTHUR G. DOUGHTY
GENERAL EDITORS
VOLUME XXII
PRINTED BY T. & A. CONSTABLE
AT THE EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS
FOR THE PUBLISHERS' ASSOCIATION
OF CANADA LIMITED
TORONTO
GLASGOW, BROOK & COMPANY
1914
F
Sou
v-2-2.
Copyright in all countries subscribing to
the JSerne Convention
CONTENTS
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION. By R. E. GOSNELL
THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE ..... 349
GOVERNMENT ON VANCOUVER ISLAND . . . • 351
GOVERNMENT OF THE MAINLAND COLONY .... 353
THE DEVELOPMENT OF MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. . . 354
THE POLITICAL CONSTITUTION OF BRITISH COLUMBIA . . 357
FINANCES OF THE PROVINCE . . . . -358
GOVERNMENT UNDER THE ACT OF CONSTITUTION, 1871 . . 366
PROVINCIAL AND MUNICIPAL TAXATION . . . 373
GENERAL LEGISLATION RESPECTING MUNICIPALITIES . . 380
MUNICIPAL FINANCES. . . . . . . 382
HISTORY OF THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM. By W. H. P.
CLEMENT
BEFORE CONFEDERATION ...... 387
AFTER CONFEDERATION . . . . . . 392
HISTORY OF EDUCATION. By ALEXANDER ROBINSON
I. VANCOUVER ISLAND AND BRITISH COLUMBIA BEFORE THEIR
UNION ........ 401
II. EDUCATION IN BRITISH COLUMBIA BEFORE CONFEDERATION . 413
III. EDUCATION SINCE CONFEDERATION .... 422
The University of British Columbia
THE FISHERIES. By D. N. MC!NTYRE
I. PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND THE FISHERIES . . 445
II. FISHERIES LEGISLATION ...... 447
III. THE VERTEBRATES ....... 462
Sockeye Salmon — Spring or Quinnat Salmon — Coho Salmon —
Dog Salmon — Humpback Salmon — Life-History of the Pacific
vii
viii THE PACIFIC PROVINCE
PAGE
Salmon — The Salmon Canning Industry — Halibut — Flounders
— Oulachan — Herring — Sturgeon — Pilchard and Anchovy —
Smelt — Black Cod or Skil — Minor Varieties — Whales — Seals,
Walruses — Game Fish — British Columbia Trout
IV. THE ARTHROPODS ....... 479
Lobsters — Crabs — Prawns
V. THE MOLLUSCS . . . . . . .481
The Oyster — Clams — Abalone — Edible Mollusca in British
Columbian Waters
FOREST RESOURCES. By A. C. FLUMERFELT . . . 487
I. THE TREES ........ 488
II. A VALUABLE PROVINCIAL ASSET . . . . -491
IIL THE FORESTRY COMMISSION . . . . 495
IV. TIMBER AREAS ....... 503
In Private Ownership — Leasehold Timber-lands — Licensed
Timber-lands — Timber-lands hitherto reserved — Railway
Belt Timber-land — Total of British Columbia Timber
V. THE SAW-MILLING INDUSTRY ..... 509
VI. THE PULP INDUSTRY . . . . . 513
VII. THE PANAMA CANAL AND THE LUMBER TRADE . . 515
VIII. THE FORESTS AND THE FUTURE . . . . .518
HISTORY OF FARMING. By R. E. GOSNELL
I. THE PIONEER FARMERS . . . . . 525
II. AGRICULTURAL POSSIBILITIES OF BRITISH COLUMBIA . . 529
III. AGRICULTURAL EXHIBITIONS ..... 537
IV. CONDITIONS AFFECTING AGRICULTURE . . . -539
V. LEGISLATIVE ACTS AND AGRICULTURE . . . .541
MINES AND MINING. By E. JACOBS
BRITISH COLUMBIA, PART OF THE CORDILLERAN REGION . 555
IMMENSE MINERAL RESOURCES ..... 557
HISTORY OF MINING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA . . 558
MINERAL PRODUCTION . . . . . 565
PLACER GOLD ........ 567
LODE METALS ........ 568
COAL AND COKE ....... 572
MISCELLANEOUS MINERALS . . . . . -574
A STRIKING COMPARISON ...... 575
CONTENTS ix
PAGE
SOME OF THE LARGER MINES . . . . -575
MINING METHODS AND METALLURGICAL FACILITIES . . 578
DEPARTMENT OF MINES .... .580
MINING LAWS . .581
THE YUKON TERRITORY. By J. B. TYRRELL
POSITION AND EXTENT . . . . . 585
TOPOGRAPHY ...... 585
HYDROGRAPHY ... • 589
CLIMATE ...... . 600
TRANSPORTATION . . . 602
HISTORY ........ 604
CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT ..... 607
POPULATION ..... .610
WATER POWERS . . . . . . . 6ll
FLORA ......... 6l2
AGRICULTURE . . ... .613
FAUNA ..... .6l6
MINING ....... . 619
THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES. By J. B. TYRRELL
POSITION AND EXTENT ...... 639
TOPOGRAPHY . . . . .•».'. . . 639
HYDROGRAPHY ....... 640
CLIMATE ...... . 643
GEOLOGY ........ 644
TRANSPORTATION ....... 647
POPULATION ........ 648
VEGETATION . . . . . . . .650
ANIMALS . . . . . . . .651
FISH .'........ 652
MINERALS ........ 654
ILLUSTRATIONS
SIR RICHARD MCBRIDE Frontispiece
From a photograph by Savannah
SQUATTER HOMES AT PRINCE RUPERT, 1909 . Facing page 360
CLINTON, B.C., CARIBOO ROAD ... ,,390
FISHING FLEET AT THE MOUTH OF THE
FRASER RIVER ,,452
INDIAN SALMON CACHES, FRASER RIVER . „ 462
SALMON TRAPS, FRASER RIVER „ 468
THE WHARF AT PRINCE RUPERT, 1909 . . „ 516
ALEXANDER BRIDGE, FRASER RIVER . . „ 530
CARIBOO ROAD, FRASER RIVER ... ,,560
THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY'S SS. WRIGLEY
AT THE JUNCTION OF THE MACKENZIE AND
LIARD RIVERS ,,588
THE FIRST PORTAGE ON SLAVE RIVER . . „ 640
FORT SMITH, SLAVE RIVER .... ,,646
THE LAST PORTAGE ON SLAVE RIVER . . „ 650
PORTAGING PAST SMITH RAPIDS, SLAVE RIVER „ 654
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
VOL. XXII
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
£ ^TRICTLY speaking, public administration includes
^^ every function of government, but as many of these
V — ) functions as exercised in British Columbia are dealt
with in other articles in this section of this work, for present
purposes it is proposed to discuss those which more parti-
cularly relate to community regulation, apart from private
or special material interests. Included among such features
as should have consideration are the constitution of the
government, the administration of justice, social economics,
taxation, and municipal organization. The laws and regu-
lations thereunder relating to education, forestry, land and
agriculture, mining, fishing, and general economic subjects
are dealt with elsewhere, and only very incidentally come
within the purview of this article.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Historically, the administration of justice in the territory
which now includes British Columbia considerably ante-
dates the formal organization of the Vancouver Island and
mainland colonies. In a vague way British common law
had effect throughout the Oregon territory and New Cale-
donia from a time which shaded off into the obscurity of
native sovereignty. When Great Britain and the United
States, so to speak, established a modus vivendi in regard
to the disputed territory, Canadian laws were extended
contemporaneously and made to apply to British subjects.
Likewise United States laws extended to United States
subjects. Where, however, disputed territory ceased to be
disputed territory was wholly uncertain until after the treaty
of 1846. The jurisdiction of the provisional government of
349
350 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Oregon, which was the first attempt at political segregation
on the north-west coast, had no exact metes and bounds.
As until the founding in 1849 of the colony of Vancouver
Island, which was limited in its area, there were no settlers
north of the 49th parallel, the application of Canadian law
was supererogatory in the extreme. The only white popu-
lation were the servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, and
the latter was a law unto itself. There were no justices of
the peace or officers of the law apart from the officers of the
company. Violations of the company's rules were punished
by the company, but it is difficult to say what would have
happened in the case of the perpetration of serious crime by
servants of that corporation. To have brought a criminal
within the operation of the Canadian law would have meant
his deportation to Eastern Canada, and that was out of the
question. In such a case we may assume that the Hudson's
Bay Company did deal, or would have dealt, with it in its
own way. As between the Indians and the white men, it
resolved itself into a matter of summary vengeance. If an
Indian killed a Hudson's Bay Company's servant, he was
killed in turn. It was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth — the only kind of justice which appealed to the Indian's
moral intelligence. Among themselves the natives settled
everything according to this primitive code, and it must be
remembered that they still possessed sovereign tribal rights.
H. H. Bancroft has written a volume on popular tribunals, in
which he related a great many instances of the crude methods
of administering justice on the Pacific slope in early days,
but few of these relate to the country north of the 49th
parallel. From the beginning, except in a few instances, law
and order were respected under British rule.
The first official act recognizing the local right to ad-
minister justice on British soil was in 1849, when at the
instance of Sir J. H. Pelly, governor of the Hudson's Bay
Company, the colonial secretary of Great Britain, under
authority of I and 2 Geo. iv, cap. 86, appointed fourteen
justices of the peace — all Hudson's Bay Company officials —
on Vancouver Island and on the unorganized mainland.
When Vancouver Island was formally erected into a colony,
GOVERNMENT ON VANCOUVER ISLAND 351
so much of the Georgian legislation in question as related to
Vancouver Island was repealed, special provision being made
for administration according to British laws and local or-
dinances. It will be remembered that one of the first official
acts of Governor Blanshard was to appoint Dr J. S. Helmcken
a magistrate at Fort Rupert for the purpose of keeping the
peace among the miners and bringing the Indians to justice.1
Helmcken 's tenure of office was brief, however, and the
governor himself complained that his own position was little
better than that of an ordinary magistrate. Blanshard's
successor, Governor Douglas, recommended his own brother-
in-law, David Cameron, for judge of the supreme court of
civil justice, and in 1856 Cameron was promoted to the chief
justiceship, his position being not unlike the schoolboy who
was head of a class of which he was the only member. One
cannot but appreciate as almost ironical the ' feeling of
dismay ' expressed by Douglas when called upon to introduce
representative government and convene a legislative assem-
bly. Notwithstanding that he had previously appointed his
brother-in-law to the bench, he told Henry Labouchere
(afterwards Lord Taunton), secretary of state for the
Colonies, that * possessing a very slender knowledge of
legislation himself, he was without legal advice or intelligent
assistance of any kind/ In this he was hardly fair to
Cameron, who, though not learned in the law, is stated to
have made a very ' sound judge/ and apparently satisfied
requirements until his retirement in 1865. His duties, it is
true, were not arduous and his legal problems not intricate.
Governor Douglas, too, without any previous experience of
governmental affairs, achieved a success in his gubernatorial
capacity that belied his own self -depreciation,
GOVERNMENT ON VANCOUVER ISLAND
Government on Vancouver Island was then of a simple
character. It however carried with it very considerable
responsibility, particularly so from its one-man character.
Blanshard, before his resignation as governor, appointed an
1 See p. 92.
352 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
executive council of three, in accordance with instructions
from the home government. In a sense this body might be
regarded as a cabinet, although, by virtue of Douglas's dual
capacity as chief of the Hudson's Bay Company in the Western
Department and governor of Vancouver Island, government
was purely autocratic. The council was advisory and to a
certain extent an executive, but the influence of the governor
was supreme. Even after a legislative assembly had been
called into existence, the situation was not greatly altered.
The control of parliament over expenditure is its strength,
and in reality its raison d'etre, but in Vancouver Island,
until the Hudson's Bay Company's charter was extinguished,
the only revenues under the exclusive control of the assembly
were those arising out of licence fees, and these were exceed-
ingly limited. Revenues arising out of the sales of lands,
timber, etc., were appropriated by the governor as the re-
presentative of the company. His only duty to the assembly,
in that respect, consisted in submitting a statement of
receipts and expenditures. The governor practically made
the laws, his ordinances being subject only to imperial veto.
The assembly and the council, the members of the latter
appointees of the governor, all of them being Hudson's Bay
Company's officials, constituted parliament. The situation
resembled not a little the old Family Compact days of Upper
Canada. In 1859, when Douglas proposed to build parlia-
ment buildings on the west side of James Bay and to connect
them with the old town by means of a bridge — the most con-
siderable undertaking of the colony up to that time — and
the assembly protested against the usurpation of its authority,
he calmly told the members, in effect, that as they had not
appropriated the funds and were not responsible for the under-
takings— the moneys being advanced by the Hudson's Bay
Company — they had nothing to say in the matter. The
buildings were erected, and, as subsequent events proved, the
action of the governor, as well as the selection of the site, was
a wise one.
In the article on cc^nial history,1 legislation and adminis-
tration, such as they were, have been outlined, and it will be
1 See ' Colonial History, 1849-1871,' in this section.
GOVERNMENT OF THE MAINLAND COLONY 353
unnecessary here to review them at any length. The first
period of colonial history was marked by provisions for
regulating the liquor traffic by a system of licensing, for
the establishment of a few public schools, for the erection of
places of public worship, for means of defence — never called
into requisition — for establishing a fiscal system — one of free
trade pure and simple — for appropriating the limited revenues
at the disposal of the legislature, and for administering justice
in a primitive but effectual way. The land laws were
practically fixed by the tenure by which Vancouver Island
was held by the Hudson's Bay Company.
GOVERNMENT OF THE MAINLAND COLONY
The government of the mainland colony of British
Columbia was for several years a more simplified form of
administration than existed even on Vancouver Island. It
was wholly a one-man government, and James Douglas was
the one man. The situation gave to him, as chief executive,
powers only limited by instructions from, or veto by, the
secretary of state for the Colonies. There were besides, it is
true, such officials as the chief commissioner of Lands and
Works, the chief justice and the attorney-general or legal
adviser to the crown ; but in all matters of public policy and
important affairs of state the governor was supreme. It was
not intended, of course, that this autocratic, or bureaucratic,
form of administration should continue to exist indefinitely,
and provision was made at the outset for some form of repre-
sentative or executive council as soon as conditions in the
colony warranted it. In 1861 protests were made to the
imperial authorities against its further continuance. Douglas
could justify his course on the grounds that as the great
majority of the population was made up of miners, shifting in
their abode, and not to be counted upon as permanent residents
of the colony, and as the number of farmers and landowners
was infinitesimally small, there was really no material out of
which to create a representative government responsible for
its trusts. He pointed out — and this is important to remember
— that New Westminster, the only place of any commercial
354 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
importance, had been organized as a municipality, the first
in the Pacific colonies, and that his policy as governor was to
encourage local self-government at other points in the colony
as soon as the number of permanent residents should warrant
it. There were several other such places in prospect — Yale
and Hope, and in Lillooet and Cariboo — and it was natural
that these urban centres would increase as the interior of
the colony developed. With this view the colonial secretary
concurred for the time being. In 1863, however, Cariboo
having secured a considerable population, definite instructions
came from Downing Street for the formation of a legislative
council, the first session of which was held in 1864. This was
only partially representative, being made up of heads of
departments, one-third ; magistrates from various districts,
one-third ; and persons elected from various electoral districts,
one-third. After the union of the two colonies in 1866 this
was the form of government which existed until 1871.
In their general features the administrations of the
colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia were
those of crown colonies, with the preponderance of power and
influence vested in the government and executive appointees
with direct responsibility to the imperial authorities. The
personnel of the legislative assembly of British Columbia
changed from session to session, and this is more or less true
of the legislative council.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT
Governor Douglas's idea of developing municipal govern-
ment throughout the province, the various municipal bodies
to form a nucleus of a central parliament, giving to the people
a popular form of government based on political option, so
to speak, was almost ideal in conception ; but, as subse-
quent events proved, it would have been exceedingly slow of
realization. Owing to the peculiar physical circumstances
of British Columbia, with its widely separated and sparsely
settled areas, it took many years for municipal government
to develop and extend. Until comparatively recent years
there were only three municipalities on Vancouver Island,
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT 355
one of which was rural ; while on the mainland there were
only five in 1886 and eight in 1896, three of which were
urban. All of these were created by letters patent or by
special act of the legislature, among which in order of priority
were : New Westminster (1860), Victoria City (1862),
Langley township (1873), North Cowichan township (1873),
Nanaimo City (1874), Surrey township (1882), Chilliwack
township (1883), Vancouver City (1886), Delta township
(1888), North Vancouver (1891), Sumas (1892) ; but these,
in so far as their charters are not repugnant to the Municipal
Clauses Act, come within the jurisdiction of that act, and all
municipalities formed after April 23, 1892, are regulated by
the provisions of the Municipal Clauses Act, and this leads up
to a brief consideration of the character of the administration
which was involved as a consequence.
The same physical conditions which prevented the growth
of municipal institutions developed a local form of adminis-
tration almost unique in the Empire — that of a government
agency, one of delegated functions. Mining camps and other
settlements, widely segregated over so vast an area, com-
munication between which was difficult and expensive, de-
manded at central points some individual with administrative
authority in order to facilitate business which affected crown
interests. Accordingly, government agencies were created
for the various districts, which were necessarily wide adminis-
trative constituencies. The government agent in the more
remote districts such as Kootenay and Cassiar exercised
functions of a diversified character. In addition to being
government agent, in which capacity he represented the govern-
ment in a general way, receiving its instructions as well as
all local revenues, supervising all public expenditure of what-
ever nature, etc., he might be, and usually was, stipendiary
magistrate, gold commissioner, mining recorder, water com-
missioner, issuer of marriage licences, assessor and collector,
and often acted as policeman. In other less inaccessible
districts these duties were more or less divided, and as time
went on subdivision of labour became greater. The govern-
ment agency system is the system still in vogue and, in the
circumstances of a province so exceptional in its configuration,
356 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
has worked out most successfully. There have been only a
few instances in which officials responsible for many delegated
duties have abused their authority, and in the great majority
of instances they have been men not only of integrity and
intelligence, but of unusual resource and courage.
Although municipalities have greatly multiplied during
recent years, there is still but a very limited area under
municipal control. From the outset, therefore, administra-
tion in respect of all matters of governmental authority has
been very much concentrated in the central executive, with
a corresponding responsibility regarding the collection and ex-
penditure of revenues. All public lands are under the direct
control and administration of the government, as are also
mines and timber. These three capital assets are of immense
importance and extent. Therefore the labour and expense
of administering them through the various departments are
much greater than in any of the other provinces. The
fisheries of the territorial waters in and about the province,
through recent arrangements made at Ottawa with the
minister of Marine and Fisheries there, are also practically
under the control of the local government. Outside of the
municipalities, the government through its assessorial branch
of the department of Finance, taxes all lands and other
taxable assets. The roads of the province, some eighteen
thousand miles in extent, are built out of public funds ; and
as there are no county councils, all trunk roads, whether
running through, alongside of or between municipalities,
are built and maintained at the expense of the government.
All bridges, ferries and wharves, public buildings (including
court-houses, lock-ups and gaols), reformatories and asylums,
and, in a large part, hospitals, are provided for in the esti-
mates of public works. Even in educational matters, the
sole control of schools was in the hands of the minister of
Education. Until quite recently, schoolhouses were built
and maintained, and the salaries of teachers paid, out of pro-
vincial funds. This state of affairs existed until 1888, when
the city councils of Victoria, Vancouver, New Westminster
and Nanaimo were required to contribute one-third of the
salaries of the teachers. In 1891 all city schools were classi-
POLITICAL CONSTITUTION 357
fied in three grades, and a per capita allowance made for
school purposes according to grade. The principle of local
control was extended from time to time, until in 1906 it was
recognized in its entirety. Except in certain localities, too
sparsely settled or too remote, all expenditure is met and
controlled by the local school boards, the province contri-
buting upon a per capita basis. It will be seen that throughout
all branches of administration special conditions have differ-
entiated British Columbia from all other provinces of the
Dominion. The municipal system will gradually extend, but
from the very nature of things by far the greater part of
the area of the province must for all time remain under the
direct control of the central executive.
The municipal system was introduced in 1860, when New
Westminster was given local self-government. Victoria,
though much older, was not incorporated until 1862. These
cities were organized under letters patent or special charter,
and it was not until 1892 that legislation governing munici-
palities was definitely codified. Development followed pretty
much on the lines of municipal administration in the other
provinces, but more especially those of the Province of
Ontario, that is, so far as the legislation of Ontario could be
made applicable to the special conditions of British Columbia.
THE POLITICAL CONSTITUTION OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
The political constitution of the province is derived from
the British North America Act, and is identical with those
of the other provinces in all respects as to general powers and
limitations of authority. TheTermsof Union only are different,
and are, as described by Lord Monck, governor-general of
Canada at the time of Confederation, ' in the nature of a
treaty.' It is not necessary to detail these terms, which had
respect to the building of an inter-oceanic railway, the con-
struction of a dry-dock, the number of representatives in the
Dominion parliament, the pensioning of certain officials, the
trusteeship of the Indians, a mail service to San Francisco,
etc. They were peculiar in several respects, inasmuch as
while they did not give responsible government to the pro-
358 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
vince, they authorized it ' when desired by the inhabitants of
British Columbia/ and in the meantime provided that a
majority of the members of the legislature should be elective ;
also that the existing customs tariff and excise duties of the
old colony should continue in force until the completion of
the Canadian Pacific Railway, unless otherwise decided by
the legislature ; and also that the Dominion government
should use its influence to secure the continued maintenance
of the naval station at Esquimalt. However, responsible
government came into being coinciden tally with the union,
and the legislature at its first session adopted the customs
tariff and excise duties of Canada, thus definitely and satis-
factorily disposing of these two matters.
For Dominion electoral purposes the province was divided
into five electoral districts, with six representatives in the
House of Commons and three in the Senate — New West-
minster, Cariboo (including Lillooet), Yale (including Koote-
nay), Victoria (including the immediate surroundings), and
Vancouver Island (including the remainder of the island and
the adjacent islands).
FINANCES OF THE PROVINCE
The financial relations, upon which so much stress has
been laid of recent years, were based upon the following
allowances : $31,000 per annum, on account of the difference
between the actual amount of indebtedness at the date of
the union and the indebtedness per head of the provinces of
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the population of British
Columbia being taken at 60,000 ; $35,000, annual allowance
for purposes of government ; $48,000, annual per capita grant
at eighty cents per head of population ; and $100,000, annual
allowance in lieu of lands in railway belt — $214,000 in all.
There were some readjustments in the meantime, but, with
the exception of the statutory increases of the per capita
grant, these amounts were received annually until the general
readjustment of 1907. In 1901 the total subsidy was $305,969.
In 1908, as the result of the general readjustment of subsidies
in 1907, and an additional allowance of $100,000, the province
FINANCES OF THE PROVINCE 359
received $522,077. The amount of subsidy in 1912-13 was
$723,135. It is claimed by the provincial government that
the allowance of the Dominion government for local adminis-
tration was wholly inadequate in the first instance, and that
even now, with the additional allowances made in 1907,
amounting to $245,000 per annum, it is still quite insufficient
to meet the requirements of a province so physically handi-
capped as is British Columbia.
In colonial days the cry of Sir James Douglas and subse-
quent governors was for money to open and administer the
country, and when fervent appeals were made to the imperial
authorities for aid in the way of subsidies or loans, they were
told that a country reputedly so rich as British Columbia
should be self-supporting ; but Downing Street did not under-
stand the situation— with such physical obstacles to be over-
come, financing the province was a difficult problem. After
Confederation it still remained a problem. Until the end
of 1903-4, the total deficits for thirty-one years amounted
to nearly $10,500,000, while the surpluses for three years
amounted to only $138,728. The bonded debt at that
period, accumulated during thirty-four years, amounted to
$12,500,000, while there was a floating liability of another
$1,000,000. The credit of the province was very much
strained, and, owing to a long period of political turmoil and
astonishingly frequent changes of administration, public con-
fidence was badly shaken. This was the darkest hour just
before the dawn of revival. Undoubtedly political con-
ditions had had much to do with the slowness with which
business in British Columbia responded to the active move-
ment in other parts of Canada.
The return of good times was coincident with the incoming
of the Mc Bride administration in 1903. The low state of
finances necessitated a temporary loan of $1,000,000 and
demanded that the utmost economy should be observed to
restore confidence. Taxation was increased and new sources
of revenue were created. Almost immediately deficits were
changed into surpluses, and until the end of 1910-11 approxi-
mately $11,000,000 of surpluses had been accumulated,
practically offsetting the deficits of the previous thirty-
36o PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
five years. The public debt at the end of 1911-12 was
$9>239>425» and could have been wiped off, if desired, with
the cash that had been in the banks to the credit of the
province.1
This, however, must not be regarded as a normal condi-
tion of affairs. Just at the time when the Mc Bride govern-
ment came into power attention began to be concentrated
upon British Columbia. Arrangements had been made to
build the Grand Trunk Pacific, and land and timber in the
northern interior and on the coast were much sought after.
The Canadian Pacific Railway acquired the Esquimalt
and Nanaimo Railway and began an active programme of
improvement on Vancouver Island. The success of com-
mercial fruit-growing in several districts, notably the Okana-
gan valley, gave a fillip to the industry and created a boom
in agricultural lands. By 1907 there was such a furore of
speculation in respect of timber special licences that the
government reserved all timber from further alienation.
Real estate speculation and the purchase of government lands
also became active all over the province. The depression of
the latter part of 1907 and a portion of 1908 created a
temporary lull, but by 1909 activity was strongly renewed.
Then came the government announcement of a vigorous rail-
way policy of guaranteeing the Canadian Northern Railway
Company bonds for the construction of six hundred miles of
railway in British Columbia and of liberal aid to the Kettle
Valley Railway. This, with the construction of the Grand
1 On March 31, 1912, the bonded debt of the province stood as follows :
4! per cent Debenture stock, Loan Act, 1887 .... $381,210.00
3 per cent Inscribed stock, Loan Acts, 1891, 1893, 1895, 1899 and
1902 . 9,921,936.00
3^ per cent Diking debentures, Loan Acts 1897, 1898 and 1899 . 475,000.00
5 per cent Treasury debentures, Loan Act, 1903 . . . 8,000.00
$10,786,146.00
Deduct accumulated sinking fund ...... 2,193,793.00
$8,592,353-00
Railway guarantee bonds (Nakusp and Slocan Railway Aid Act,
1894) 647,072.00
$9,239,425.00
FINANCES OF THE PROVINCE 361
Trunk Pacific through the Rockies to Prince Rupert, stimu-
lated activities of all kinds to an unusual degree. Then
followed the railway policy of 1911, providing for a further
extension of the systems referred to, for a line of railway
from Vancouver to Fort George having the Peace River
ultimately in view, and for various extensions of the Canadian
Pacific Railway system. The prospective early opening of
the Panama Canal led the Dominion government to adopt a
policy of extensive improvements of harbours and the build-
ing of a dry-dock, requiring many millions of dollars to
complete. These big undertakings, together with the exten-
sive, almost gigantic programme of road-building and public
works on the part of the local government, had an unwonted
effect on business of all kinds, much of it unduly speculative.
The consequent revenue arising out of timber licences, land
sales, sales of government lots in town-sites, land registry
fees, the formation of companies, the Chinese per capita tax,
and from many other sources, was enormous, increasing
several millions each year. This state of affairs, as already
observed, was abnormal and does not by any means repre-
sent stable conditions, when the speculative element shall
have been eliminated from business and land and real estate
transactions. The local government, to provide for pressing
needs and prospective development, engaged, as already
stated, in many large and expensive undertakings, with the
result that in December 1913 it had almost completely
exhausted its bank deposits, which had been as much
as $9,000,000. The problem, therefore, of administering a
province of such extent and rugged exterior is a serious one
from the financial point of view, and must be such for all time
to come. For instance, there are now 18,000 miles of roads
built, and it is estimated that to completely connect up the
various settlements by trunk roads alone will take 18,000
miles more, at a cost of $50,000,000. As population and
revenue increase, the expenditure required to meet the wants
of a population in a province so extensive and mountainous
increases in a still greater proportion. That has been the
experience since Confederation under all administrations. As
an illustration of this as well as of the expansion of revenue
362
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
and expenditure, we find, by taking every tenth year from
the outset, the following :
Year
Net Revenue
Net Expenditure
1872 . .
327,215
$
432,082
1882 . .
455,083
474,428
1892 . .
1,038,237
1,370,431
1902 . .
1,807,925
2,537,373
1912 . .
10,745,709
11,189,024
During the first session of the provincial legislature au-
thority was taken to float a loan of $300,000, under which
apparently no action was taken, as the McCreight ministry
only lasted one year, but in 1875, under the British Columbia
Loan Act of the previous year authorizing a loan of $300,000
at seven and one-half per cent, $82,850 was added to the
revenue. In that year the government was in very hard
straits for money, and got advances from the Dominion
against the subsidy account for $339,150 for public works
and for the construction of the dry-dock, which the province
was unable to finance even on a guarantee of five per cent
on £100,000 by the Dominion and a bonus of £30,000 from
the imperial government. Of this amount $150,000 was
pledged to the Dominion against the annual allowance under
the Terms of Union. It was what is known in local history
as * pawning the subsidy/ The government also borrowed
over $30,000 from the Bank of British Columbia and $30,000
from Sir James Douglas, for which interest at the rate of eight
per cent was paid. These financial improvidences, as they
seemed to be at the time, brought about the defeat of the
government ; and as the finances were in a parlous condi-
tion and creditors were clamouring, the Elliott government,
which came into power in 1876, passed an act to borrow
$350,000 at seven per cent, which it proceeded to do. In
this year also, to provide further for revenue, the government
made a departure new in Canada — the imposition of direct
taxation.
FINANCES OF THE PROVINCE 363
The rates under this first general assessment act, the
foundation of the present system, were : one-third of one
per cent on the assessed value of real estate ; one-fifth of one
per cent on personal estate ; and one-half of one per cent on
incomes of $1500 and over. What was called a school tax
of three dollars per head was imposed on each male person
of age. This afterwards was officially changed in name to
' revenue tax ' and was more familiarly known as the ' poll
tax/ It was abolished during the legislative session of 1913.
Tolls on the Cariboo Road, which had been abolished in 1871,
were reimposed, though eventually they were taken off. A
wild-land tax of one per cent on the assessed value of the land
was imposed in 1873. In 1876 this was changed to an annual
tax of five cents per acre on all unoccupied land, which by an
amendment of the following year was declared to mean land
on which there were not existing improvements equal to the
value of $2.50 per acre. All this legislation was unpopular
and led to the defeat of the government, but has remained
in various modified forms on the statute-book ever since.
To revert to the subject of loans, in 1877 another was
authorized to the extent of $750,000 at six per cent, which
was supplemented by private loans to the amount of $45,500.
In 1887 a million dollar loan at four and one-half per cent
was issued. In 1891 legislation^ was passed making provision
for consolidating the public debt and issuing stock bearing
interest at three per cent. Subsequent to that all ordinary
loans were issued in accordance with the Inscribed Stock
Act, 1891. In 1891 the province went to the London money
market for $700,000 ; in 1893, f°r $600,000 for parliament
buildings ; in 1895, for £420,000 ; in 1899, for £340,000 ; and
in 1902, for £721,000. In addition to these there were
floated locally $100,000 at three and one-half per cent in
1897 to complete the parliament buildings, and $1,000,000
in 1904 bearing interest at five per cent and payable in ten
equal instalments.
Further obligations were assumed in 1897, 1898 and 1899
in the guarantee of bonds, amounting to $744,000, for the
diking and reclamation of certain flooded areas in the lower
Fraser valley. This was a charge against the land, but a few
VOL. XXII B
364 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
years later a considerable portion of the arrears was wiped
off. The province, in 1890, also guaranteed the interest on
bonds of the Shuswap and Okanagan Railway at four per
cent for twenty-five years ; on the Victoria and Sidney Rail-
way bonds at two per cent for twenty-five years to the amount
of $300,000 ; and in 1894 the interest and principal on the
Nakusp and Slocan Railway bonds to the amount of $647,072
for twenty-five years at four per cent. The Shuswap and
Okanagan and the Nakusp and Slocan Railways were leased
by the Canadian Pacific Railway, and a working arrangement
made with the British Columbia government by which
forty per cent of the gross proceeds of traffic should go to the
province, but as the arrangement was afterwards construed to
be on the basis of the * long haul,' the province got the worst
of the bargain, and was considerably the loser. However, in
1912, by an arrangement with the Canadian Pacific Railway
by which there was a general readjustment of outstanding
differences, the railway company relieved the government of
all further liability re the Shuswap and Okanagan Railway
and refunded the government its outlay in connection there-
with. The guarantee on the Victoria and Sidney Railway
bonds proved to be a total loss.
Such is the history of borrowing and guaranteeing of bonds
up to 1905, since which time the province has not been under
the necessity of borrowing, but, on the other hand, has had
large surpluses in the bank drawing interest.
In the meantime, however, British Columbia has assumed
liabilities in connection with the Canadian Northern and
Pacific Great Eastern Railways that ten years previous
would have been startling to propose. In respect of these
lines the province followed the example of Manitoba as well
as of other provinces and the Dominion of guaranteeing bonds
at four per cent, taking a first mortgage on the lines assisted
as security. By virtue of legislation of the years 1910, 1912
and 1913 bonds to the extent of $56,900,000 were guaranteed
upon 1385 miles of railway and terminals. Cash subventions
were given to the Kettle Valley Railway (otherwise the
Canadian Pacific Railway) amounting to $1,450,000 for
300 miles of railway, extending from Midway on the Kettle
FINANCES OF THE PROVINCE 365
River to the Canadian Pacific Railway main line at Hope,
via Hope Mountain, over the last section of which line the
Great Northern Railway will have running rights, giving the
latter line entrance to Vancouver entirely through Canadian
territory. Incidentally, as part of the railway policy of
1912, the government bought back from the Canadian
Pacific Railway 4,000,000 acres of land, included in the
subsidies to the Columbia and Western and the British
Columbia Southern Railways, at forty cents an acre. The
Canadian Pacific Railway agreed to be taxed on the Esqui-
malt and Nanaimo Railway land grant on Vancouver Island,
which under the Settlement Act of 1884 was to be free for
ever so long as unalienated. The Canadian Pacific Railway
Company also agreed to extend its line northward from
Nanaimo seventy-five miles without further consideration,
and, as already stated, to relieve the province from further
liability in connection with the Shuswap and Okanagan
Railway, refunding the outlay of the government in respect
of it. It also agreed to restore the Kaslo and Slocan Rail-
way, which had been abandoned by the Great Northern
Railway Company and the road-bed practically destroyed,
and to run it continuously for a cash bonus of $100,000.
It may be explained that the Kaslo and Slocan, from
Kaslo on Kootenay Lake, taps the rich silver-lead district
of Slocan. It had been operated by the Great Northern
Railway Company, which purchased it from the original
owners. The railway carried a land grant rich in timber.
This was disposed of, and after the fires of 1911 had swept
the district the company tore up the rails and abandoned the
line, leaving a number of the mines without transportation
facilities. It may also be explained that former governments
had given large land grants to the Columbia and Western
Railway line (from the Columbia River through the Boun-
dary country to Midway) and to the British Columbia
Southern (Crowsnest Pass Railway from Nelson, on Koote-
nay Lake, to Lethbridge), and the repurchase of these grants
eliminated many complications which had arisen in respect
to administration and brought the lands back into the owner-
ship of the province.
366 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
At one time it was considered good policy to get railways
at any price, and land grants were largely the price. Grants
were made to the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway, the
Columbia and Kootenay, the Kaslo and Slocan, the Columbia
and Western, the British Columbia Southern, and the Nelson
and Fort Sheppard Railways, and in each instance it was a
bargain to be repented of, although indirectly it hastened
railway construction and was productive of considerable
development.
GOVERNMENT UNDER THE ACT OF CONSTITUTION, 1871
Returning now to the formation of government in 1871,
the legislative body which confirmed the Terms of Union also
framed and passed an act of constitution which has been
amended several times since, but without material alteration,
except as to the number of the members of the executive and
the indemnity of members of the legislature. By the Act
of Constitution, 1871, the members of the executive were
fixed at five, but in the first instance three ministers were
appointed — colonial secretary, afterwards changed to pro-
vincial secretary, attorney-general and chief commissioner
of Lands and Works. In course of time a department of
Agriculture, associated with the department of Finance, a
department of Education, in conjunction with the office of
the provincial secretary, and a department of Mines were
created. In 1909 the Lands and Works, so long associated,
were separated, each being given a separate minister. The
extent of the duties of a department which included the
administration of lands, timber and forestry, water rights,
public works and the survey of crown lands was too great
for one minister to encompass, and a separate minister of
Lands was given charge of the lands, forestry, water and
surveying branches. Owing to the railway mileage under the
exclusive control of the province — that of the Canadian Nor-
thern Pacific and the Pacific Great Eastern, and the British
Columbia Electric — still more recently a portfolio of Railways
was created, which pro tern, is being filled by the minister of
Public Works. The department of provincial secretary, to
GOVERNMENT UNDER ACT OF CONSTITUTION 367
which is attached the department of Education, includes many
branches of administration — the civil service, health and vital
statistics, the mental hospital (insane), all education offices,
the provincial museum, hospitals and the Old Man's Home.
An office still more prolific of duties is that of the attorney-
general, who, in addition to his multifarious duties as chief
law-officer of the crown, is fishery commissioner for the pro-
vince, is in control of the regulation of the liquor traffic, is
head of the land, court and joint stock company registries,
and has under his supervision the inspection of factories,
electrical energy, tramways, clubs and insurance. The in-
spection of trust companies, assessment and taxation and
the adjustment of succession duties belong to the minister
of Finance The portfolio of Mines, over which the prime
minister presides, stands by itself.
At the outset the legislature had a single chamber and
there were twenty-five members, representing more or less
cumulatively the following districts — Cariboo, Lillooet, Yale,
Kootenay, New Westminster and Coast Districts, New West-
minster City, Victoria City, Victoria District, Esquimalt,
Comox, Cowichan and Nanaimo. This number has in-
creased from twenty-five, through various redistribution bills,
to forty-two. At first the Island of Vancouver dominated
in number of members and influence, but gradually the
mainland, with its greater area, possibilities, and population,
gained the ascendancy ; and now that the old sectional feeling
of Island and Mainland has been eliminated entirely, represen-
tation bears a fair relationship numerically as between the
two sections of the province. At first the sessional indemnity
was $250 per member, with fifteen cents mileage both ways.
The indemnity has since been gradually increased until it is
now $1500 per member and mileage.
In many respects British Columbia has been the most
progressive of the provinces of the Dominion. Though the
most westerly province, for so many years practically isolated
from the rest of Canada and slow and difficult to develop
physically, the various administrations have kept well abreast
of the times. In legislation pertaining to municipal affairs, to
agricultural development — particularly in respect of methods
368 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
in the fruit-growing industry — to mining, to forestry, to edu-
cational institutions, to the fisheries, to water conservation,
to the regulation of the liquor traffic, to the care of the sick,
aged, and indigent, to the inspection of public utilities, to
the system of penology, and to the treatment of the ment-
ally weak, it is doubtful if any other part of the Empire
has, taking all things together, made equal advancement.
Without too many traditions to hamper them, later adminis-
trations at least have been peculiarly receptive to sound,
well-tried methods. If governments have not been strong in
any one particular, it has been regarding land policy ; but
even here the peculiar physical conditions of the province
have made it difficult to apply principles of settlement and
development applicable to the new provinces in the Middle
West.
Among the most conspicuous of the public functions in
respect of social economics is that of the provincial board
of health. Some years ago, during a smallpox epidemic in
Victoria, the public authorities found it difficult to deal with
it effectively on account of imperfect legislative sanction,
and the government had to resort to what was perhaps an
extraordinary exercise of executive authority to cope with the
situation. As a consequence, an act was passed in 1896 of
a very sweeping nature constituting a provincial board of
health with almost unlimited powers. The provisions are
very elaborate and so framed as to meet any possible emer-
gency. The board consists of the lieutenant-governor in
council and a secretary, who must be a member of the medical
profession. It has been very active at all times of threatened
epidemic and has carried on a strong campaign against the
spread, and for the prevention, of tuberculosis. Provisions
for general sanitation are wide and very comprehensive.
A notable feature of the work, added to the agenda of use-
fulness by the Schools Health Inspection Act of 1910,
is the medical inspection of public schools. This is now
being thoroughly done under a well-organized system, and
most satisfactory results are reported. At a meeting of the
Canadian Medical Association held in London, Ontario, in
June 1913, in the public health section the committee on
GOVERNMENT UNDER ACT OF CONSTITUTION 369
medical inspection of schools reported that the work along
these lines was further advanced in British Columbia than in
any other part of the Dominion.
On similar lines, and at about the same time, provision
was made for the inspection of mining, logging and railway
camps throughout the province. Exceptional conditions
exist in British Columbia, and especially during the past few
years there has been an unusual amount of railway construc-
tion work. During the summer months, too, lumbering is
always active, and many men are brought together. Such
camps are the most frequent source of typhoid fever, and
there are also the important considerations of food and
general comfort of the men ; also medical and first aid in
case of sickness or accident. It is the duty of the medical
inspector, appointed by the government for the purpose, as
far as possible to inspect all these camps and especially to
investigate promptly all complaints. His authority extends
to remedying grievances and to demanding well-cooked food,
cleanliness and all reasonable creature comforts. In such a
wide and broken country it is not easy always to provide
hospital facilities, and men injured by accident or ill with
disease have often to be conveyed many miles ; but at all
convenient points hospitals, with the usual appliances, have
been located, and in the more sparsely settled and remote
districts bonuses are granted to resident physicians in order
that medical assistance may be available.
The indigent are always cared for — if in a municipality, by
the municipality, and if outside, by the province — but the
number of destitute in British Columbia is so small that the
caring for the poor cannot be regarded as a problem. The
province, however, has made special provision for its aged.
About 1893 an old man's home was established at Kamloops.
A residence of fifteen years in the province is required to
qualify for admission. The latest report shows ninety-four
inmates, and it is a point of honour with the government
that these men, many of whom were active factors in the de-
velopment of the province in the early days, shall have every
comfort and solace that old age demands. The city munici-
palities also maintain old men's and old women's homes.
370 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
The most modern attitude has been assumed towards
the insane. A provincial asylum in British Columbia was
established over forty years ago, and for over thirty years,
before traditions were upset by science, followed in the groove
of all such institutions. It was decided several years ago
to establish in connection with the asylum an agricultural
colony. One thousand acres of rich bottom land in Coquitlam,
a few miles from New Westminster City, were secured, and
the patients, under skilled direction, have cleared, drained
and cultivated about six hundred acres of this area. Farm
buildings of the most modern type were erected, and the farm
was equipped with the latest and best types of machinery
and appliances. The farm was stocked with thorough-bred
horses and cattle. The Farmer's Advocate, a standard agri-
cultural journal, has described it as one of the most complete
and perfect establishments of its kind in existence. New
asylum buildings have been erected on an eminence over-
looking the cultivated area. In the short time the new order
of things has existed wonderful results have followed in the
health of the patients and in economic advantages. In 1912
the profits of the farm were $40,258, * a splendid interest on
the investment/ says the report, and the per capita cost per
annum has been reduced to $177.71 or 48 cents per head per
diem, the lowest on record in British Columbia.
Hospitals for the sick receive special attention, and no
other part of the continent is better supplied. The erection
and maintenance of hospitals have been reduced to a system
and nothing is left to haphazard or voluntary contribution
on the part of the public, though that is not wanting when
occasion justifies. Prior to 1902 there was no method of
assisting hospitals apart from the sometimes whimsical will
of the legislature. In that year a measure was introduced
placing all public hospitals on a uniform footing. These in-
stitutions were aided on a per capita basis, that is, according
to the number of patients. Special cases have special con-
sideration, for which provision is made. In towns where
there is no hospital building the government usually contri-
butes a share of the expense. Thus there is co-operation
between the people and the government on a definite equit-
GOVERNMENT UNDER ACT OF CONSTITUTION 371
able basis, and while the hospitals are under local control
they are not subject to government inspection. Where
circumstances justify it, denominational and private hospitals
are sometimes assisted.
Reforms are being worked out in respect of prisons, re-
formatories, juvenile courts and the like, much on the lines of
the most recent methods of dealing with the erring classes.
Prison farms are being established. The reformatories, in
which criminals in the making were housed in batches behind
walls and iron gratings, to become still more incorrigible,
have been changed into industrial schools with fields and
workshops. Girls' industrial schools, on a similar foundation,
are also being inaugurated. One city at least has a juvenile
court.
The control of the sale of liquor in municipalities, that is
to say, the licensing power, is in the hands of police com-
missioners ; but outside of municipalities control is virtually
in the hands of the provincial police. All licences are issued
by the superintendent of police upon the reports of local
subordinates. Very strict regulations are in force regard-
ing the accommodation provided by each hotel, and as
to the sale of liquor to minors or persons visibly under the
influence of liquor, to interdicted persons, or after prohibited
hours. Under the act each locality in rural districts has
virtually local option, inasmuch as a licence can only be
obtained through a petition signed by a majority of the adult
residents (including women) within a certain radius. The
old-fashioned method of interdicting habitual drunkards,
or dipsomaniacs, by formal appeal to a magistrate has been
abolished, and a very simple method adopted in its stead,
whereby any person may interdict, or ' Siwash/ as the
process is locally known, by having the police give notice.
All saloons have been abolished, and hours of opening and
closing fixed at 7 A.M. and II P.M., except Saturdays, when
the hour for closing is 10 P.M. No adulteration of liquors
is permitted. The penalties for violation are very severe.
All social clubs are licensed and subject to inspection. The
strict regulation of the liquor traffic is of comparatively recent
date. Up to almost the close of the last century saloon and
372 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
hotel bars were open night and day and gambling was per-
mitted. In the city municipalities since that time there has
been a gradual approach to a new order of things. Outside
the municipal limits very few restrictions, indeed, were placed
on the sale of liquor, and it was this fact that induced the
attorney-general to take the licensing power out of the hands
of local boards and place it in the hands of the police inde-
pendent of local influence.
Various acts have been passed for the safety and pro-
tection of the public and of employees. Adequate provision
has been made for the inspection of factories and of boilers
throughout the province ; for the inspection of electrical
energy in its various applied forms ; for the inspection of
tramways and the regulation of tramway traffic ; for the
periodical inspection of trust companies, of which there are
a great number in the province ; and for the inspection of
insurance companies. Among acts of this character is the
Coal Mines Regulation Act, providing for the safety of miners
working underground, declared by Mines and Minerals, of
Philadelphia, to be a model for all coal-mining regulations.
There are, of course, workmen's compensation and liability
acts. All contracts with the government or municipalities
contain a clause prohibiting the employment of Chinese or
Japanese, and another stipulating that the wages paid shall
be the wages current in that district. Just recently it has
been decided that the issuance of special licences to holders
of timber lands should contain a clause prohibiting the em-
ployment of orientals, and the prohibition is now (1913) in
effect. Similarly, in No. 2 district — the mainland coast of
British Columbia — fishing licences are not issued to Japanese
or Chinese. Against both of these regulations the Japanese
government has entered protest, and it is possible a phase of
the Californian question may arise as a consequence. Auto-
mobile traffic is also subject to very strict regulations. The
speed limit within city municipalities is ten miles an hour
and twenty in the country. Chauffeurs must be licensed
and are not permitted the use of intoxicants. The owner of
the car is responsible for his chauffeur, whether with him in
person or not. Any one in charge of an automobile occasion-
PROVINCIAL AND MUNICIPAL TAXATION 373
ing an accident must report without delay to the nearest
constable or police headquarters.
PROVINCIAL AND MUNICIPAL TAXATION
It will now be in order to consider provincial and muni-
cipal taxation. As was previously intimated, finances always
being a serious problem in British Columbia, taxation was
necessarily of an unusual order. In one of the chapters on the
general history of the province1 it was stated that taxation
in the colony of British Columbia amounted to $100 per
head. This was the result of a sparse population in a big,
rough country, hard and expensive to administer. In a
statement presented by E. G. Prior, the premier of the pro-
vince, to the government at Ottawa in 1903, it was shown
that at that time, taking municipal, provincial and Dominion
impost, each person on the voters' list was on an average
taxed to the extent of $100 per annum. We have already
seen that in 1876 the Elliott government, to extricate the
country from the financial slough into which it had fallen,
found it necessary, in addition to a loan of $300,000, to resort
to a system of direct taxation, which has been continued ever
since. Land offered an easy source of ready money, and was
for many years sold indiscriminately to purchasers instead
of being administered upon some definite plan of settlement
and development. Land, in a province 360,000 square miles
in extent, was apparently plentiful and the treasury was
always hungry. Changes in the Assessment Act and other acts
affecting revenue were frequent. In the years from 1892 to
1913 inclusive there were seventy-five such acts. An attempt
was made in 1878 to compel every Chinese person over twelve
years old to take out a licence, for which ten dollars was to
be paid quarterly, a measure which, for constitutional reasons,
had to be abandoned. In 1880 the Assessment Act of 1876
was amended, raising the rate of the taxes which were not
paid before June 30. In 1881 the school tax of three dollars
was abolished, or rather its name was changed to ' revenue
tax/ and under this name every male resident over eighteen
years of age was made to pay it. The Roman Catholics
1 See p. 170.
374 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
objected to paying a school tax which went into the con-
solidated revenue for public purposes, while at the same
time they paid for the private tuition of their children in
Catholic schools. The protest against the school tax by
Catholics, which was largely sympathized with by members
of the English church, was the nearest to an agitation for a
separate school system to which the people of British Columbia
ever came. If we except the royalty Governor Douglas en-
deavoured to collect on gold produced in the colony, the first
mining tax created was in 1883, when one dollar per acre
was imposed on mining claims in the province upon which
$200 had not been expended in a single year.
The tendency was towards increased taxation and the
creation of new sources of revenue. In 1887 the rate on real
property was raised to two-thirds of one per cent ; one-half
of one per cent on personal property ; three-fourths of one
per cent on incomes of $1500 and over ; the rate on wild land
was raised from five cents to eight and one-half cents per acre.
If the taxes were paid before June 30 the rates were to be one-
half, one-third and one-half respectively, and seven and one-
half cents on wild land. In 1887, too, the Assessment Act
took cognizance of railways, and their property was assessed
and taxed as realty, personal property, or wild land according
to its character. In 1888 there was a consolidation of all
previous acts. Minor amendments followed in 1889 and 1891.
The rate of wild land was raised to two and one-half per cent
on the assessed value. The first separate railway assessment
act was passed in 1894, when the line, including sidings, etc.,
was assessed at $3000 a mile, the subsidy land being assessed
as wild land and other real property as real property. In
1897 tne Assessment Act was again changed, the rates going
up to four-fifths of one per cent on real property, three-
quarters of one per cent on personal property, and after
allowing an exemption of $1000 on income a variable rate
of from one and one-quarter to one and three-quarters per
cent up to $20,000 and over. Three per cent was charged
on the assessed value of wild land. Taxes paid before
June 30 were allowed the usual reduction. The products of
metalliferous mines were taxed one per cent on certified
PROVINCIAL AND MUNICIPAL TAXATION 375
returns of the value of the ore. In 1899 the taxation on
mortgages or other encumbrances on real estate or personal
property was abolished. This tax had been the subject of
much agitation and protest. Equitably just in theory, in
practice it meant that the mortgagee charged the mortgagor,
the unfortunate borrower, with the tax. It was a political
issue for several years, but upon the incoming of the Semlin
administration Joseph Martin, the attorney-general, cut the
Gordian knot by simply doing away with it altogether — a
simple and expeditious method. The previous government
needed the money it brought and hesitated to apply the ax.
During the session of 1900 coal was taxed five cents per ton
and nine cents per ton was imposed on coke. This was re-
garded as an act of grace on the part of James Dunsmuir,
coal-mine owner, who was then premier. This tax was in-
creased in 1908 to ten cents per ton on coal and fifteen cents
per ton on coke. In 1900, too, a graduated income tax was
adopted, with exemption on $1000, ranging from one and
one-half per cent up to $5000 to three and one-half per cent
on amounts to $40,000, and four per cent on all over that
amount. There were the Usual reductions for prompt pay-
ment. It was during this session that the famous two per
cent tax on the gross output of mines, less cost of treatment
and transportation to smelters, was imposed. It created a
great deal of dissatisfaction among mining operators, and
tremendous efforts were made to bring about its repeal or
modification. Mining in the interior at that time was not in
a prosperous condition. An eight-hour law had been passed
during the Semlin regime, which greatly incensed the opera-
tors ; miners were in a striking mood, and the price of silver
and copper was low, — hence the depressed feeling which pre-
vailed. But in time the eight-hour law and the two per cent
tax, both of which stood, were quietly accepted. Politics for-
bade the repeal of the former ; the need of revenue justified the
latter. The following year, 1901, 'income* was segregated from
4 personal property ' and became a separate item of taxation,
and for the first time corporations came on the boards for con-
sideration. The legislature of 1903 imposed a tax of twenty-
five cents per acre on all un worked, crown-granted mineral
376 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
claims. Provision was also made for an annual sale of lands
for delinquent taxes, and where such sales were unsuccessful
and no purchasers offered for the property, the land so offered
became absolutely vested in the crown.
When the Mc Bride government came into power the
financial situation had become acute, the deficit for 1902-3
having been $1,348,552, the largest on record in British
Columbia. The province had practically reached the limit
of its borrowing powers, and the government bankers not only
refused to enlarge the already very large overdraft, but de-
manded payment of loans made. It has already been seen
that a short-term loan of $1,000,000 was arranged to tide
over the crisis. It was necessary in the circumstances to in-
crease still further the rate of taxation and invent new sources
of revenue. To meet the situation the strictest economy
was enforced in all departments, and appropriations were
pared down to the lowest possible limit and a new assessment
act passed. The rates were fixed as follows : one per cent on
real property ; five per cent on wild land ; one per cent on
personal property ; on income in excess of the exemption of
$1000 — on class * A/ not exceeding $10,000, one and one-half
per cent up to $5000 and two and one-half on the next
$5000 ; class ' B,' on $10,000 and not exceeding $20,000,
two and one-half per cent up to $10,000 and three per cent
on the next $10,000 ; class * C,' on $20,000 and upwards,
three per cent to $20,000 and three and one-half per cent on
the remainder. These taxes, if paid before June 30, to be
subject to a discount of ten per cent. Certain specified cor-
porations, such as banks, fire and life insurance companies,
guarantee loan and trust companies, telegraph, telephone,
gas and water companies and electric lighting and power
companies, were taxed one per cent on their gross revenue.
The effect of the change in policy, together with, of course,
the improvement in business conditions, was almost immedi-
ately seen in the large increases of revenue and the realization
of surpluses. So soon, indeed, did good results follow that
in 1905 it was felt that a reduction in taxation might take
place, and a special tax commission was appointed to inquire
into the incidence of taxation and other matters affecting
PROVINCIAL AND MUNICIPAL TAXATION 377
revenue. As a result of its recommendations some changes
were made in the Assessment Act. Coal land and timber,
which were formerly embraced in wild land, were made
separate items of taxation. Coal land being worked was
taxed at one per cent on the assessed value, and that simply
held as coal land without being worked was taxed at two
per cent. On timber land the tax was two per cent. Real
property was reduced to the rate of three-fifths of one per
cent and personal property to two-thirds of one per cent.
Incomes were changed to : class ' A,' up to $2000, one and one-
half of one per cent ; class ' B/ over $2000 and not exceeding
$3000, one and three-fourths of one per cent ; class ' C,' over
$3000 and not exceeding $4000, two per cent ; class ' D,' over
$4000 and not exceeding $7000, three per cent ; class 4 E,'
over $7000, four per cent.
Several new departures were made in 1907. Salmon
canneries were taxed two cents per case on the salmon pack,
in addition to a tax on the cannery and machinery, which are
assessed at $10,000 for a one-line cannery, $15,000 for a two-
line cannery, and $30,000 for a four-line cannery. The assess-
ment on railways was raised and fixed at $10,000 per mile
for the main line and branches, and for sidings, spurs and
switches $3000, and the rate thereon at one per cent.
In 1910 another amendment to the Assessment Act was
passed whereby the rates of taxes were again reduced — real
property to one-half of one per cent ; personal property to
one-half of one per cent ; and incomes under class ' A ' up to
$2000 one per cent, class ' B ' up to $3000 one and one-fourth
of one per cent, class * C * up to $4000 one and one-half of
one per cent, class ' D ' up to $7000 two per cent, and class
* E * over $7000 two and one-half of one per cent ; and the
tax on wild lands to four per cent on the assessed value.
Banks, instead of being placed under the category of income,
were charged a flat rate, the head office in the province being
taxed $1000, and for every other office or branch in the pro-
vince (including those in municipalities) $125. Fire insur-
ance companies were taken out of the class of corporations
assessed under the Assessment Act and a special tax of two
per cent on the gross premiums on business done in the pro-
378 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
vince was levied by the Fire Insurance Act under the super-
vision of the superintendent of insurance.
This brings us up to a period when, on account of the
inflow of revenue, it was considered an opportune time to
examine the situation comprehensively with a view to a
general reduction of imposts. Accordingly in 1911 a royal
commission was appointed to inquire into the question of
taxation as it affected the revenue of the province. After
due investigation a report was made, and the recommenda-
tions have, as a matter of policy, been accepted by the
government, but with one exception have not yet been
carried into effect. During his budget speech of 1913 the
minister of Finance made the following announcement :
The Royal Commission on Taxation made four im-
portant recommendations : namely, the abolition of
the poll tax ; the exemption of improvements from
taxation ; the abolition of the personal property tax and
readjustment of the income tax, and various minor
changes to which I need not refer in detail. The govern-
ment, after careful consideration, decided that to adopt
all these recommendations at once would involve too
great an immediate loss of revenue. By the bill before
the House, which I introduced the other day, we pro-
pose now to abolish the poll tax, which involves a loss
of revenue to the extent of about $350,000, and it is
proposed in two years' time to exempt improvements
from taxation. In four years it is proposed to abolish
the tax on personal property and rearrange the incid-
ence of income tax, endeavouring as far as possible to
adopt the whole of the recommendations of the tax
commission. Our aim is as soon as possible, by easy
stages, to reach a point where direct taxation will be
eliminated and our revenues will be obtained from
natural resources of the province.
In addition to the other forms of provincial taxation, the
Public School Act provides for a school tax to be levied in
rural school districts, which tax, for convenience, is collected
by the provincial collectors and turned over to the local
school boards. The rate, of course, varies in each district
according to requirements.
PROVINCIAL AND MUNICIPAL TAXATION 379
There are also royalties on timber, which up to 1913 were
fifty cents per thousand feet on timber cut from all lands,
except the old crown-granted lands, and twenty-five cents per
cord on wood cut from similar lands. However, the latest
legislation has brought into existence a scale of royalties
too elaborate to be detailed here, but considerably increasing
the rate.
The province enjoys a very large revenue from probate
and succession duties. Succession duties are incident upon
estates valued at over $5000 and according to the relationship
of heirs, of which there are three classes. The nearest relation-
ship involves a duty of from one and one-half per cent to five
per cent on amounts over $200,000 ; the second relationship
involves a flat rate of five per cent ; and the third, ten per
cent.
All taxes and all revenues, including the proceeds of loans,
are paid into and form part of the consolidated revenues of
the province to be appropriated for public purposes.
The following exemptions are allowed under the Assess-
ment Act : on mortgages, as personal property ; on the
unpaid purchase-money of land, as personal property ; on
household furniture and effects in dwelling-houses ; on home-
steads under the Dominion Land Act, and on pre-emptions
under the provincial Land Act, for two years from date of
entry and to the amount of $500 for four years thereafter ;
on farm produce and on live-stock and machinery on the
farm up to the value of $1000, and on all income from the
farm. There are also certain exemptions from personal
property tax on certain forms of property which are taxable
or contribute revenue in other ways.
For the purpose of taxation the province is divided into
assessment districts, an assessor and collector being appointed.
He makes an annual revision of the rolls and is bound
to fix the assessed value at the actual cash value of the
property. Each taxpayer has the right of appeal against
the assessment to the court of revision. In addition to
the liability of property for taxes there is also a personal
liability. The latter provision, however, is seldom, if ever,
taken advantage of.
VOL. XXII C
380 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
GENERAL LEGISLATION RESPECTING MUNICIPALITIES
Turning now from provincial affairs to municipal affairs,
the general legislation in force respecting municipalities
is contained in three statutes passed during the session
of 1896, known as the Municipal Incorporation Act, the
Municipal Election Act, and the Municipal Clauses Act
and amendments, dealing respectively with municipal cor-
porations, elections, and government and internal manage-
ment. The provisions contained in these acts conserve
the corporate rights, powers, and liabilities of municipalities
then existing.
As was stated in a former part of this article, municipal
administration in the Province of British Columbia is carried
on along very much the same lines as in the other provinces
of the Dominion, more particularly Ontario, upon whose
statutes a good deal of the western legislation is founded.
Very material departures, however, have been made to suit
local conditions.
Under the first-mentioned act a city municipality — and in
British Columbia there are no classifications as to cities, towns
and villages — to include a tract of land of not more than
two thousand acres in area, may be incorporated by letters
patent upon petition signed by the owners of more than one-
half in value of the lands within the proposed boundaries,
if within such boundaries there are resident at the date of
the first signature to the petition not less than one hundred
male British subjects of full age ; and a township or district
municipality upon petition by the like proportion of owners
(including holders of pre-emptions of at least one year's
standing), if not fewer than thirty British subjects of full
age have been residents of the area proposed to be included
in the municipality for not less than six months before the
date of the first signature to the petition. There are also
provisions for securing an extension or reduction of corporate
limits or for the dissolution of a municipal corporation upon
petition of the ratepayers.
The Elections Act, as its name would indicate, codifies
LEGISLATION RESPECTING MUNICIPALITIES 381
the provisions relating to elections. The annual election is
held on the second Monday in January, and the polling on
the Thursday following in the case of a city municipality,
and on the Saturday following in the case of a district
municipality. The details of voting are practically the same
as in all the other provinces. A candidate for a mayoralty
must be a British subject and must have been registered as
the owner of property to the extent of one thousand dollars
in assessed value above any registered encumbrance or judg-
ment. An alderman must be a British subject with a similar
property qualification to the extent of five hundred dollars.
In district municipalities, to qualify as reeves and councillors
the candidates are required to be the possessors of five hundred
dollars and two hundred and fifty dollars respectively, over
and above encumbrance. All civic officers and employees
are elected at regular meetings and hold office at the pleasure
of the council. Municipalities are divided into wards to allow
equal representation as nearly as may be on the basis of
assessed values, and a redivision on this basis is necessary
when the amount of assessed property in any ward exceeds
in proportion to its representation in the council more than
forty per cent of the assessed property in any other ward.
The qualification for electors is as follows : any male or female,
being a British subject of the full age of twenty-one years, who
in city municipalities has paid on or before November I, and
in district municipalities before November 30, prior to the
date of nomination, all rates, taxes, fees, imposts, etc., is
qualified to vote at the municipal elections, (a) who is a
landowner of the assessed value of at least one thousand
dollars ; (b) who is the holder of a trade licence, the annual
fee for which is not less than five dollars ; or (c) who is
a householder.
The Municipal Clauses Act, continuing and elaborating
the policy of the former municipal acts, has for its object
the creation of a comprehensive system of municipal govern-
ment and management, altogether self-supporting. Councils
under authority of this act have very wide legislative and
executive powers, the scope of which corresponds in a great
measure with that of municipalities in Ontario. Munici-
382 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
palities have almost complete self-government within the
limits of the municipality, but as a partial limitation of
this authority the government may from time to time
appoint auditors for the municipalities to audit the accounts,
and the government may also appoint a commission to
inquire into the conduct of any part of the public busi-
ness in a municipality and the administration of justice
therein.
The development of the municipal system in British
Columbia for the first thirty years after Confederation was
rather slow, but since about 1900 it has been greatly acceler-
ated as a result of business expansion generally in the interior,
and of mining development and the construction of railways.
There are at the present writing (1913) sixty-one municipalities
in existence, twenty-eight of which are rural and thirty-three
urban, but the total area contained within their boundaries
forms only a very small part of the total area of the province.
All territory outside these municipal areas is under direct
provincial jurisdiction as to taxation and otherwise.
MUNICIPAL FINANCES
The revenue for the year ending December 1912 on the
rural municipalities amounted to $5,801,476, and the ex-
penditure to $5,646,817. The revenue of urban municipalities
amounted to $10,528,026, and the expenditure to $9,976,981,
giving a total municipal revenue of $16,329,502 and an
expenditure of $15,623,798. The bonded indebtedness was :
rural, $15,448,311 ; and urban, $39,786,456, making a total
municipal bonded indebtedness of $55,234,767. The tax-
able value of rural municipalities amounted to $159,404,751,
and of urban municipalities to $280,876,475, or a total of
$440,281,226. These figures show a remarkable expansion
since 1897, when the first municipal returns were made
public. At that time there were twenty rural municipalities
and eleven urban with a total revenue as follows : urban,
$1,501,607 ; rural, $225,872. The expenditures were: urban,
$1,400,500 ; rural, $202,033. The bonded indebtedness was:
MUNICIPAL FINANCES
383
urban, $5,044,684 ; rural, $508,963. The taxable value of
property was : urban, $35>633>743 J rural, $i2,338,6o9.1
For the purpose of taxation land and improvements are
estimated at their value, a measure of which as to land is
actual cash value ; and as to improvements, the cost of
placing at the time of the assessment such improvements on
the land, having regard to their then condition. Land and
improvements are assessed separately. The rate levied shall
not exceed one and one-half cents in the dollar, in addition
to what is required for the board of health, hospital purposes,
school purposes and for payment of interest on sinking fund
or any debt of the municipality. Wild lands within the limits
of a municipality may be taxed, but not to exceed four per cent
of their assessed value. Councils have power to levy a special
rate of not more than one mill in the dollar for board of health
purposes and not more than five mills in the dollar for school
purposes ; and the councils, in addition, have the right to
apply any portion of the ordinary revenue for school pur-
poses. All details as to assessment, return of rolls, appeal
to the court of revision, etc., are similar to those which obtain
elsewhere in Canada. Every male resident over twenty-one
years of age is liable for statute labour, which may be one
day's labour for every five hundred dollars assessed value of
real property in the municipality, but which, in the discretion
of the council, may be reduced by by-law in rural munici-
palities. In cities and rural districts the statute labour may
be commuted for two dollars per day. Municipalities have
1 FINANCIAL STANDING OF THE LARGER CITIES IN 1912
Revenue
Expenditure
Bonded
Indebtedness
Taxable
Assessed Value
$
$
$
$
Vancouver .
4,008,762
3,492,502
20,426,351
138,557,595
Victoria
3,364,742
3,320,254
8,019,953
71,670,770
New Westminster
598,797
595,849
4,038,500
13,556,825
Vernon
391,019
387,320
639,560
3,358,259
Kamloops .
355,4J2
354,957
563,873
3,733,615
Prince Rupert
275,183
274,066
1,631,732
16,016,055
Nelson
235,000
240,000
66l,OOO
3,891,430
Kelowna
233,867
226,414
343,500
2,453,575
Nanaimo
233,420
275,053
603,514
2,514,000
384 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
the power to abolish statute labour by by-laws, and, if
abolished, the council must expend on the road in which the
assessed property is situated an amount equal to thirty per
cent of the tax collected on that land. Among the list of
exemptions are buildings for public worship, burying grounds,
public and private hospitals, municipal property, property
vested in His Majesty, orphanages and institutions for
destitute children.
The recent interest taken in the question of the exemption
of improvements from taxation, and which the single-tax
advocates claim as the thin end of the wedge of their theory,
is not new to the municipal organization in British Columbia.
The Municipal Act has for many years prevented the munici-
palities from taxing improvements for more than fifty per
cent of their value and has also permitted the municipal
councils to exempt improvements altogether from taxation.
The rural municipalities — Coquitlam, Langley, Oak Bay,
Peachland, Salmon Arm, Summerland — were the first to
exempt improvements from taxation, and now the urban
municipalities of Vancouver, Victoria and Prince Rupert have
followed their example. The total amount of taxes collected
by the urban municipalities in 1910 was $33,137,239, and the
total collected by the rural municipalities in that year was
11,901.
Public administration, on the whole, has been creditable
to the province. Many mistakes were made at the outset,
as was inevitable ; and the progress of affairs was greatly
hampered by lack of funds to meet the requirements of a
province heavily handicapped by physical conditions, want
of interior communication and practical isolation from the
rest of the world. Taking the long list of administrations
since 1871, there have been few scandals or abuses which re-
flected on the personal honour of members of the executive,
and none serious in their character. The administration of
justice has been firm and effective. In most respects, if not
all, administration has been progressive.
HISTORY OF
THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM
HISTORY OF THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM
BEFORE CONFEDERATION
THE searcher for the ' beginnings of things * relating
to the administration of justice in the region west
of the Rocky Mountains finds himself, somewhat to
his surprise, in the city of Montreal at the opening of the last
century, and face to face with the hot rivalry of the old fur-
trading companies. The story of their strife for the supre-
macy of the West is told in other places in these volumes.1
Montreal was the head-centre of ' certain Associations of
Persons trading under the name of the North-West Company
of Montreal/ commonly styled the Nor' westers. These were
long a thorn in the flesh to the older Adventurers of the
Hudson's Bay Company. The factors and traders of the
Nor'westers were the first to establish posts beyond the
Rockies, and it was one of them, Alexander Mackenzie, who
first reached tide-water on the Pacific coast ' from Canada
by land ' in 1793. To strengthen their position in the con-
stant disputes with the traders of the Hudson's Bay Company
the Nor'westers stole a march on their rivals. All-powerful
in Montreal, controlling the executive council of Lower
Canada through their partners and friends in that body, and
in high favour with the governor, they were able to procure
presentments from Montreal grand juries complaining bitterly
of the outrages perpetrated by the employees of the older
Adventurers upon the poor traders from Canada. These
being laid before the home authorities by the governor of
Lower Canada resulted in the passage in 1803 of the first act
for the administration of justice in the West.
The courts of Upper and Lower Canada were given juris-
1 See ' The Period of Exploration ' in this section, pp. 61-2.
388 HISTORY OF THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM
diction to try persons accused of crime in the Indian terri-
tories to the north and west of the two Canadas ; and the
governor of Lower Canada was empowered to appoint
justices of the peace throughout this region for committing
offenders until conveyed to Canada for trial ; and these
justices would naturally be the factors and superior em-
ployees of the Nor'westers. Still the strife went on, and
in 1821 this was the contemporary statutory record: 'The
Animosities and Feuds arising from such Competition have
also for some years past kept the Interior of America to the
Northward and Westward of the Provinces of Upper and
Lower Canada and of the territories of the United States of
America in a state of continued Disturbance ; and many
Breaches of the Peace and Violence extending to the Loss of
Lives and considerable Destruction of Property have con-
tinually occurred therein.' This is part of the preamble to
an act of that year which followed the amalgamation of the
two rival companies. The provisions of the earlier act were
extended and strengthened, and henceforth the Hudson's Bay
Company not only held the exclusive right to trade, but also
controlled the administration of justice throughout all the West
to the Pacific coast. But though notable trials took place in
Montreal and Toronto under these statutes, the annals are
silent as to the exercise of jurisdiction by the Canadian
courts in any case from beyond the Rockies.
When next the curtain rises James (afterwards Sir James)
Douglas is chief factor on the Pacific coast for the Hudson's
Bay Company, holding also Her Majesty's commission as
governor of Vancouver Island. In 1849 the old statutes, the
tenor of which has just been indicated, had been repealed
so far as Vancouver Island was concerned ; and the crown
was empowered to make provision for the administration of
justice in the island and for that purpose to establish courts
with such jurisdiction in matters civil and criminal as Her
Majesty might think fit, and to appoint the necessary ' Judges,
Justices, and such ministerial officers for the administra-
tion and execution of justice in the said Island as Her Majesty
shall think fit and direct/ Beyond the appointment of Dr
Helmcken (son-in-law to Governor Douglas) as a justice of
BEFORE CONFEDERATION 389
the peace, nothing was done toward establishing a regular
court until the end of 1853. In March of that year Governor
Douglas, writing home, expressed a feeling of diffidence as
to his ability to discharge the duties of his office, ' while I have
no assistance whatever in the administration of public affairs,
and while every function of the government, whether military,
judicial, executive or clerical must be performed by me alone.'
He intimates, however, that he will do his best, * trusting that
you will forward from time to time such instructions as
may be necessary for my guidance, and a selection of legal
works containing the forms of process observed in the Vice-
Admiralty Courts and developing the principles on which
their decisions are founded/
On December 2, 1853, the governor undertook to establish
the Supreme Court of Civil Justice of Vancouver Island,
and to the office of judge of that court appointed his brother-
in-law, David Cameron,1 at a salary of ^100 per annum.
Confirmatory of the governor's action, Her Majesty, by
order-in-council of April 4, 1856, formally created the court
under the name chosen by the governor ; and by royal
warrant on May 5 Douglas was authorized to issue letters
patent to David Cameron as Chief Justice of the Colony of
Vancouver Island. Certain doubts as to criminal jurisdiction
were removed by a later commission of April 2, 1860.
There are no published reports of litigation in those early
days, and we get occasional glimpses only of Chief Justice
Cameron's work. The early settlers seem to have been in
constant feud with the officers of the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany, and complaint was made of unfair treatment in certain
libel proceedings heard before the chief justice, but of his
desire to make proper disposition of such little business as
came before him there seems to be no doubt. In 1865 he
was retired on a pension of £500 per annum, being succeeded
by the Hon. Joseph Needham, who held the position of chief
justice of Vancouver Island until his resignation in March
1870, upon his transfer to the chief justiceship of Trinidad.
Meanwhile the rush of gold-seekers to the upper reaches
of the Fraser River had necessitated the establishment in
i Seep. 118.
390 HISTORY OF THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM
1858 of a new colony upon the mainland. Theretofore, under
the name of New Caledonia, the regions west of the Rocky
Mountains had remained, so far as concerned the adminis-
tration of justice, subject to the provisions of the old statutes
of which mention was made in the opening paragraphs of
this article. These were now repealed as to the new colony,
to which the name British Columbia was given. Douglas
was its first governor and for some years its sole lawmaker.
To his assistance was sent out an English barrister, Matthew
Baillie Begbie, of Lincoln's Inn, with a commission dated
September 2, 1858, as l a Judge in our Colony of British
Columbia.' Douglas was now governor of both colonies,
and he was told that although Judge Begbie was * invested
with the very important office of judge, he will nevertheless
have the kindness, for the present at least, to lend you his
general aid for the compilation of the necessary laws and
other legal business. This is the more proper duty of an
attorney-general ; and should the colony advance, as seems
at present possible, the services of such an officer will no
doubt be urgently required.' The governor and the judge
both found it more convenient to reside at Victoria, the capital
of the island colony, and the governor issued the necessary
proclamation to enable the judge to transact in Victoria most
of the legal business of the mainland colony other than actual
trials. At Fort Langley, on the banks of the Fraser River,
on November 19, 1858, the governor and the judge took the
necessary oaths of office ; and the law of England as of that
date was proclaimed as the law of the new colony. It may
here be mentioned that after the union of the island and
mainland colonies into the present Province of British
Columbia in 1866, this date (November 19, 1858) was fixed
as the date on which the civil and criminal laws of England
' so far as the same are not from local circumstances in-
applicable ' should be taken to have been introduced into
the province.
By proclamation of June 8, 1859, Governor Douglas con-
stituted the Supreme Court of Civil Justice of British
Columbia and ordained that it * shall have complete cogniz-
ance of all pleas whatsoever, and shall have jurisdiction in
BEFORE CONFEDERATION 391
all cases civil as well as criminal arising within the said
colony of British Columbia.'
For thirty-six years Sir Matthew Begbie (to give him the
title bestowed upon, him in 1874 and by which he is best known
in British Columbia) was the most outstanding figure in the
judicial history of the West. It is difficult to overrate the
worth of his services to the province. Holding court with
more or less regularity on the lower mainland, first at Fort
Langley, afterwards at New Westminster, he journeyed from
time to time into the mining camps of the interior. We catch
glimpses of the roaring waters of the Fraser canon, and we
can see the fine dust of the old Cariboo road settling down
upon the little cavalcade as the judge with his pack-train
pushed through to Clinton, Barkerville, Quesnel Forks and
other mining camps. He seems to have intuitively ap-
preciated the spirit of the West and to have known just
where to draw the line between the licence that is seemingly
inseparable from life in mining camps and the lawlessness
that it is the duty of courts to suppress. Lawlessness he did
suppress, and with a thoroughness which made his name the
synonym for law and order throughout the province. The
stories told of him are innumerable. One, indicative of his
zeal in upholding the dignity of the court over which he
presided, is perhaps worth embalming. A miner who had
indulged too freely in the somewhat dubious whisky of the
camps proceeded to make ' rough house.' In the morning
he acknowledged his guilt before Judge Begbie, who appar-
ently was inclined to look leniently upon the escapade, no
serious damage having been done ; whereupon this dialogue
ensued :
The Judge : ' I '11 just fine you five dollars.'
The Culprit : ' All right, jedge, I 've got it right here
in my pants.1
The Judge : ' And three months in gaol ! Have you
got that right there in your pants ? '
On November 17, 1866, the two colonies were united under
the name of British Columbia. The two courts, however,
were not at once amalgamated. In 1869 the name of the
island court was changed to the Supreme Court of Vancouver
392 HISTORY OF THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM
Island, and its chief justice was to be known as the Chief
Justice of Vancouver Island, while the mainland court was
to be known as the Supreme Court of the Mainland of British
Columbia, and its judge was to be styled the Chief Justice of
the Mainland of British Columbia. The two chief justices
were empowered to act for each other on request. Provision
was also made that upon the death or resignation of either of
them the two courts should be merged into one and that the
surviving or continuing chief justice should be the Chief
Justice of British Columbia, and thereupon a puisne judge
was to be appointed to assist in the administration of justice.
In the following year (1870) Chief Justice Needham
resigned, as already indicated, and the contemplated merger
took place. Henry (afterwards Sir Henry) Pering Pellew
Crease was commissioned as the first puisne judge of the
Supreme Court of British Columbia on March n, 1870.
After twenty-six years of honourable service he received
knighthood at the New Year of 1896, resigning his judgeship
shortly afterwards.
AFTER CONFEDERATION
This was the position when British Columbia entered the
Confederation on July 20, 1871. The Supreme Court of
British Columbia possessed the usual wide jurisdiction of a
superior court both at common law and in equity. There
had been some doubt as to the jurisdiction in bankruptcy,
but this had been removed by local legislation before Con-
federation. In 1877 it was held that the court possessed
jurisdiction in divorce and matrimonial causes under the
English act of 1857, passed, it will be noticed, the year before
the date fixed for the introduction of English law into British
Columbia. This jurisdiction continued to be exercised, with
some misgiving, until 1908, when the Privy Council finally
put an end to all doubt upon the subject and affirmed the
jurisdiction of the British Columbia court. It may be added
that the work of the court along this line, though increasing
in volume with the growth of population, is not as yet ex-
cessive ; but the court is much hampered by the fact that
AFTER CONFEDERATION 393
the procedure must follow the lines of the English legislation
of 1857, subsequent English amendments and improvements
not having been introduced into British Columbia. Juris-
diction upon this subject is thought to be exclusively with
the Dominion parliament, and the difficulties in the way of
legislation upon it from that quarter are well known.
As to the pleading and practice of the court generally, it
may be said that the example of the courts in England has been
followed from the beginning. The common law procedure
acts formed the basis until 1879, when the practice under the
English judicature acts was introduced, with, of course, some
local modification, and that is the position to-day. Until
1879 the judges had had almost complete control of the court's
procedure, being expressly empowered to make * Rules of
Court ' to that end as might from time to time seem advis-
able. In 1879 the provincial legislature took from the judges
this power and conferred it upon the lieutenant-governor in
council. At the same time they made provision for dividing
the province into judicial districts, a decentralizing measure
which, as the judges complained, would send some of them
into banishment to remote sections of the interior. One
cannot read the judgments in the ' Thrasher ' case in 1882,
as reported in the British Columbia Law Reports, without
seeing that there was a battle-royal between the legislature
and the judiciary of the day. In the end the legislature won
a notable victory, the Supreme Court of Canada on June 10,
1883, certifying to the governor-general in council its opinion,
upon all points upholding the validity of the provincial legis-
lation. It may be added that to this day the procedure and
practice of the courts in British Columbia are in the hands
of the lieutenant-governor in council, subject of course to any
express provision the legislature may from time to time see
fit to make. The decentralizing policy embarked upon in
1879 has had no practical fruition, the various Dominion
governments having steadily refused to recognize the right
of a province to affix conditions as to the place of residence,
etc., of the judges, whose appointment rests with the federal
authorities under the British North America Act.
As early as 1860 provision was made on Vancouver Island
394 HISTORY OF THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM
1 for rendering the administration of justice in minor criminal
cases more speedy and certain/ and in 1866 an act was
passed ' to facilitate the recovery of small debts and other
demands.' Upon the mainland a proclamation of Governor
Douglas known as the Goldfields Act of 1859 gave wide juris-
diction to gold commissioners in all mining disputes. To a
large extent this jurisdiction still subsists under the present
mining laws of the province, although what may be called the
more purely judicial jurisdiction rests largely with the county
courts of the province, concurrently, of course, with the
Supreme Court. As early as 1859 jurisdiction was conferred
by Governor Douglas upon local magistrates to hold courts
for the recovery of small debts, and from this has gradually
grown the present system of small debts courts.
Prior to Confederation there were so-called county courts
presided over by stipendiary magistrates, but it is not deemed
necessary to enter upon details. Under the British North
America Act the appointment of county court judges rests
with the federal authorities, and from time to time new
county court districts have been designated under provincial
legislation. In 1867 the English acts respecting county courts
were adopted in British Columbia so far as applicable to the
colony, and this policy has been followed to the present time.
County court practice as well as Supreme Court practice
follows in the main the English model.
A word as to the legal profession in this province may not
be amiss. Henry Pering Pellew Crease was the first practis-
ing barrister, and he did not arrive in Victoria from England
until toward the end of 1858. Judge Begbie was therefore
obliged to permit of some latitude, and for a time any one
entitled to practise before the Supreme Courts of the various
United States was allowed to represent suitors before the
courts of the two British colonies. This state of affairs was,
however, but temporary, and from the beginning members
of the legal profession have been considered as officers of the
court over whom the court could exercise summary juris-
diction. In this respect, however, the history of the legal
profession in British Columbia does not differ essentially
from that of the older provinces. All barristers and solicitors
AFTER CONFEDERATION 395
are members of the Law Society of British Columbia, which
exercises a wide disciplinary jurisdiction over the profession
subject to a modified right of appeal to the Supreme Court of
British Columbia. A person upon undergoing the prescribed
course of study and service and passing the necessary examina-
tions may become either a barrister or a solicitor, or both ;
but of course only a barrister may appear in court.
The jury system still bears the imprint of early days in
the province. British subjects were somewhat scarce in the
mining camps, and the difficulty was met by a proclamation
in 1860 under which the sheriff was empowered to summon
in addition to such British subjects as were available such
other grand and petit jurors as he saw fit, * whether British
subjects or not, without regard to any property qualifica-
tion/ Twelve jurymen were and have always been required
in criminal cases, but seven or more might sit on civil cases
if the judge certified that twelve could not be procured con-
veniently. Civil cases are now regularly tried before a jury
of eight, who must, however, be British subjects except in
remote districts where the old rule still obtains. If at the
end of three hours' deliberation the jury fail to agree, the
court may receive the verdict of three-fourths ; but this rule
does not apply in actions for the recovery of penalties or
forfeitures by or on behalf of the crown.
In 1907 the work of the Supreme Court had so increased
in volume that it was deemed necessary to establish a Court
of Appeal for the province. Theretofore the judgments of
single judges were subject to review before the full court,
comprised of not less than three of the other judges of the
Supreme Court. Appeals from the various county courts
were also heard by the same tribunal. The act establishing
the Court of Appeal did not come into force until September
I, 1909. Since that date the judges of the Supreme Court
of British Columbia are judges of first instance only.
At the present time, therefore, the courts of the province
in the order of authority are as follows :
i. The Court of Appeal, consisting of the chief justice,
who is at present styled the Chief Justice of the Court of
Appeal, and four puisne justices styled Justices of Appeal,
VOL. XXII D
396 HISTORY OF THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM
So soon as the present chief justice of British Columbia
ceases to hold that office, the chief justice of the Court of
Appeal will assume the title of Chief Justice of British
Columbia. In explanation of this provision it may be
stated that the present chief justice of British Columbia
(the Hon. Gordon Hunter) held that office prior to the estab-
lishment of the Court of Appeal, and he still retains his posi-
tion as head of the judiciary of the province. As already
intimated, the appellate jurisdiction of this court is wide,
covering : appeals from all judgments and orders of the
Supreme Court, whether final or interlocutory ; appeals
from the county courts, whether final or interlocutory, in
all cases, speaking roughly, where the amount involved is
over one hundred dollars, and by special leave in cases
involving less than that amount ; appeals from the opinion
of a judge of the Supreme Court on * constitutional ques-
tions ' referred to him by the lieutenant-governor in council ;
appeals from every decision in any of the following matters :
certiorari ; quo warranto ; mandamus ; prohibition ; case
stated under the Summary Convictions Act ; or any point of
law arising on an appeal to the county court under the last-
mentioned act. It is also the Court of Appeal for the pro-
vince in all criminal cases under the criminal code of Canada.
The Court of Appeal sits four times a year ; in January and
June in Victoria and in April and November in Vancouver.
2. The Supreme Court of British Columbia, consisting
of a chief justice and five puisne justices styled Judges of
the Supreme Court. The jurisdiction of the court both civil
and criminal has been already sufficiently indicated. In
addition to its general jurisdiction throughout the province
as a Superior Court of Record — a jurisdiction, it may be
mentioned, exercisable by each individual judge as and for
the court — there are certain appeals under provincial legis-
lation which are heard before the Supreme Court judges.
These are chiefly from departmental officers, such as gold
commissioners, mining recorders, and registrars of land titles.
The court, it may be added, sits daily in Victoria and Van-
couver, and there are regular sittings twice a year or oftener
at various other places throughout the province.
AFTER CONFEDERATION 397
3. County Courts, of which there are now nine : Victoria,
Nanaimo, Vancouver (three judges), Westminster, Yale (two
judges), Cariboo, Atlin, Kootenay, and West Kootenay.
These courts cannot hear any action for malicious prose-
cution, libel, slander, criminal conversation, seduction or
breach of promise of marriage, or against a justice of the
peace for anything done by him in the execution of his office.
Subject to these exceptions the county courts have juris-
diction in all personal actions where the amount involved
does not exceed $1000 ; in actions of ejectment where the
value of the premises does not exceed $2500 ; in equity cases,
such as administration, execution of trusts, proceedings upon
mortgages, specific performance, the winding-up of partner-
ships, suits relative to water rights, probate, etc., where the
amount involved does not exceed $2500. In addition to the
above these courts have a wide jurisdiction under provincial
mining acts, and upon appeals from summary convictions
and from Small Debts Courts. The county court judges also
sit in the County Court Judges Criminal Court under the
criminal code of Canada. The administration of criminal
justice is indeed largely in their hands, as only capital cases
and cases in which the accused elect to be tried by jury
come before the Supreme Court judges at the various assizes
throughout the province.
4. Small Debts Courts, with jurisdiction in personal
actions up to one hundred dollars. These courts are presided
over by judges appointed by the provincial government, and
there are many of them throughout the province.
In addition to these regularly constituted courts there
are, of course, many stipendiary magistrates and justices of
the peace, exercising a more or less limited jurisdiction under
the criminal code of Canada as well as under the provincial
Summary Convictions Act. In these matters British Col-
umbia differs in no essential respect from the other Cana-
dian provinces.
HISTORY OF EDUCATION
HISTORY OF EDUCATION
VANCOUVER ISLAND AND BRITISH COLUMBIA
BEFORE THEIR UNION
IN 1849 Vancouver Island and its dependencies were
separated from the as yet unorganized Indian terri-
tories on the mainland and became a separate colony
under the Hudson's Bay Company. An attempt was then
made by the company to provide an education for the
children of its employees and for those of the few settlers
who had been induced to take up land in the district sur-
rounding Fort Victoria. The first teacher (who also per-
formed the duties of chaplain) sent to the colony was the
Rev. Robert J. Staines, a graduate of Trinity College,
Cambridge, who with his wife landed in Victoria in 1849.
Victoria was then in a most primitive condition. Accord-
ing to a report of one of the officials of the Hudson's Bay
Company :
At this time there were no streets in Victoria and the
traffic had cut up the thoroughfares so that every one
had to wear sea-boots to wade through the mud. Planks
were laid through the mud in order to get the teacher
and his wife safely to the fort. They looked around
wonderingly at the bare walls of the building and
expressed deep surprise, stating that the Company in
England had told them this and that, and had promised
them such and such. Mr Staines had been guaranteed
£340 a year for keeping a boarding-school and £200 as
chaplain. The services were carried on in the mess-
room of the fort, which was made to serve for almost
every purpose. Here also was erected a temporary
pulpit and prayers were held every Sunday. At this
time Staines purchased some land on the same condi-
401
402 HISTORY OF EDUCATION
tions as others. But he too became much dissatisfied
with things, with Douglas and his administration as
Governor of the Colony.
The few settlers then living on Vancouver Island were
at variance with the governor and officials of the Hudson's
Bay Company, and Staines espoused the cause of the settlers.
The lot of this handful of people finally became so intoler-
able, as they alleged, that it was resolved in 1853 to send
Staines to England to endeavour, if possible, to secure from the
imperial government some measure of justice. Staines's fatal
habit of procrastination cost him his life. The ship that was
to carry him from Sooke to San Francisco sailed without
him. He embarked on the next ship, a vessel heavily laden
with lumber. When off Cape Flattery a storm struck her,
throwing her on her beam ends. Her crew were at once
swept overboard. Staines was in his cabin and, after vainly
endeavouring to cut his way through the side of the ship, he
perished from cold and exhaustion.
Two years passed before a successor to Staines arrived
in Victoria. On September 13, 1854, the Rev. Edward
Cridge accepted the terms and conditions specified below, and
sailing from England landed at Victoria on April I, 1855.
The Hudson's Bay Company are desirous of sending
put a clergyman to Vancouver Island to be stationed
in the vicinity of Victoria the principal establishment
in the island. He will have charge of a district or
parish and in addition will hold the appointment of
chaplain of the Hudson's Bay Company and will attend
to the spiritual wants of the free settlers and of the
officers, clerks and servants of the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany stationed at Victoria and at the various farms in
the neighbourhood.
The church is in progress of const ruction, m the
vicinity of the fort, and will probably be completed by
the time the clergyman may be expected to arrive at
the island. The Hudson's Bay Company propose that the
remuneration for these services shall consist : first, of
a parsonage and glebe of one hundred acres, of which
thirty acres will be cleared and put into a cultivable
shape ; secondly, of a stipend of £300 per annum
charged, with the sanction of the Colonial Office, on
VANCOUVER ISLAND AND BRITISH COLUMBIA 403
the fund arising from the sales of land — of which funds
the Company are trustees ; thirdly, of an allowance of
£100 per annum from the fur branch of the Company,
for acting as Chaplain to the Company and attending
to the wants of the servants.
Until the house is finished, quarters will be provided
for the clergyman in the fort. And till the land is put
into a proper state of cultivation, rations will be allowed
to him and his family, as provided for the officers of the
Company. When the land is taken possession of by
him, he will be expected to provide for himself.
The Company think it very desirable that the clergy-
man should, as is done at Red River by the Bishop of
Rupert's Land, take charge of a boarding-school, of a
superior class, for the children of their officers, and would
wish that he would take out with him a gentleman and
his wife capable of keeping a school of this nature.
The fur-trade branch would find a school-house and
residence for the master and his family and will vote an
annual grant of £100 in aid of the school. Should they
give satisfaction to the gentlemen in the country they
might expect from thirty to forty pupils, and the usual
payment for each pupil would be £20 per annum for
board, lodging and education.
A free passage will be allowed from London to Van-
couver Island for the clergyman, his family and servants,
and also to the school-master and his family.
It is understood that the engagement shall be for five
years, at the expiration of which a free passage home
will be granted, should the clergyman wish to return ;
or on the contrary, a fresh engagement may be entered
into. It is also to be understood that in the event of
misconduct, the engagement may at any time be can-
celled, on the recommendation of the Governor of
Vancouver Island, and with the sanction of the Secretary
of State for the Colonies.
The part of the agreement stipulating that a school-
master and his wife should come out with Cridge appears
not to have been carried into effect. Mrs Cridge, however,
opened a private school for the children of the Hudson's
Bay Company's officials and had the unique honour of
having organized the first Sunday-school in British Columbia.
404 HISTORY OF EDUCATION
Public schools, but not free public schools, were opened in
Victoria, Craigflower and Nanaimo under Cridge as acting
superintendent of education, as appears from a report drawn
up by him on August 27, 1861, and submitted to Governor
Douglas. The report is as follows :
SIR, — I have the honour to submit, for the informa-
tion of His Excellency the Governor, the accompanying
report on the state of the Colonial Schools :
ist. Victoria School, Mr W. H. Burr, master. The
sixth annual examination of this school took place on
the 1 6th of July ultimo, at which fifty-three pupils were
present, and fifteen boys received prizes, donations of
His Excellency the Governor.
The subjects of examination will be found in Schedule
No. 2. Very satisfactory progress was manifested in
some of the advanced subjects, particularly in Book-
keeping, and the school at large was being well founded
in the elementary subjects, especially in reading and
orthography.
I consider the school in a generally satisfactory condi-
tion, and, seeing that there is but one teacher to fifty
pupils, doing its work well. The chief defect observ-
able is some want of uniformity and punctuality in
attendance, the remedy for which perhaps rests more
with the parents than with the teacher.
The school room is also too small for the number of
pupils frequently in attendance. The house, which con-
sists of eight rooms, as well as the premises generally,
is in fair repair.
Of the ten acres of which the School Reserve consists,
a portion of six acres is enclosed, and four acres under
cultivation by the teacher.
As some inconvenience has been alleged with regard
to the distance of this school from the town, I would
observe that it is situated at a distance of 300 paces
beyond the boundary of the town, and there is a good
foot-path to within that distance of the school, con-
structed last year for the benefit of the scholars, by
the Commissioner of Police, A. F. Pemberton, Esq., by
private subscription and by the labour of prisoners.
The remainder of the road is in the winter rough and
inconvenient, but at a very little expense a good pathway
could be extended the whole distance. It would be for
VANCOUVER ISLAND AND BRITISH COLUMBIA 405
the benefit of Education that this should be done before
the winter, either by the Government or by subscrip-
tion. The almost nominal rate ($5 or 2os. per annum)
at which instruction at a really useful school is given,
might be an inducement to parents and others to contri-
bute to its improvement in this and other respects.
2nd. Craigflower School, Mr H. Claypole, teacher.
The sixth annual examination of this school was held
on the nth of July, ult., at which twenty-one pupils
were present. Prizes, the gifts of His Excellency, were
awarded to three boys and two girls.
Great pains has evidently been taken with the scholars
during the past year. They are well grounded in the
elementary subjects, and some of the elder pupils dis-
played considerable aptitude in Geography, Grammar
and Arithmetic.
This school is well situated for the population growing
in the neighbourhood, and is, I feel sure, conferring impor-
tant advantages on the community. The school-house,
which contains six rooms, and the premises generally, need
considerable repairs. The School Reserve consists of five
acres ; no portion is at present under cultivation.
3rd. Nanaimo School, Mr C. Bryant, master. Of the
children in this school there are eighteen not exceeding
seven years of age. I have not had an opportunity of
visiting it recently, but from frequent communications
with the teacher, and information derived from other
sources, I have reason to believe that Mr Bryant con-
tinues to display the same assiduity in the discharge of
his duties as heretofore.
From the teacher's report it appears that the school-
house, which consists of four rooms, needs some repairs.
The following schedules will afford more detailed in-
formation on the points to which they refer.
The period to which these returns relate is the year
ending July 1861.
Attendance — number now on the books
Male Female Above 10 Under 10
Victoria School . 53 3 35 2I
Craigflower . . 15 n 12
Nanaimo ... 22 10 5 27
Total . 90 21 51 60
406 HISTORY OF EDUCATION
Admitted during the year
Victoria School . . . . . . .24
Craigflower ....... 5
Nanaimo . . . . . . . .24
Total . . _53
Removed during the year
Victoria School . . . . . . .22
Craigflower ....... 5
Nanaimo ........ 9
Total . . 36
Average attendance
Victoria School . . . . . . .42
Craigflower . . . . . . .16
Nanaimo . . . . . . . .24
Total . . jte
Subjects — number of pupils in each
Reading, Grammar,
Writing, Geography, Geometry Latin
Arithmetic History
Victoria ... 30 15 o o
Craigflower . .10 10 2 i
Nanaimo ... 9 3 o o
Total . 49 28 _2 _i
Book-keeping Drawing Scriptures
Victoria ... 4 20 38
Craigflower o o 20
Nanaimo o o 20
Total _4 20 78
Emoluments received by the Teachers during the past year
Salaries Fees from Pupils Voluntary Contributions
Victoria . £150 £35 10 o £930
Craigflower 150 12120 ooo
Nanaimo .150 25 7 6 ooo
£450 £73 9 6 £930
VANCOUVER ISLAND AND BRITISH COLUMBIA 407
Although it is beyond the province of this Report to
enter into the wide question of an educational system, I
venture to submit one or two remarks on the present
state of the Colonial Schools. While it is plain that they
are conferring a great benefit on a large proportion of
the community, that they are doing so at a small charge
on the Public Revenue, and that the absence of any
one of these schools would be severely felt, it is also
plain that they are at present in an imperfect and
elementary state. This arises partly from the growth
of the pupils and the short time during which, in many
cases, they remain at school ; but chiefly from the in-
sufficient supply of teaching power.
It cannot be expected that while from 25 to 50 scholars
are under the care of a single teacher without assistants
or monitors, the schools should be in so efficient a state
as might be desired.
It is therefore gratifying under these circumstances
to be able to report that they are working in a really
useful manner.
In this report from the acting superintendent mention
is also made of two private schools in Victoria — both under
the patronage of the then Lord Bishop of British Columbia
— a collegiate school for boys and a ladies' college. The
collegiate school was conducted, so says the prospectus, upon
the plan of the grammar schools of England and was designed
to qualify for the learned professions, commercial and mer-
cantile pursuits, and for the universities. In addition to
religious instruction, the course of education comprised a
thorough English education, arithmetic, penmanship, mathe-
matics and book-keeping. Modern languages, including
French, German and Spanish, were also taught, as well as
ancient Hebrew, Greek and Latin. The elements of natural
philosophy were also in the curriculum ; likewise drawing,
including landscape, figure and line drawing, together with
the principles of architecture and design. The fees were five
dollars, six dollars and eight dollars per month, according to
the age of the boys. A reduction was made to families
sending more boys than one to school. All fees were payable
in advance. There were two vacations in the year.
The course of study of the ladies* college, although less
4o8 HISTORY OF EDUCATION
ambitious, was probably more closely adhered to in the
class-room. It comprised religious and moral training,
English in all its branches, modern languages, music, singing,
drawing, painting, etc. The only extras were modern lan-
guages, music, singing, drawing, and painting. The fees,
graduated again according to the age of the young ladies,
were five dollars, six dollars and ten dollars per month.
The extras cost an additional two dollars per month each.
It was not until 1865 that the legislative assembly of
Vancouver Island attempted to pass any comprehensive
legislation dealing with the public schools. In that year, on
May 15, there was passed an act that remained in force until
repealed by the ordinance of 1869. Its main provisions were
as follows :
From time to time the governor was to appoint a general
board of education consisting of nine persons, three of whom
constituted a quorum ; this general board was made a body
corporate and all school property was vested in it ; the board
was to meet once a month and report to the governor as to
the state and condition of the common schools ; the governor
had power to appoint a superintendent of education, at a
salary of fifteen hundred dollars per annum, who was ex
officio the secretary of the board ; the superintendent was
to continue in office for one year from the date of his appoint-
ment, unless removed from office for neglect of duty, im-
proper conduct or incompetency, but was not entitled to any
additional allowances for travelling expenses or other charges ;
the general board had the power, with the approval of the
governor, to establish as many school districts as it deemed
expedient, to prescribe the course of study and to select and
prescribe such books as were deemed most suitable, and to
authorize the purchase and distribution of such books ; the
governor was given power to appoint such persons as he
might think fit to be teachers of the schools, as well as to
appoint from time to time a local board of education of not
less than three persons in any school district, if he should think
it expedient to do so, for the information and guidance of
the general board of education. This last-named board was
given power to visit and to report on the state of the schools
VANCOUVER ISLAND AND BRITISH COLUMBIA 409
within its district. The general mode of transacting business
by the local board and the nature of the reports to be fur-
nished were made subject to the order and direction of the
general board of education. The duties of the teachers
were also prescribed by this general board. The super-
intendent's duties were to visit the schools and to report on
them by the order and according to the instructions of the
general board. All schools established under the act were
to be conducted upon non-sectarian principles ; books in-
culcating the highest morality were to be selected, and all
books of a religious character teaching denominational dogmas
were to be excluded ; the clergy of every denomination, at
stated intervals to be fixed by the general board of education,
were allowed to visit the schools and impart in a separate
room religious instruction to the children of the respective
persuasions. Finally, every school was to be open to the
children of persons of all denominations, and the power of
expulsion in cases of gross misconduct was to be at the dis-
cretion of the local board of education, or, in the absence of
a local board, at the discretion of the teacher.
Such were the main provisions of the first school act
passed for Vancouver Island, an act which virtually centred
all authority in the governor. The governor appointed the
general board of education, the superintendent, the local
board, even the teachers of the several schools. On the
other hand, it must be remembered that all schools established
under the act of 1865 were entirely free and non-sectarian.
Even the cost of providing for the incidental expenses of the
schools was met by the general board of education. The
grant made by the legislative assembly for maintaining dis-
trict schools during 1865 was $10,000. For each of the two
preceding years the legislative grant was $5000.
An honest attempt now appears to have been made to put
the act into operation. The general board of education was
appointed, and Alfred Waddington * became superintendent.
1 In early life Waddington had been interested in mining on the European
continent. After emigrating to California from England, he came to Victoria in
1858 and engaged in various pursuits until 1862, when he conceived the idea of
constructing a wagon road from Bute Inlet to Fort Alexandria on the Fraser
River, a wagon road that was to form the first link in an overland railway. In
410 HISTORY OF EDUCATION
The first meeting of the board was held early in June 1865,
and one of its first acts was to ask the secretary of the colony
for a detailed statement of the school property on Vancouver
Island to be conveyed to, and vested in, the board. Infor-
mation on this point appears to have been supplied later by
the superintendent, who gives the following list :
1. The ten -acre school reserve, Victoria District, with
the buildings and fences.
2. Five acres at Craigflower, donated by the Puget
Sound Company, with the buildings and fences.
3. Four acres at South Saanich with buildings and
fences.
4. A quarter of an acre near the Royal Oak, Lake
District, with buildings and fences.
5. The Vancouver Coal Company made a written
offer of a very eligible site at Nanaimo on condition
that a school should be erected in two years.
6. A church and school reserve near Elk Lake, and
others perhaps elsewhere.
The board of education also entered into a contract
with Hibben and Carswell for a supply of school books. The
first order was for a supply of 3174 books, including readers,
spellers, copy-books, histories, geographies, etc. One half
of these books was to be brought via Panama, and the other
half via Cape Horn. When the boxes arrived they were
held at the book-store in Victoria subject to the order of the
board. The books were sold to the pupils by the teachers,
who afterward forwarded the proceeds to the superintendent.
In October 1865 the board prepared an interesting state-
ment of the probable expenditure for education on Van-
couver Island for the year ending December 31, 1866. From
it we learn that the following schools were expected to be in
operation during 1 866 : two divisions in the Boys' Central
School, Victoria ; two in the Girls* Central ; and schools of
one division in each of the following districts : Victoria
the prosecution of this plan he spent nearly his entire fortune struggling against
difficulties, until the Chilcotin Indians massacred his camp of road-makers,
seventeen in number, and destroyed his stock of tools and provisions. He died
in February 1872 at Ottawa, whither he had gone to press upon the attention of
the Canadian government his great scheme for the construction of an overland
railway through British territory.
VANCOUVER ISLAND AND BRITISH COLUMBIA 411
District, Craigflower, Esquimalt, Cedar Hill, Lake, South
Saanich, Cowichan, Nanaimo, and Salt Spring Island. To
pay salaries of teachers in these several districts, provide for
incidental expenses, erect new buildings where needed and
repair old ones, the board estimated that the sum of $25,500
would be necessary.
But the financial affairs of Vancouver Island were fast
approaching a crisis. Perhaps never in the history of the
island had the outlook been so ominous as in the early months
of 1866. In August of that year the secretary of the colony
wrote to the superintendent as follows :
I am desired by the Governor now to notify you, for
your own information, and also for the information of
the Board of Education, and the different school teachers,
that there does not appear any probability of the ways
and means being at the disposal of the Governor to
meet the expenditure on account of education, and that
His Excellency is therefore compelled at once to state
that he will not guarantee the payment of any further
expenditure under that head whether on account of
salaries, rent or other matters beyond the 3ist of August,
instant.
A copy of this letter was forwarded by the board to each
of the teachers, who, with commendable zeal and with only
one exception, expressed their willingness to continue their
duties and wait for the return of brighter days.
It will now be necessary to give some account of the
progress of education in the sister colony of British Columbia,
or the Mainland, as it v/as familiarly called. In 1862 the
Rev. Robert Jamieson, a minister of the Presbyterian Church,
opened the first school at New Westminster, which, though
intended for the public, was supported by tuition fees. In
a letter to the British Columbian, July 2, 1864, William
Clarkson thus sets forth the facts :
He [Jamieson] offered to conduct a school on strictly
non-sectarian principles and thus make it acceptable to
all and the forerunner of a regularly organized system
on the same basis. This continued for nine months
until Mr Jamieson in March 1863 called a meeting of
VOL. XXII E
412 HISTORY OF EDUCATION
the parents of the sixteen children then attending the
school and handed over the whole affair to us, recom-
mending Mr Mcllveen as a well-qualified teacher and
advising an application to the Governor for aid. We
then made regulations for conducting the school and
defined the duties of a committee for its management
and sent a memorial to Governor Douglas stating what
we proposed to do, and applying for £100 for one year,
engaging to raise another ^100 amongst ourselves by
school fees. This money we got from the Governor.
It is not known what fees were charged by Jamieson, but
under Mellveen the fee was two and one-half dollars per
month for each pupil. As John Robson wrote, such a tax
fell very heavily upon families having a number of children
attending school and placed education entirely beyond the
reach of some. He trusted that the government would see
the necessity of carrying out the views of the public as ex-
pressed at a recent meeting and so place the school upon a
broader, more liberal and healthy basis. In October 1864
Governor Seymour notified the trustees that he would sanc-
tion the payment of four shillings per month to the master
for each child regularly attending the school whose parents
paid six shillings a month. In the same letter the governor
stated that he would write to England for a supply of the
best modern school-books. Commenting on this the British
Columbian, in October 1864, declared that the feeling of
dissatisfaction on account of the absence of proper text-books
for the common schools was by no means confined to His
Excellency, and that the reason why other books than those
then in use had not been prepared was easily explained. The
public had for three years past been anxiously waiting for
some sort of a school system ; and as such a system would
doubtless make provision for the books to be used, it had not
been deemed prudent to incur the expense of importing a
supply, the use of which might not be authorized by subse-
quent legislation.
The reference above to ' common schools ' is misleading.
There was no school in the colony except that at New West-
minster. In November 1864 Yale and Douglas were offered
EDUCATION BEFORE CONFEDERATION 413
schools on the same terms as those enjoyed by the New West-
minster school, but they did not accept the offer. The
country was then just beginning to experience the hard times
which usually follow a ' boom/ and it is probable that neither
place could raise the necessary funds.
The great difficulty in these early days appears to have
been to keep the school non-sectarian. The files of the
British Columbian for 1864 and 1865 are filled with corres-
pondence and editorials on the subject. John Robson cham-
pioned most vigorously the cause of the non-sectarian school,
and it is no exaggeration to say that British Columbia owes
its non-sectarian schools largely to his influence.
In January 1865 resolutions were passed at a public
meeting in New Westminster advocating that education
should be established on a religious, but non-sectarian, basis.
Replying to this resolution on March 1 6, 1865, Governor
Seymour stated that the gentlemen who attended the meeting
might be sure that any regulations drawn up by the govern-
ment should have for their basis the general principles advo-
cated by these gentlemen, together with the utmost defer-
ence for the religious convictions of every denomination of
Christians.
The Supply Bill for 1864 shows a grant for education for
the Mainland of £500 ; that for 1865, ^1000 ; and that for
1866, the year of the introduction of decimal currency and
the year of the union of British Columbia and Vancouver
Island, the sum of $5000.
II
EDUCATION IN BRITISH COLUMBIA BEFORE
CONFEDERATION
BY an act passed by the imperial government on August 6,
1866, Vancouver Island and British Columbia Jpecame
one colony under the name of British Columbia. The
fourth section of the act provided that the form of govern-
ment existing in British Columbia should extend over Van-
414 HISTORY OF EDUCATION
couver Island. It was further provided that notwithstanding
the union, the laws in force in the separate colonies of British
Columbia and Vancouver Island at the time of the union
taking effect should, until otherwise provided by lawful
authority, remain in force as if the act of union had not been
passed or proclaimed.
At the time of the union, therefore, Vancouver Island
was endeavouring, although with insufficient funds, to carry
out the provisions of the Free School Act of 1865, while
the Mainland, without any school legislation whatever, was
struggling to support a school at New Westminster under an
arrangement whereby the governor sanctioned the payment
out of the public funds of four shillings a month to the school-
master for each child regularly attending the school whose
parents paid six shillings a month.
The first session of the legislature of the united colony,
the same being the fourth session of the legislative council
of British Columbia, met at New Westminster on January 24,
1867. In Governor Seymour's speech he promised to address
the legislative council during the session on the subject of
education, a promise which he implemented on February 24
by submitting the following extraordinary message :
In fulfilment of a pledge given by the Governor, in
the Address with which he had the honour to open
the present Legislative Session, he now lays before the
Council his views on the subject of education at the
public expense.
He has to refer to two different sections of the colony
in which the question has been treated in different ways.
In Vancouver Island the attempt has been made to make
the education of the youth in the colony a burden on
the community. The Governor lays before the Council
statements of the present condition of the relations
existing between the Government and the Public Schools
of the Island, and leaves the question as to the in-
debtedness on the one side, or unreasonable expecta-
tions on the other to be freely dealt with by the Council
— one from which the Governor stands aloof. He will
merely state that in the opinion of his predecessor the
system was not successful, and that other objects
besides the intellectual advancement of the children of
EDUCATION BEFORE CONFEDERATION 415
the colony were sometimes allowed entrance into the
consideration of the Board of Education.
On the Mainland the Governor has been compelled
to acknowledge that the population is yet too small and
scattered for any regular system of education to be
established. Where parents have been willing to pay
towards the instruction of their children, he has, with
the consent of the Legislative Council, assisted them
from the public funds. The schools have not been
under the direction of the Government, and pupils have
been led or sent from those that asked assistance from
the public to those enjoying the dignity of independence,
or back again as the parents might elect.
The Governor is of opinion that the colony is not yet
old enough for any regular system of education to be
established ; nor would he wish, under the present
constitution, to press his own views upon the Legisla-
ture, though he has no desire to conceal them. He
thinks that any man who respects himself would not
desire to have his children instructed without some
pecuniary sacrifice on his own part. The State may
aid the parent, but ought not to relieve him of his own
natural responsibility, else it may happen that the
promising mechanic may be marred, and the country
overburdened with half-educated professional politi-
cians or needy hangers-on of the Government.
As the Governor is aware that there is no subject upon
which more words have been wasted than that of gratui-
tous instruction and the duty of the governing authority
towards the people in the matter, he will at once proceed
to consider the relations in which the Government may
properly stand towards the parents. In his opinion,
all that the State can do is to enable children to over-
come the almost mechanical difficulties which seem to
bar theii passage over the threshold of knowledge, and
having effected this to leave to parental affection and
knowledge of individual character the choice of the
arms with which the child shall at a future period fight
the battle of life. It is vain for the State to attempt
to drive on in an even line the idle and the industrious
— the boy of ready aptitudes and him whose brain
becomes pained and confused in endeavouring to master
the simplest problem. The Governor conceives it to be
the duty of the governing power to assist in the giving
416 HISTORY OF EDUCATION
to all elementary instruction, and then to offer induce-
ments to those who are able to come to the front in the
intellectual struggle with their fellow men.
But he will not, while addressing the Council, conceal
any portion of his thoughts. He believes that the
community in which he resides is one where complete
toleration in religious opinion exists. It is not there-
fore, under these circumstances, for the state and its
salaried officers to interfere with the belief of any one.
The Government has not undertaken to prove to the
Jew that the Messiah has indeed arrived ; to rob the
Roman Catholic of his belief in the merciful inter-
cession of the Blessed Virgin ; to give special support
to the Church of England ; to mitigate the acidity of
the Calvinistic doctrines of some Protestant believers,
or to determine, authoritatively, the number of the
Sacraments. Therefore, the Governor is of opinion
that when the time comes for the establishment of a
large common school, religious teaching ought not to
be allowed to intrude. It is vain to say that there are
certain elementary matters in which all Christians,
leaving out the Jews, must agree. It is merely calling
upon a man, picked up at random, allured by a trifling
salary, to do what the whole religious wisdom, feeling
and affection of the world has not yet done. The paring
down of all excrescences which a man on a hundred
and fifty pounds a year may think disfigure the several
religions, and the reducing them to a common standard,
becomes a sort of Methodism which may locally be
named after the schoolmaster who performs it.
In a colony with which the Governor was recently
connected he left the following school system. There
was a public school open to all denominations, where
the schoolmaster did not presume to open to the children
any sacred mysteries. The charge upon the children
attending regularly was half a dollar a month. But
there were Denominational Schools, also, to which the
Government contributed, but in a moderate degree.
It was found that these Denominational Schools, though
more expensive to the parents, absorbed the greater
number of the children. Such is the system he would
desire to see in any concentrated community.
In the meantime Superintendent Waddington, under
EDUCATION BEFORE CONFEDERATION 417
instructions from the board of education, was endeavouring
to carry out on the Island the provisions of the Free School
Act of 1865. But the financial position of the board was
already desperate. The last of the one hundred and fifty-
six letters written by the superintendent during his two years
and three months' tenure of office is dated at Victoria,
September 6, 1867. The free schools established by the
board on Vancouver Island ceased to exist.
It is interesting to note before leaving the subject that
the superintendent of education submitted, in July 1867,
the following list of the number of children attending the
common schools of Vancouver Island :
Central School, Victoria, Boys ... 63
Girls 45
Victoria District School, M xed . 93
Esquimalt
Craigflower
Lake
South Saanich
Nanaimo
Cedar Hill (closed)
Cowichan
Salt Spring Island (no school) . . 22
399
He further notes that there were 404 children enrolled in
January 1866, but adds that since August 1866 rather more
than one hundred children had left the colony. During the
two sessions of the legislative council that met at New
Westminster in 1867 and 1868 nothing was done to promote
the educational interests of the united Colony of British
Columbia beyond voting the sums of $10,000 and $6000, re-
spectively, for school purposes. During these two sessions
the council, although successful in passing several important
measures, was torn by dissensions regarding the question of the
4i8 HISTORY OF EDUCATION
final location of the capital. Finally, on April 2, 1868, the
following resolution was passed by a vote of fourteen to five :
That this Council, having been requested by His
Excellency the Governor to assist him with their advice
in coming to a decision as to the selection of a seat of
government for the united Colony of British Columbia,
is of opinion, after careful consideration of His Excel-
lency's message and its enclosures on the subject, that
Victoria is the place most suitable for the seat of govern-
ment of the united Colony.
On April 28 of the same year Governor Seymour forwarded
a message, in which, after acknowledging receipt of the above
resolution, and admitting that Her Majesty's government
appeared to lean to the same opinion, he stated that he would
' cause to be proclaimed on the Queen's birthday, the selec-
tion of the Capital within the town which bears Her Royal
name.1
The next session of the legislative council met at Victoria
on December 17, 1868. On March 13, 1869, Governor Sey-
mour gave his assent to * An Ordinance to establish Public
Schools throughout the Colony of British Columbia/ the main
provisions of which were :
The Common School Act, 1865, of the former colony of
Vancouver Island was repealed. The governor in council
was given power to describe school districts, to define their
boundaries, and from time to time repeal, alter, or amend the
same ; to hear and determine all applications for grants of
public money for the assistance of common schools, and to
apportion the sums of money granted by the legislature for
that purpose, provided that the assistance granted to any
teacher should not exceed five hundred dollars per annum ;
to appoint teachers to the common schools, and, upon good
cause being shown, to remove the same or appoint others in
their stead ; to provide for the examination of teachers ; to
provide that the text-books used in the schools should be
of a proper and non-sectarian character ; and to provide
for the visitation and the inspection of schools, provided
that the expense of such inspection should not be borne
by the school funds. Other provisions gave power to the
EDUCATION BEFORE CONFEDERATION 419
governor in council to refuse to create school districts in
cases where the number of children likely to attend did
not exceed twelve or where the amount likely to be collected
would not exceed three hundred dollars per annum for the
school teacher. Provision was made for the annual election
of three trustees who were to constitute a local board, with
the exception that in Victoria and New Westminster the
municipal councils were constituted local boards for their
respective cities. Local boards were given somewhat exten-
sive powers, among others that of calling a special meeting
of the freeholders and resident householders of the district
for the purpose of deciding how the balance of the money
over and above the government grant of five hundred dollars
should be raised, whether by voluntary subscription, tuition
fees or general rate, provided that the tuition fee should not
be fixed at more than two dollars per month for each scholar.
It was also made lawful for any clergyman of any denomina-
tion, before and after the regular school hours, to visit the
public school of the district in which he lived and to impart
such religious instruction as he might think proper to the
children of his own denomination.
The ordinance of 1869, while it provided slightly more
for the decentralization of authority than did the Common
School Act of 1865, was yet inferior to the latter in several
important details. Under the act of 1865 all schools were
free and non-sectarian ; under the ordinance, while the
schools were non-sectarian, they were not free. But the
most serious defect of the ordinance consisted in the omission
to provide for any executive officer. No mention was made
either of superintendent or government inspector.
While the legislature was still in session a report was
made by the chairman of the board of education (under the
act of 1865) from which it appeared that there was still
owing to the teachers for past services the sum of about four
thousand dollars. John Robson moved in the house that a
humble address should be presented to His Excellency the
governor recommending that certain arrears due to school
teachers should be paid out of the sum voted in the estimates
for school purposes. This resolution was lost by a vote of
420 HISTORY OF EDUCATION
seven to eight. And so for another year the teachers went
hungry.
During the following session, however, a select committee
of the house was appointed to inquire into the petition of
the school teachers for arrears of salaries. This committee
recommended that the prayer of the teachers should be
granted, inasmuch as the claims had been incurred under
the sanction of the late board of education and had been
reported by the chairman of that board to be due and
unpaid. The report of the select committee was adopted by
the legislative council with the exception of the recommenda-
tion of the claims of the late Superintendent Waddington.
Some idea of the manner in which the provisions of the
school ordinance of 1869 were being carried out by the
government may be obtained from the answers given by the
secretary of the colony in 1870 to a series of questions sub-
mitted in the house, as follows :
Q. What (if any) provision has been made for the
examination of Public School Teachers, as well regard-
ing efficiency as character ?
A. No special provision has yet been found possible
for the examination of Public School Teachers as to
efficiency or character.
Q. What (if any) provision has been made for the
visitation and inspection of Common Schools ?
A. No provision has yet been made for the visita-
tion and inspection of Common Schools, there being
no provision in the Ordinance for the appointment or
remuneration of an Inspector or Inspectors.
Q. What (if any) regulation has been made for the
due returns being made of the receipts and expenditure
of Common Schools ?
A. Returns of the revenue and expenditure of each
year are required of each Local Board by the Govern-
ment.
Q. What (if any) rules and regulations have been
made for the management and government of Common
Schools ?
A. No regulations have been made for the manage-
ment of schools, other than those of the Local Boards
under the Ordinance, which, however, possess full power.
EDUCATION BEFORE CONFEDERATION 421
Q. What (if any) provision has been made for the
Annual Report of the Common Schools of British
Columbia for the past year ?
A. An Annual Report is required by the Government
of all Local Boards.
The following return was, however, brought down during
the session of 1870 showing the number of schools in opera-
tion during the preceding year :
School District
Salary per annum
Expendi-
ture on
each School
from
Govern-
ment Grant
Revenue
and Ex-
penditure
of Local
Boards
Average
number of
pupils during
the year
Government Grant
Local Aid
At the rate of
I
Victoria City
Victoria District .
$500
500
Nil
Nil
1 11
O
49
Craigflower .
500
Nil
430
,a
0.
26
<u
Lake .
500
No return
374
No return
u
Cedar Hill .
500
$60
125
2-3
25
Saanich
500
150
250
11
18
Nanaimo
500
Nil
422
11
3i
OJ
New Westminster
500
No return
715
3
23
Sapperton .
400
Fees
,
380
u
1
16
5/3
Langley
500
No return
536
E
13
o
Yale .
500
Nil
427
No return
Lytton .
500
$120
Nil
24
The government soon found it necessary to amend the
school ordinance of 1869. Accordingly, during the session
of 1870, an amendment was introduced providing for the
appointment of an inspector of schools, whose salary was to
be paid out of the general revenue of the colony and whose
duties were to visit and inspect the common schools and to
report for the information of the governor in council regard-
ing the management, efficiency, and general conditions of the
422 HISTORY OF EDUCATION
schools ; the character and qualifications of the teachers ;
all complaints which might be made regarding the condi-
tion or management of any school ; and, lastly, the text-
books in use in the school. A further amendment granted
power to the governor in council to appoint not less than
three and not more than five fit and proper persons to be a
board of examiners for the purpose of examining school
teachers and granting them certificates of qualification.
But no amount of tinkering with the school ordinance
of 1869 could give it life. In the city of Victoria the tax
called for under the act to supplement the teachers' salaries
was paid for one year, but was voted down the next, with
the result that the effort to keep open the schools was aban-
doned in September 1870. From that time until 1872 there
was no public school in the city. The government soon
learned that only an absolutely free school system would
meet the requirements of the colony.
Ill
EDUCATION SINCE CONFEDERATION
BRITISH Columbia joined the confederation of the east-
ern provinces in 1870. During the session of 1871 a
bill was introduced into the legislative council which
altered the constitution of the province and practically intro-
duced the principle of responsible government. On April n,
1872, was passed ' An Act respecting Public Schools,' which
with some important amendments remains the school act of
the present day.
Under the act of 1872 the Common School Ordinance
of 1869 and the Common School Amendment Ordinance of
1870 were respectively repealed ; the sum of forty thousand
dollars for 1872, and for each subsequent year such sum
as might be voted by the legislative assembly, was set aside
out of the general revenue of the province and designated
the Public School Fund ; and a board of education to consist
of six fit and proper persons was appointed by the lieutenant-
EDUCATION SINCE CONFEDERATION 423
governor in council. The lieutenant-governor in council
had also power to appoint a superintendent of education,
who was ex officio chairman of the board of education and
who was to hold office during the pleasure of the lieutenant-
governor and receive an annual salary of two thousand
dollars and such additional allowance for travelling expenses
as the lieutenant-governor in council might grant. A person
was not eligible for the position of superintendent unless he
had been an experienced and successful teacher of at least
five years' standing and held a first-class certificate from some
college, school, or board of examination in some other pro-
vince or country where a public school system had been in
operation. The lieutenant-governor in council was given
power to create school districts in addition to those already
in existence, provided that no school district should be
created in which there were less than fifteen children of
school age — between five and fifteen years ; to grant, on the
application of the school trustees of any district, such sums
of money as might be required to pay the salary of the
teacher, and to defray the cost of erecting the schoolhouse,
the cost of all furniture and apparatus necessary for the use
of the school, and also the incidental expenses connected with
the school ; and to grant such sum as might be deemed proper
to aid in the establishment of a school in any section of the
province not a school district in which there were not less than
seven and not more than fourteen children of school age.
It was the duty of the board of education to meet at
least once in every three months ; to adopt all lawful means
in its power to advance the interests of the public schools ;
to prescribe a uniform series of text-books and to authorize
the purchase and distribution of these books among the
different public schools ; to make rules and regulations for
the conduct of the schools ; and to examine and give certi-
ficates of qualification to the teachers. These certificates
were to be of three classes : a first-class ^certificate, valid until
revoked by the board of education ; a second-class certificate,
valid for three years ; and a third-class certificate, valid for
one year. The board of education was also given power
to appoint the teachers in the several school districts, to fix
424 HISTORY OF EDUCATION
their salaries, and upon good cause shown to remove them ;
to take charge of all apparatus to be used in the schools
and to distribute this among the schools on the application
of the trustees ; to establish separate schools for females
where such board might deem it expedient so to do ; and to
establish high schools in which classics, mathematics, and the
higher branches would be taught.
The duties of the superintendent of education were : to
visit each school at least once in every year ; to examine
at the time of his visit the state and condition of the school,
as regards the progress of the pupils in learning, the order
and discipline, the system of instruction pursued, and the
character and condition of the school buildings ; to persuade
and animate parents and teachers to improve the character
and efficiency of the public schools ; to see that the schools
were conducted according to the law and that no unauthorized
books were used ; to make annually a report of the actual state
of the schools of the province ; to prepare suitable forms for
making all reports ; and to investigate all complaints regard-
ing the method of conducting the election of school trustees.
Provision was also made by the act of 1872 for the elec-
tion of three school trustees in each of the several districts,
and the powers, responsibilities, and duties of these trustees
were defined at length. All public schools were to be con-
ducted on strictly non-sectarian principles. The highest
morality was to be inculcated, but no religious dogmas or
creeds were to be taught.
The first board of education appointed under this act
consisted of W. F. Tolmie, M. W. T. Drake, A. Munro, A. J.
Langley, R. Williams, and E. Marvin. John Jessop was
appointed superintendent of education. Jessop was one of
the early pioneers of the province. He was born in England
in 1829 and left his native country at the age of seventeen
and proceeded to Toronto, where at the Normal School he
secured his teacher's certificate in 1855. After serving for
some years as a teacher in Ontario Jessop left for British
Columbia, taking the Hudson's Bay Company's route through
Fort William to Winnipeg. With a party of seven others
he walked from Winnipeg to the Rocky Mountains, which he
EDUCATION SINCE CONFEDERATION 425
crossed at Boundary Pass. Late in the year 1859 he reached
Victoria. The next year he visited Cariboo and engaged in
gold-mining there, but was unsuccessful. He returned to
Victoria in 1862 and opened a private school. At the time
of his appointment on April 18, 1872, he was principal of the
Boys' Central School.
School affairs were now placed on a sound basis for the
first time in the history of the province. There was the
permanent board of education, consisting of six members
acting under authority of the Public School Act, and their
superintendent of education, or executive officer. There
was also the fund of forty thousand dollars upon which the
board of education could draw for the payment of the salaries
of the teachers, the erection and repair of the schoolhouses,
and the payment of the incidental expenses of the several
school districts. From 1872 to the present time (1913) we
have an uninterrupted series of annual reports submitted
by the superintendents to the legislatures in which will be
found compiled the school statistics of the respective years
to which they refer.
In the superintendent's first report, for the year ending
July 31, 1872, we read that, although only three months had
elapsed since the appointment of the board of education, yet
seventeen regular meetings for the transaction of business
had been held. Rules and regulations for the government
of public schools and rules for the examination of public
school teachers had been adopted ; sixteen certificates of
qualification had been issued to school teachers after examina-
tion ; seven candidates had failed, seven certificates had
been granted on diplomas and certificates submitted to, and
approved by, the board ; but third-class certificates only
had been issued.
Schools in the following districts had been in operation
during at least part of the year ending July 31,1872 : Victoria
City and District, Esquimalt, Craigflower, Metchosin, Sooke,
Cedar Hill, Lake, Saanich, South Cowichan, North Cowichan,
Salt Spring Island, Nanaimo, Comox, New Westminster,
Langley, Yale, Chilliwack, Granville, Sumas, Clinton, and
Hope.
426 HISTORY OF EDUCATION
The superintendent reported the number of pupils attend-
ing the public schools from which returns had been received
at 399 5 from districts that had not sent in returns at 115 ;
leaving 1244 not attending the public schools. There were
about 350 children attending the several private and de-
nominational schools. More than 900 children did not attend
any school, of whom some 200 lived in the upper country out
of reach of schools of any kind.
Of the sixteen teachers engaged in the schools of the
province twelve were English, two Canadian and two Ameri-
can. Eight held certificates from the board of education
and eight were teaching under temporary arrangements.
The highest salary was one hundred dollars, and the lowest
forty dollars, a month.
There were in the province twelve schoolhouses that
might be regarded as public property, nine of which were
wooden or frame buildings and three log buildings. Only six
schools were properly furnished with maps, four were partially
furnished, while six were without maps of any kind. In all
the schools there was a great lack of blackboards.
The superintendent then proceeded to introduce to the
favourable consideration of the government a scheme of his
own to meet the educational needs of the province east of the
Cascades. He recommended the erection of a large central
building near Cache Creek capable of accommodating one
hundred pupils, both male and female. The schoolhouse
was to consist of a large schoolroom thirty by thirty feet,
kitchen, teachers' rooms, bedrooms, and two large dor-
mitories, one thirty by thirty feet and the other eighteen by
thirty feet. The boys and girls were to have no communi-
cation with each other, either during meal or study hours.
The teaching staff was to consist of two married men with
their wives, all to be competent teachers. The salaries were
to be fifteen hundred dollars, with board and lodging, for
each couple. One of the teachers selected was to be a man
with some knowledge of medicine, who, with an experienced
nurse for matron, would be quite competent to treat most of
the ailments incident to childhood.
It may be of interest to recite the further history of this
EDUCATION SINCE CONFEDERATION 427
school. The building was erected in 1873 at the junction of
Cache Creek with the Bonaparte River, and was formally
opened on June 2, 1874. Eighteen pupils of both sexes were
then enrolled, a number which rapidly increased to thirty-six.
In fact, the superintendent reported that the success of the
boarding-school experiment was already beyond doubt. It
was the settled conviction of almost every person in the upper
country that there was no other feasible method of bringing
educational facilities within reach of the widely scattered
families in the interior. He went on to say that the success
of the school was so assured that he felt no hesitation in
recommending that a sum of money should be placed in the
estimates of the next year for the erection of another building
near Soda Creek.
The schoolhouse at Cache Creek was soon too small for
the numbers desirous of entering it, and it was decided to
enlarge it so as to double its capacity. This was effected by
extending the front of the original building in a southerly
direction towards Cache Creek sufficiently far to form a new
and larger schoolroom with a dormitory for boys on the second
floor. The old schoolroom was converted into a dining-room.
The superintendent hoped that this arrangement would also
result in the sexes being kept more apart than they had
hitherto been. But alas for the vanity of human wishes !
In a letter to the provincial secretary, written on July 7,
1876, the superintendent reported that the ex-principal of the
school could not be prevailed upon to hand in his accounts;
that instead of obtaining a full and businesslike financial
statement, he could only gather from the neglected and in-
complete books that the liabilities of the school amounted
to more than $2200, while the assets made up a total of only
$1300. He added that the building, which was so well pro-
vided with every requisite two years before, was now almost
destitute of kitchen and dining-room furniture, and that the
great amount of breakage of crockery, lamps, lamp chimneys,
table forks, etc., must have been the result of carelessness on
the part of the authorities in charge. The entire building
had a dilapidated and neglected appearance. The attend-
ance, which in June 1875 was forty-four, had fallen to fifteen
VOL. XXII F
428 HISTORY OF EDUCATION
in May 1876, and the moral reputation of the establishment
had suffered grievously. As usual, a convenient scapegoat
had to be found. The superintendent declared that the re-
putation of the institution had been nearly ruined and its
financial condition brought to the verge of bankruptcy by
the inability of the secretary-treasurer to attend properly to
the duties of his office. It would have been more reasonable
to attribute its failure to the inexperience in business matters
of the principal of the school and to the dangerous experi-
ment of housing under one roof forty-four boys and girls,
some of them of mature age.
During the session of 1876 a select committee of the
house, appointed to inquire into the condition of the Cache
Creek boarding-school, reported that it was advisable that
boys and girls should not be educated in the same establish-
ment ; that the children should not be required to perform
menial duties ; that no balls or political meetings should be
held in the school building ; that the teacher should super-
intend the conduct of the scholars out of school hours ; that
the boys should be presided over by a master and a matron
who were husband and wife ; and that the girls' school should
be presided over by a mistress, and if necessary by a matron
in addition. But the usefulness of the institution was gone.
The Colonist of April 20, 1877, contains an item to the effect
that the boarding-house principle of the Cache Creek school
should be discontinued and the school converted into an
ordinary day school if the number of children in attendance
was sufficient to comply with the law, a suggestion which was
carried into effect a few years later. Thus ended the career
of an institution which with proper supervision might have
solved the problem of educating the children in the sparsely
settled districts of the upper country.
In the meantime the other school districts of the province
were making substantial progress. On February 21, 1873, the
government passed certain amendments to the act of 1872,
giving to school trustees the power under certain restrictions
of forcing parents and guardians of children from seven to
fourteen years of age to send their children to school. The
trustees were also given authority to appoint from among
EDUCATION SINCE CONFEDERATION 429
those persons properly qualified the teachers of their respective
schools, and with the consent of a majority of the board of
education to dismiss these teachers.
In his report for 1874-75 Superintendent Jessop observed
that, through the liberality of the government, a large public
school building in Victoria was fast approaching completion.
This building was situated on the west end of the valuable
school reserve of ten acres lying at the head of Yates Street
and View Street and was within easy reach of almost every
family within the city limits. The reproach which the capital
of the province had endured for years with respect to the
scantiness and inconvenience of the public school accom-
modation would be entirely removed ; for when the above-
mentioned building was completed in all its details it would
be far superior to anything of the kind on the Pacific coast.
It was true that some of the schoolhouses in San Francisco
were more pretentious in appearance, but none of them had
such extensive and beautiful grounds or such magnificent
views of city, country, and surrounding waters.
The first competitive examinations for entrance to a high
school were held in twenty-one of the public schools during
the spring and early summer of 1876. Of the total number of
one hundred and sixty candidates only sixty-eight passed,
and of this number more than three-fourths were from the
Victoria schools. Of the ninety candidates belonging to
schools outside Victoria only fourteen were successful. From
the schools of the province outside Victoria, Cedar Hill, and
North Cowichan, only five pupils succeeded in gaining ad-
mission. The first set of high school entrance papers con-
tained questions on arithmetic, English grammar, spelling,
and geography.
During the session of 1876 an act was passed to amend
and consolidate the public school acts already passed by the
legislature, the chief innovation being that authority was
given to the lieutenant-governor in council to appoint a
deputy superintendent of education. It was also enacted
that no clergyman of any denomination should be eligible
for the position of superintendent, deputy-superintendent,
teacher or trustee.
430 HISTORY OF EDUCATION
On April 27, 1876, the Elliott government introduced the
famous School Tax Bill, being an act to provide for the main-
tenance of public schools in the province. Premier Elliott,
who introduced it, stated that the government had been asked
to give the bill another name owing to the hostility aroused
by it among the Roman Catholic section of the community,
but that he felt he could not be guilty of such a subterfuge.
The most important section of the act provided that every
male person above eighteen years of age resident in the pro-
vince should pay an annual tax of three dollars for the support
of the public schools.
The Roman Catholic residents protested against the bill
most vigorously. They declared that the so-called unsect-
arian school system was a flagrant violation of conscience,
but that the Catholic portion of the community had reluct-
antly submitted to a general system of taxation, a portion of
which was set apart for the support of the so-called un-
sectarian schools. But now that it was intended to levy a
special school tax they viewed with distrust and alarm a
measure which they deprecated as both unjust and oppres-
sive. A system of education, they averred, could never be
unsectarian. If it excluded the profession of Christianity,
it was anti-Christian ; if it did not comprise the belief in
God, it was godless and atheistic ; if it included the reading
of the Protestant version of the Bible, it was Protestant.
They prayed, therefore, that the Catholic portion of the com-
munity should not be included in the School Tax Act.
In spite of all opposition the bill passed into law by a vote
of seventeen to six. In after years the title of the act was
changed. It is now known under the name of the Revenue
Tax Act and its original connection with the school system
of the province is well-nigh forgotten.
Superintendent Jessop had administered the School Act
with indefatigable industry. But his enemies were numerous
and unscrupulous. Moreover, the Elliott government had
been defeated, and the Walkem administration, which suc-
ceeded, reduced his salary from $2000 to $750 per annum.
He promptly resigned on August 26, 1878, and his resignation
was shortly afterward followed by that of the full board of
EDUCATION SINCE CONFEDERATION 431
education. He was succeeded by Colin C. McKenzie, a
graduate of Cambridge University and at the time of his
appointment the principal of the Boys' Central School
of Victoria. He held the position of superintendent until
April I, 1884, and after his retirement was elected, in 1890,
to represent Nanaimo in the provincial legislature.
Under Superintendent Jessop the total expenditure on
the schools had increased from $25,435 in 1872 to $43,334 in
1878 ; the enrolment of pupils from 1028 to 2198 ; the average
daily attendance from 575 to 1395 ; and the percentage of
regular attendance from 55 to 63. In 1872 the expenditure
on the public schools was 5*9 per cent of the total expenditure
of the province, while in 1878 the school expenses had risen to
97 per cent of the total provincial expenditure. The highest
salary paid any teacher in 1878 was $125 per month, the
lowest $20 per month, there having been two teachers em-
ployed during the year at the latter figure. The average
monthly salary of all teachers employed was $59.14.
At its session in February 1879 the government revoked
all previous education acts and in lieu thereof passed the
Public School Act, 1879, by which certain provisions of the
old act were abolished, others modified, and certain new pro-
visions added. Under the new act of 1879 tne board of
education ceased to exist, the duties formerly belonging to
that board being now transferred to the superintendent of
education. This official was given power to prescribe text-
books, to make rules and regulations, to establish separate
schools for females, and to close schools having an average
attendance of less than ten. Trustees were granted power
to dismiss teachers by giving them thirty days' notice of
dismissal, instead of, as formerly, by obtaining the consent
of the board of education. High schools were now placed
under control of the local board of trustees, instead of, as
formerly, under the board of education. The act of 1879
contained also certain new provisions such as : for the
appointment by the lieutenant-governor in council of paid
examiners to examine teachers and grant certificates of
qualification to teach ; for the temporary appointment of a
paid inspector to visit schools and report on them ; for the
432 HISTORY OF EDUCATION
granting by the superintendent of temporary certificates ;
for the teacher's furnishing monthly information to the
superintendent respecting his school ; for the teacher's
furnishing monthly information to parents respecting each
of their children attending school ; and for the teacher's
giving thirty days' notice to the trustees of his intention to
resign.
Rules and regulations for the government of the schools
were revised and modernized ; a series of regulations issued
for the examination of public school teachers ; and the subjects
of examination for each class and grade of certificate set
forth. In fact the Public School Act, 1879, with the Rules
and Regulations issued shortly afterwards, remains, with
some important amendments, the School Act of the present
day.
McKenzie resigned his position as superintendent of
education during the early months of 1884, and he was suc-
ceeded on April I of that year by S. D. Pope. Pope had
formerly been principal of the Victoria High School, but for
several years immediately before his appointment as super-
intendent had been teaching with much success one of the
rural schools in Saanich. He was a graduate of Queen's
College, Kingston, and obtained his B.A. degree in 1861 with
honours in classics and mathematics. Before coming to
British Columbia he had taught in the schools of Oregon.
Pope held the office of superintendent until April I, 1899,
when he resigned, being succeeded by the present incumbent
on the loth of the same month.
Prior to 1888 the entire cost of maintaining the public
schools, including teachers' salaries, incidental expenses, the
erection of new schoolhousea and repair of old buildings,
was met directly from the provincial treasury. Since 1888
it has been the settled policy of the successive governments
to throw on the several municipalities and school districts
an ever-increasing proportion of the cost of education.
Thus in 1888 the municipal councils of the four coast cities
— Victoria, Vancouver, Nanaimo, and New Westminster —
were required to pay one-third of the salaries of all the
teachers employed in their schools, a proportion which in
EDUCATION SINCE CONFEDERATION 433
1891 was increased to one-half. The cost of erecting new
schools, paying the incidental expenses, repairing old build-
ings, etc., was in 1891 for the first time thrown upon the four
coast municipalities. In 1893 the trustees of these four cities
secured the right of fixing the salaries of teachers in their
employment, a privilege formerly exercised exclusively by
the executive. The government assisted these city schools
by a per capita grant of ten dollars, based on the average
actual daily attendance of public school pupils. In 1901 all
the city school districts in the province were required to
provide for their respective schools, the assistance from the
government being limited to per capita grants of thirteen
dollars, fifteen dollars, and twenty dollars, graduated accord-
ing to the school population of the various cities. In the
act of 1905, amended in 1906, a further extension of the prin-
ciple is to be noted. Rural municipalities and rural school
districts were now required to pay a part of the cost of educa-
tion within their respective limits. By that act the basis of
the per capita grant was changed, and the government grant
was regulated according to the number of teachers employed.
At the present time (1913), therefore, the provincial aid con-
sists merely in the payment of part of the cost of the teachers'
salaries, but in no case is this government grant more than
$580 for any individual teacher. The salaries of teachers
employed in the ' assisted ' schools and in those of the Esqui-
malt and Nanaimo Railway Belt (about 225 teachers in all)
are still paid in full by the provincial treasury. The govern-
ment, besides, still pays the cost of erecting the first school-
house in those rural school districts as yet unprovided with
a building.
The question of providing for secondary education early
occupied the attention of the government. The first high
school established in the province was opened in Victoria in
1876. Eight years afterward a similar institution was estab-
lished in New Westminster. During 1886 a high school was
opened in Nanaimo and in 1890 another was granted to Van-
couver. High schools are now in operation in Armstrong, Chilli-
wack, Cumberland, Duncan, Golden, Grand Forks, Kamloops,
Kaslo, Kelowna, Ladysmith, Nanaimo, Nelson, New West-
434 HISTORY OF EDUCATION
minster, Peachland, Pen tic ton, Revelstoke, Rossland, Salmon
Arm, Summerland, Vancouver (North), Vernon, and Victoria.
These high schools are under the control of the local boards
of school trustees of the respective cities and rural munici-
palities. A high school cannot be established in any district
in which there are less than twenty pupils who have passed
the departmental high school entrance examination. The
course of study corresponds largely with that of high schools
in the other provinces.
In January 1901 a provincial normal school was opened
in Vancouver under the principalship of William Burns.
The new building was formally opened in January 1910.
The staff consists of six teachers. About one hundred and
sixty pupil-teachers are in attendance.
The staff of inspectors consists of twelve members, a high
school inspector residing at Victoria and eleven public school
inspectors stationed at various important cities throughout the
province. There are, besides, municipal inspectors in charge
of the schools of Vancouver, Victoria, New Westminster, and
South Vancouver. The general inspectors are appointed by
the provincial executive, the municipal inspectors by the
school boards of the respective cities and rural municipalities.
A free text-book system was adopted in 1908. At first
it included only the common and graded schools, but has
since been extended to the high schools. In both instances
only the chief text-books needed by pupils are supplied.
From year to year, however, the list of free text-books has
been increased, and it is probable that all the authorized
text-books will eventually be supplied. The cost, including
distribution, amounts to about sixty thousand dollars a year.
The gradual growth of the schools, as well as the cost to
the government of maintaining them, is fully shown by the
record of attendance and expenditure given in the following
table :
EDUCATION SINCE CONFEDERATION 435
COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF ATTENDANCE AND COST OF
PUBLIC SCHOOLS FROM 1872-73 TO 1910-11
Year
Number
of School
Districts
Aggregate
Enrolment
Average
actual daily
Attendance
Percentage
of
Attendance
Expenditure
for Education
proper
1872-73
25
1,028
575
55*93
$36,763.77
1873-74
37
1,245
767
6 1 -60
35,287.59
1874-75
41
1,403
863
61-51
34,822.28
1875-76
41
1,685
984
58'39
44,506.II
1876-77
42
1,998
,260
63-06
47,129.63
1877-78
45
2,198
,395*5o
63*49
43,334.01
1878-79
45
2,301
,315*90
57-19
22, 1 10. 70*
1879-80
47
2,462
,293'93
52*56
47,006.10
1 880-8 1
48
2,57i
,366-86
53'i6
46,960.69
I88I-82
5o
2,653
,358-68
51*21
49,268.63
1882-83
59
2,693
,383-00
5i'36
50,850.63
1883-84
67
3,42o
,808-60
52*88
66,654.15
1884-85
76
4,027
2,08974
51*89
71,151.52
1885-86
86
4,471
2,481-48
55-50
79,527.56
1886-87
95
5,345
2,873*38
5375
88,521.08
1887-88
104
6,372
3,093*46
48'54
99,902.04
1888-89
109
6,796
3,681-14
54-16
108,190.59
1889-90
123
8,042
4,333*90
53-89
122,984.83
1890-91
141
9,260
5,i34*9i
55-45
136,901.73
1891-92
154
io,773
6,227*10
57-8o
160,627.80
1892-93
169
11,496
7,111-40
61-85
190,558.33
1893-94
178
12,613
7,785*50
6172
169,050.18
1894-95
183
13,482
8,610-31
63-86
189,037.25
1895-96
193
14,469
9,254*25
64*00
204,930.32
1896-97
199
15,798
9,999-61
63*29
22O,8l0.38
1897-98
213
17,648
11,055-65
62-64
247,756.37
1898-99
224
19,185
12,304-32
64-13
268,653.46
1899-1900
231
2i,53i
i3,438'4i
62*41
284,909.10
I900-I
245
23,615
15,098-28
63*93
312,187.17
I90I-2
257
23,903
15,564-25
65-11
365,492.15
1902-3
268
24,499
i6,357'43
66*76
397,003.46
1903-4
252t
25,787
17,060-93
66*16
414,383.43
1904-5
248t
27,354
18,859-41
68*94
433,005.17
1905-6
257t
28,522
19,506-23
68*39
418,227.97
1906-7
i67|
30,039
20,017*02
66-63
407,937.85
1907-8
189
33,314
23,195*27
69-62
464,473.78
1908-9
197
36,227
25,350-63
69*97
532,809.84
1909-10
211
39,822
28,094*16
70-54
612,052.74
I9IO-II
211
45,125
32,163*24
71-27
7l5,733-59
I9II-I2 .
328
50,170
37,567-88
74-88
876,415.08
* Half-year.
t Including only those in which a school was in operation during the year.
£ The consolidation of school districts by the formation of rural municipality
districts has reduced the number from 257 in 1905-6 to 167 in 1906-7.
436 HISTORY OF EDUCATION
To the above must be added the cost of erecting new
buildings and repairing old ones as well as the additional
amounts paid by the cities, rural municipalities, and rural
school districts to supplement the government grants. Thus
for the year 1911-12, for example, the cost to the government
of education proper was $876,415.08, the cost of erecting
new buildings $275,299.62, making the total amount ex-
pended by the provincial government $1,151,714.70. In
addition to this amount the cities, rural municipalities, and
rural school districts expended $2,730,773.77, making the
grand total cost of education for that year $3,882,488.47.
THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
As early as 1877 Superintendent Jessop had pointed out
the necessity of taking steps to establish a provincial uni-
versity in which the youth of the country might receive a
higher education that would fit them for their various voca-
tions in life. At that date, and for many years afterward,
the question was purely an academic one. It was not until
1890 that the government attempted to pass legislation
dealing with the establishment of a provincial university.
In that year an act was passed, entitled the British Columbia
University Act, which provided that all graduates of univer-
sities who had resided in the province two months previous
to the passing of the act should constitute the first convoca-
tion, and that this convocation should meet within four
months thereafter. The act provided for the appointment
by the lieutenant-governor in council of a chancellor and
vice-chancellor. The senate was to be composed of the
chancellor, vice-chancellor, seven members to be elected by
convocation, and the following other members : three mem-
bers to be appointed by the lieutenant-governor in council ;
one representative member from each of the four cities of
Victoria, Vancouver, New Westminster, and Nanaimo, ap-
pointed by the representative municipal councils of these
four cities ; the speaker of the legislative assembly ; one
member elected by the teachers' institute ; one member
from the medical council ; one representative from the law
EDUCATION SINCE CONFEDERATION 437
society ; the principal and professors of the university ;
and the superintendent of education. There were to be
in the university four faculties : a faculty of arts and science,
of medicine, of law, and of applied science and engineering.
The university was to be strictly non-sectarian. Women
were to be admitted to all the advantages and privileges
accorded to other students of the university.
The first convocation was held in Victoria on August
26, 1890. The provincial secretary, John Robson, presided,
and there were present seventy duly certified members of
convocation : twenty- three from Victoria, twenty-four from
Vancouver, sixteen from New Westminster, and seven from
other points in the province. Three members of senate were
elected, and convocation then proceeded to discuss certain
amendments to the act which it was proposed to introduce
at the next legislative session. But even at this initial
meeting it was evident that it would be impossible for con-
vocation to effect anything of importance. The unfortunate
jealousy between Mainland and Island rendered futile all
efforts to establish the university on a satisfactory basis.
By section 17 of the act as amended in 1891 it was enacted
that a meeting of the senators of the university should be
held within one month after their election by convocation.
The senators had been elected on June 2, 1891, and the
chancellor, Dr I. W. Powell, of Victoria, issued circulars
calling a meeting of the senate for July 2. On that date
there was no quorum, and a week's adjournment was pro-
posed to enable the senators from the Mainland to attend.
How a meeting that had no existence could adjourn was a
puzzle to some of the senators from the Island, and it was
maintained by many that a meeting of the senate not having
been held within the time specified, the powers conferred by
the act had lapsed. The question was referred by the chan-
cellor to the attorney-general, who gave it as his opinion that
the senate having failed to meet on July 2, no question could
be decided fixing an adjournment to a future date, and that
no further questions could therefore be dealt with by the
senate. Such was the untimely end of the first University
Act.
438 HISTORY OF EDUCATION
In 1896 an important amendment was made to the School
Act whereby the boards of school trustees of the four coast
cities were allowed to petition to obtain charters of incor-
poration as boards of governors of their respective high schools
in order that they might be in a position to affiliate these
high schools with eastern Canadian universities. Under this
important concession, which was obtained largely through
the untiring zeal of A. H. B. Macgowan of the Vancouver
school board, the high schools of Vancouver and of Victoria
became affiliated with McGill College, an affiliation which
was extended and confirmed by an act passed in 1906 to
incorporate the Royal Institution for the Advancement of
Learning of British Columbia. Under this act, amended in
1907, power was granted the Royal Institution to establish,
at such places in British Columbia as McGill University
might designate, colleges for the higher education of men
and women. The Royal Institution at once entered into
negotiation with the school boards of Vancouver and Victoria,
and the university classes in these two cities were transferred
to the control of the Royal Institution. The instruction given
to students of the colleges preparing for degrees is of a similar
standard to that given in like subjects at McGill University
in Montreal, while the courses of study and the examina-
tions leading to degrees are such as are prescribed by the cor-
poration of the same university. An immense impetus was
given to the cause of higher education by this important act.
In Vancouver undergraduates under capable instructors are
taking up the work of the first, second, and third years in
arts and the first and second years in applied science, while
the classes in Victoria embrace those of the first and second
years in arts. For the year ending June 30, 1912, there were
enrolled at Vancouver 174 students and at Victoria 28, or
202 in all. The expenses of conducting these university classes
are met by grants from the provincial government, from the
respective boards of school trustees, and by voluntary con-
tributions from public-spirited citizens.
In the meantime steps were taken by the Honourable
Dr Young, the minister of Education, to establish the Uni-
versity of British Columbia. In 1907 an act was passed
EDUCATION SINCE CONFEDERATION 439
setting apart by way of university endowment lands in
the province not exceeding two millions of acres in extent,
and during the session of 1908 another act was passed to
establish and incorporate a university for the Province of
British Columbia. The university consists of a chancellor,
convocation, board of governors, senate, and the faculties of
the several schools of instruction. The chancellor is elected
by the members of convocation, and the first convocation
consists of all graduates of any university in His Majesty's
dominions resident in the province two years prior to the date
fixed for the first meeting, as well as of twenty-five members
selected by the lieutenant-governor in council. The board
of governors consists of the chancellor, the president of the
university, and nine persons appointed by the lieutenant-
governor in council. The senate is composed of the minister
of Education, the chancellor, the president, the deans and
professors, three members to be appointed by the lieutenant-
governor in council, the superintendent of education and
principals of the normal schools, one member elected by the
high school teachers, one member elected by the teachers'
institute, and fifteen members elected by convocation from
among its members. It was further provided that the
university is to be non-sectarian and that instruction is to
be free to all students in the arts classes.
Under authority of legislation passed in 1910 by the
provincial parliament, the government in April 1910 named
the special royal commission empowered to select a site for
the provincial university. The personnel of the commission,
whose decision as to site was final, consisted of Dr R. C.
Weldon, dean of the Law School, Dalhousie University ; the
Rev. Canon G. Dauth, vice-rector, Laval University, Mon-
treal ; Dr Walter C. Murray, president, University of Sas-
katchewan ; Dr Oscar D. Skelton, professor of economics,
Queen's University ; and Dr Cecil C. Jones, chancellor of
the University of New Brunswick.
The commissioners reached Victoria in May 1910, and on
the 26th of that month held their first meeting in the govern-
ment buildings for organization and the preparation of an
itinerary. Then followed an exhaustive examination of the
440 HISTORY OF EDUCATION
province, during which they visited Nanaimo, Vancouver,
North Vancouver, New Westminster and the adjoining
districts, Chilliwack, Kamloops, Vernon and the Okanagan
Valley, Revelstoke, Nelson, and Prince Rupert. On June 28
the commission met in Victoria and prepared the following
unanimous report :
VICTORIA, ~B.C.t/une 28, 1910.
To His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor in Council :
SIR, — The University Site Commission begs to submit
the following report : —
In accordance with the provisions of the ' University
Site Commission Act, 1910,' your Commissioners have
visited and made a careful examination of the several
cities and rural districts in the province suggested as suit-
able University sites, and have selected as the location
for the University the vicinity of the City of Vancouver.
Accompanying the main report was the following supple-
mentary report :
The University Site Commissioners are strongly of
the opmion that the University should not be placed
on a site which may in time be completely surrounded
by a city. They respectfully suggest that not less than
250 acres be set apart for the University campus and
700 acres for experimental purposes in agriculture and
forestry. This is exclusive of a forest reserve for forestry
operations on a large scale.
The Commissioners are of the opinion that the most
suitable site is at Point Grey, unless the soils there and
those of the delta land adjacent are found to be un-
suitable for the experimental work of the College of
Agriculture. Should Point Grey prove impossible the
Commissioners suggest : first, a site along the shore
west of North Vancouver, provided the tunnel and
bridge are constructed ; second, St Mary's Hill over-
looking the Pitt, Eraser and Coquitlam Rivers, pro-
vided residences are erected for the students. Central
Park, though conveniently situated, will probably be sur-
rounded by the cities of Vancouver and New Westminster,
and because of this and of the absence of outstanding
scenic advantages is undesirable.
While the Commissioners are firmly convinced that
EDUCATION SINCE CONFEDERATION 441
it is of the highest importance to have all the faculties
of the University doing work of University grade located
together, they believe that the diverse conditions of
agriculture in this Province make it advisable to divide
the work of agricultural education between the College
of Agriculture at the University and Schools of Agri-
culture of secondary grade located in different centres.
The College of Agriculture should conduct researches,
provide courses leading to a degree, and supervise the ex-
tension work and Schools of Agriculture. These schools
should be established in conjunction with the Demon-
stration Farms in typical centres, and should provide
short courses (extending over the winter months) of
two or three years for the sons of farmers. Each school
might specialize in one or more branches, such as horti-
culture, dairying, etc.
Similarly, Technical Evening Schools might be opened
in the different coal-mining centres for the preparation
of candidates for mining certificates, and in the metal-
mining districts for the assistance of prospectors and
others.
The Commissioners have been greatly impressed by
the marvellous richness, variety, and extent of the
natural resources of this Province, and by the very
generous provision made for the endowment of the
University ; and they are of the opinion that if the
University adopts a policy of offering salaries ranging
from $3800 to $5000 to its professors, it will attract
men of the highest ability, wno, by their scientific in-
vestigations and outstanding reputations, will not only
materially aid in developing the resources of the Pro-
vince, but will also place the University on an equality
with the best universities in America.
In the autumn of 1910 the executive, after careful re-
examination of the three proposed sites, finally decided to
locate the university at Point Grey. During the session of
1911 an act was passed authorizing the lieutenant-governor
in council to grant some two hundred acres of land at Point
Grey as a site for the university. Contracts for clearing and
grubbing the site have already been let, and it is hoped that
the first building will be completed and university classes
organized in the autumn of 1915.
442 HISTORY OF EDUCATION
The first meeting of convocation was held in the assembly
room of the South Park School, Victoria, on August 21, 1912.
The Honourable F. L. Carter-Cotton, the representative of
Richmond Riding in the legislature, was elected chancellor
of the university, and the following were chosen as members
of the senate : Dr R. E. McKechnie, Judge Howay, N.
Wolverton, J. S. Gordon, Mrs J. W. deB. Farris, F. C. Wade,
W. P. Argue, Dr W. D. Brydone-Jack, J. M. Turnbull, E. W.
Sawyer, Mrs M. R. Watt, C. D. Rand, Chief Justice Hunter,
J. M. Pearson, and E. P. Davis.
The government had in the meantime been engaged in
securing information that would enable it to choose a suitable
president for the university. The minister of Education in
the early part of the session of 1913 announced that the
executive's choice had fallen on Dr F. F. Wesbrook, a dis-
tinguished graduate of Manitoba University who had pursued
his post-graduate studies at some of the larger universities
of England and Germany. Dr Wesbrook brings to the dis-
charge of his duties a ripe scholarship, a pleasing personality,
and an invaluable experience of university work in all its
phases acquired while serving as dean of the medical faculty
of the University of Minnesota.
NOTE. — Information for this article on Education has been obtained by con-
sulting Bancroft's History of British Columbia ; Begg's History of British Columbia ;
Gosnell's Year Books ; the Annual Reports of the superintendents of education ;
the files of the Colonist from 1858 ; and especially the Journals of the British
Columbia House of Assembly. Special thanks are due to His Honour Judge
Howay, of New Westminster, who furnished the author with much information
regarding the history of Education on the Mainland.
THE FISHERIES
VOL. XXII
THE FISHERIES
I
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND
THE FISHERIES
A THOUGH the coast-line of British Columbia is en-
tirely comprised between the 49th and 55th parallels,
its sinuosities have been reckoned at over twenty
thousand miles in extent, or, taking account of but the
major indentations, seven thousand miles in extent as against
five thousand for the Atlantic coast-line of the Dominion.
The mainland is deeply indented with hundreds of fiords of
great length ; the waters of these fiords are deep, and to
them nature has offered effective shelter in opposing to the
winds and storms of the Pacific a barrier in the series of
archipelagoes included in the Vancouver Island and Queen
Charlotte Island groups. The area of waters so enclosed,
comprising the great gulfs, straits, fiords, inlets and canals,
termed by mariners the Inner Passage, embraces the 'most
extensive spawning and feeding grounds in the world for
halibut, herring and numerous other food fishes.' *
From fifty to one hundred miles west of the main islands
of these archipelagoes the continental shelf drops off to
extreme depths, but from that margin inward and eastward
the ocean bed forms a plateau at from twenty to two hundred
fathoms ; this plateau forms the great feeding and spawning
banks for many varieties of fish.
Ocean currents and tidal drifts have an important in-
fluence upon fish and the food of fish. The North Pacific or
1 Dr E. H. Prince, ' British Columbia Fish and Fisheries,' in the Pacific
Fisherman, January 1906, p. 31.
445
446 THE FISHERIES
Japanese current, striking in easterly along the 5Oth parallel,
divides as it reaches the continental shelf, one branch sweep-
ing north, to be turned due west again where that shelf runs
out once more into the Aleutian Archipelago ; the other
branch flows south as the California current, and forms a
settled drift about fifty-five miles west of the Vancouver
Island shore. These currents play to the coastal waters of
British Columbia a part exactly similar to that of the Gulf
Stream in its relation to the North Sea, whose limited waters
have proved so rich in fish life as to feed for centuries a large
portion of the population of North- Western Europe.
While nature has formed an ideal spawning and feeding
ground for fish in these central waters, another notable fact
is that the chief rivers of the Pacific take their rise in the
watersheds of the province — the Eraser, the Skeena, and
the Nass flowing entirely through Canadian territory ; the
Columbia and the Stikine taking their rise within, while they
debouch beyond, its boundaries. This is, of course, closely
correlated with the fact that the network of lakes which form
the sources of these great rivers are, with the exception of the
Great Lakes, the largest on the continent.
The importance of these latter facts in their relation to
estuary fishing must be regarded. It has been largely the
richness of the estuary fishing that has prevented or delayed
the exploitation of the equally rich waters that wash the
coasts of the province. It was the ease with which the salmon
were taken in these straitened passes that diverted attention
from the fisheries of the ocean.
While British Columbia is beginning to recognize the value
of its fisheries, it is true also that the earliest industry, the
fur trade, was largely possible because the rivers of the terri-
tory afforded abundant food for the Indians, half-breeds, and
whites who pursued the fur-bearing animals. A glance at
the journals of any post of the Hudson's Bay Company
will reveal the extent to which dried salmon were relied on
to sustain the employees during the year. Thus, chiefly
because the salmon or estuary fishing was the most accessible,
the history of British Columbia fisheries has been largely
that of the salmon fisheries.
FISHERIES LEGISLATION 447
As early as 1825, however, it is apparent that the pro-
spective value of the fisheries of the North Pacific was recog-
nized by the respective governments of Great Britain and
Russia, for in a treaty between these two nations, known
as the Convention of 1825, there is an indirect reference
to this.1
Beyond an occasional expedition to northern rivers for
salmon when the supply ran short in southern waters, Russian
territory was in little danger of receiving many visits from
fishing vessels of the young British colony.
Although three schooners from Victoria accompanied an
American fleet from Port Townsend in 1864 to engage in
cod-fishing off the Shumagin Islands, few records remain that
show any great activity in the exploitation of this source of
food supply.
II
FISHERIES LEGISLATION
I ^HE early journals of the Hudson's Bay Company and
X the records of the different posts throughout the
province refer annually to the dried salmon obtained
as food for their hunters, but reference is made to no other
variety of fish. In 1863 it was apparently found necessary
to protect the fisheries of the lakes of the province, since
one section of the game act of that year prohibits netting
any of these waters. It is probable, however, that such
action was taken by the authorities of the colony through
anxiety to prevent the trout with which the lakes teemed
from being taken in an unsportsmanlike manner, rather than
from any fear that too great a commercial exploitation was
threatened.
1 ' In order to prevent the Right of navigating and fishing, exercised upon the
Ocean by the Subjects of the High Contracting Parties from becoming the Pretext
for an illicit Commerce, it is agreed that the Subjects of His Britannic Majesty
shall not land at any Place where there may be a Russian Establishment, without
the permission of the Governor or Commandant ; and, on the other hand, that
Russian Subjects shall not land, without permission, at any British Establishment
on the North-West Coast.' — Convention between Great Britain and Russia, 1825
448 THE FISHERIES
No further reference to the fisheries is contained in any
legislation of the colony of British Columbia. The terms of
the union upon which British Columbia, in 1871, entered
the confederacy of the Dominion of Canada, over and
above the provisions of the British North America Act,
which defined the charges which should devolve upon the
federal government, placed upon the Dominion the obliga-
tion to defray the charges for ' Protection and Encourage-
ment of Fisheries.'
The respective powers granted the provinces of Canada
as opposed to those of the Dominion by the British North
America Act were not clearly defined. In no quarter was a
clear definition of these respective powers more desired than
in British Columbia. The other provinces, however much
they might desire the actual control of the fisheries and
fishing, could not hope, were they to assume this, to throw
any of the burden of the protection and encouragement of
those fisheries, in other words, of the administration of them,
upon the Dominion, hence they approached the question
in a very different manner from that of British Columbia.
While opinions differed as to the interpretation of the re-
spective powers of the provinces and the Dominion in regard
to fisheries, the reference of the case of the Dominion of
Canada versus Ontario to the Privy Council in 1898 made
several points clear. Briefly speaking, the Council decided
that the Dominion of Canada has :
(1) Exclusive legislative jurisdiction over all matters per-
taining to ' Sea Coast and Inland Fisheries.'
(2) Exclusive competence to enact fishery regulations
and restrictions.
(3) The right to impose ' a tax by way of licence as a
condition of the right to fish.'
The legislatures of the provinces have :
(1) All proprietary rights in respect of fisheries which
they held before Confederation. This includes control of
the manner by which a private fishery is transferred or dis-
posed of, and the rights of succession in respect of it.
(2) The exclusive power to make laws in relation to
matters coming under the caption, ' Direct taxation within
FISHERIES LEGISLATION 449
the Province in order to the Raising of a Revenue for Pro-
vincial Purposes.'
This has been interpreted by the Judicial Committee of
the imperial Privy Council as empowering the provinces to
lay a tax on provincial fisheries in addition to any imposed
by the Dominion parliament.
As early as 1875 the then Dominion commissioner of
Fisheries, W. N. Whitcher, advised the extension of the
Canadian Fisheries Act to British Columbia. Prior to this,
the act, under which the fisheries in other provinces were
regulated, had no application west of the Rocky Mountains.
When the act was extended to cover the Pacific fisheries
it was found inapplicable in many ways. The inspector
appointed in 1877 reported as follows :
With regard to the provisions of the Fishery Act, at
large, there are many portions which are necessarily
inapplicable to this Province. The application, indeed,
would in some cases neutralize all fishing operations ;
for instance, of the salmon, at present the most lucrative.
I have, therefore, assumed that such portions, only, of
the Act, as are obviously of general application, with
such other portions as, on more minute inquiry, may be
found to be of particular application, shall be locally
adopted. Without, therefore, interfering captiously and
injuriously as I conceive, with existing practice, I shall
continue as hitherto, to exercise a watchful surveillance
for the common benefit ; reporting from time to time,
the result of my observations, and under your sanction,
extending such further protective portions of the law,
as may be found necessary or expedient.
The first offence to which the attention of the department
was drawn was the use of explosives in Burrard Inlet for
killing fish. The inspector, in January 1877, reported that
after visiting the inlet and making full inquiries, he found
that the practice had prevailed ; but in view of the official
notice he had received, and (as he himself stated) ' now that
the law is known, the practice has been abandoned/ This
prohibition formed section 3 of the General Fishery Regula-
tions for the province approved by His Excellency the
governor-general on July 1 8, 1889. These early regulations,
450 THE FISHERIES
indeed, consisted of only three sections : (i) Salmon ; (2)
Trout ; (3) Explosives. The following were the provisions :
Section i — Salmon
(1) Fishing by means of nets or other apparatus with-
out leases or licences from the Minister of Marine and
Fisheries under the provisions of Chapter 95, Revised
Statutes of Canada, and section 4 thereof, is prohibited
in all waters of the province of British Columbia.
Provided always, that Indians shall at all times have
liberty to fish for the purpose of providing food for them-
selves, but not for sale, barter or traffic, by any means
other than with the drift nets or spearing.
(2) Meshes of nets used for capturing salmon shall
be at least six inches extension measure, and nothing
shall be done to practically diminish their size.
(3) a. Drifting with salmon nets shall be confined to
tidal waters, and no salmon net of any kind shall be used
for salmon in fresh waters.
b. Drift nets shall not be used so as to obstruct more
than one-third of any river.
c. Fishing for salmon shall be discontinued from 6
o'clock A.M. on Saturday to 6 o'clock A.M. on the follow-
ing Monday, and during such close time no nets or other
fishing apparatus shall be set or used so as to impede
the free course of the fish, and all nets or other fishing
apparatus set or used otherwise shall be deemed to be
illegally set and shall be liable to be seized and forfeited,
and the owner or owners, or persons using the same,
shall be liable to the penalties and costs imposed by
the Fisheries Act.
(4) a. Before any salmon net, fishing boat or other
fishing apparatus shall be used, the owner or persons
interested in such net, fishing boat or fishing apparatus
shall cause a memorandum in writing setting forth the
name of the owner or persons interested, the length of
the net, boat or other fishing apparatus, and its intended
location, to be filed with the Inspector of Fisheries, who,
if no valid objection exists, may, in accordance with
instructions from the Minister of Marine and Fisheries,
issue a fishery licence for the same, but any net, fishing
boat or fishing apparatus used before such licence has
been obtained, and any net, fishing boat or fishing
FISHERIES LEGISLATION 451
apparatus used in excess or evasion of the description
contained in such licence shall be deemed illegal and
liable to forfeiture, together with the fish caught therein,
and the owner or person using the same shall be also
subject to fine and costs under the Fisheries Act.
b. All salmon nets and fishing boats shall have the
name of the owner or owners legibly marked on two pieces
of wood or metal attached to the same, and such mark
shall be preserved on such nets or fishing boats during
the fishing season in such manner as to be visible without
taking up the net or nets ; and any net or fishing boat
used without such a mark shall be liable to forfeiture.
(5) a. The ^ Minister of Marine and Fisheries shall
from time to time determine the number of boats, seines
or nets, or other fishing apparatus to be used in any
of the waters of British Columbia.
Section 2— Trout
No one shall fish for, catch or kill trout from the I5th
day of October to the I5th day of March, both days
inclusive, in each year.
Provided always that Indians may, at any time,
catch or kill trout for their own use only, but not for
the purpose of sale or traffic.
Section 3 — Explosives
The use of explosive materials to catch or kill fish is
prohibited.
These regulations were on March 14, 1890, amended in
four particulars : (i) The six-inch mesh for drift-nets was
reduced to five and three-quarter inches ; (2) a proviso
enabled the minister to order the use of a mesh larger
than five and three-quarter inches where in his opinion
it was necessary ; (3) the weekly close time was changed
to six P.M. Saturday to six P.M. Sunday ; (4) the use of
seines was prohibited throughout British Columbia. On
November 7 of the same year a prohibition of salmon seines
was legalized by regulation.
In the summer of 1890 a commission of inquiry was
authorized to investigate certain matters relating to the
452 THE FISHERIES
fishery regulations, with special reference to salmon-fishing
for canneries. The commissioner was Samuel Wilmot, who,
in August 1890, made a full investigation of the Fraser River
fisheries, visiting the seventeen canneries on the river and
obtaining the views of the leading men engaged in the in-
dustry. Wilmot's investigation resulted in further changes
in the law.
In June 1892 nine new clauses or sections were added,
limiting the number of licences to be granted to indivi-
dual fishermen, to canners, dealers and parties engaged in
freezing salmon, or in shipping them on ice or in curing
them. One provision limiting licences to resident British
subjects caused much bitter feeling, as it excluded a large
number of men who came north to the Fraser River after
the season on the Columbia and Sacramento Rivers was over.
These United States fishermen were much chagrined to find
the salmon-fishing in British Columbia confined to British
subjects. Many canners were anxious to encourage this
foreign labour, and it was publicly asserted that various
means were resorted to in order to evade the regulation.
Personation in order to obtain licences, and nefarious natural-
ization of ineligible persons were among the charges made,
and much resentment was aroused among the British fisher-
men. Grave abuses indeed continued, and to correct them
a system of registration was adopted. This brought to light
the fact that a considerable number of aliens still obtained
fishing privileges in the British Columbian salmon fisheries.
The proposed rigid enforcement of the registration scheme
and the ' resident British subjects ' requirement in 1899
caused apprehension.
The Fishing Gazette in March 1899 said
The enforcement by the Dominion government of
the law compelling all fishermen on the Fraser River to
register with the proper authority at Victoria on or
before April i is causing serious apprehension. Without
this registry they cannot fish the coming season, and
every person registering must be a British subject.
Unless this law is amended it will cut down the number
of boats from an estimate of 6000 to about 2500, for
FISHERIES LEGISLATION 453
fishermen who have gone from California and Oregon
to the Fraser River to fish cannot do so under the
present law, and this means a large cut in the 1899
pack of British Columbia.
Much dissatisfaction continued to exist among those
engaged in the salmon fisheries, and the recommendations
made at the close of Wilmot's inquiry were severely criticized.
Great objection was made to them, and the whole report was
unfavourably regarded by many of the salmon canners and
their agents, who complained bitterly of the representations
made by Wilmot (regarding the wholesale destruction of
fish and the universal custom which prevailed, contrary to
law, of throwing all offal from the canning establishments
into the river) as well as the conclusions arrived at generally
in his report.
With a view to determining the accuracy of the report, as
well as to obtaining data and information on many other
points respecting the river and deep-sea fisheries of the
province, upon which, until Wilmot's report was made, the
department had been inadequately informed, a minute of
council, based upon the recommendations of the minister of
Marine and Fisheries, was approved on December 23, 1891.
This minute of council appointed a commission consisting
of D. W. Higgins, speaker of the British Columbia legislative
assembly, William Armstrong, sheriff of New Westminster,
and Samuel Wilmot, superintendent of fish culture, ' to
inquire into and report upon the fisheries and fishery regula-
tions of the province of British Columbia.' Charles F.
Winter, of the headquarters staff of the Fisheries department,
was detailed for duty and accompanied the commission as
secretary.
The commission was convened and held its first session
at the court-house in New Westminster on February 19,
1892 (Samuel Wilmot being elected chairman), and pro-
ceeded to take evidence from day to day and hear testi-
mony from the fishermen and all other parties vitally inte-
rested in matters affecting the fisheries of the province.
The sittings were continued at Victoria, Nanaimo, and Van-
couver, the final executive sessions being held on March 19,
454 THE FISHERIES
1892. The recommendations of the commission became, in
the main, the regulations that existed until 1908, although
amendments added to their range and extent.
In 1895 the commissioner of fisheries was authorized to
carry on an inquiry and hold sittings at New Westminster,
Steveston, and other centres of the Eraser River salmon
fisheries. The investigation was completed and a number of
recommendations made which were at a later date embodied
in further amended regulations.
In 1898 the decision of the Privy Council in the case of
the Dominion of Canada versus Ontario was rendered, and
in this decision the property rights of the province in fish
were defined. As dissatisfaction among the canners con-
tinued to be expressed, representations were made to the
provincial government urging it to assert such jurisdiction
as it might possess, and even to endeavour to conclude an
arrangement with the Dominion under which the province
would assume sole jurisdiction over the fisheries.
In 1901 the Provincial Fisheries Act was passed, which
provided for the making of regulations for the better conduct
of the fisheries, for the construction of hatcheries, and for
the appointment of a commissioner of fisheries, a deputy
commissioner, and other necessary officers. In January of the
same year the provincial government appointed John Pease
Babcock, a well-known fishery expert of California, to the
position of deputy commissioner, and negotiations with the
Dominion were entered upon, which it was hoped would
lead to the acquisition of control by the province.
At this time it was pointed out that of the total revenue
paid into the Dominion treasury by the fisheries of Canada
in 1900, British Columbia contributed $53,000 out of a
total of $79,000, or 66 per cent of the whole, whereas the
total expenditure on fisheries in that province represented
not one-sixth of the total amount expended in Canada for
this service.1 The Dominion government was not disposed
at this time to enter into the desired arrangements, and it
1 Memorial to the Premier and Council of the Government of British Columbia
from sixty of the seventy -four canners operating, dated April 10, 1901. House
of Commons Debates, Hansard, Tuesday, April 30, 1901.
FISHERIES LEGISLATION 455
was determined that the Privy Council should be asked to
define more clearly the respective powers as to fisheries
of the Dominion and the province, and pending the result
of such a reference a modus vivendi was concluded under
which a moiety of the licence fees collected in British Columbia
by the Dominion should be paid over to the provincial
government. As feeling continued acute among the canners
and fishermen, a commission consisting of Professor E. E.
Prince, George R. Maxwell, M.P., Aulay Morrison, M.P.,
and Ralph Smith, M.P., was appointed. Sixteen sittings
were held in 1901, and certain minor changes in the regula-
tions were carried out ; these, however, did not allay the
criticisms.
In this year also the Dominion constructed a second
hatchery at Granite Creek on Shuswap Lake, one of the
sources of the Eraser, with a capacity of 10,000,000 eggs ;
and the next year John Pease Babcock reported to the pro-
vincial government upon a hatchery system for the Eraser
River. He urged that a hatchery should be constructed at
Seton Lake to form a part of a system that would have a
main unit on the Harrison Lake-Lillooet Lake watershed.
The provincial authorities adopted in part his recommenda-
tions, and a large hatchery, completed in 1903, was con-
structed at the point recommended.
But while more attention was directed towards the
artificial propagation of salmon, the belief was growing that
a crisis in the great salmon industry had been reached.
Owing to the fact that the main schools of salmon passing
from the sea to the Eraser River to spawn traverse a portion
of the State of Washington, where no protective regulations
along the lines enforced in Canada were carried out, the
Eraser River salmon industry had been seriously injured.
That the permanence of the runs had been affected was con-
tended by Babcock for the provincial government, and it
was felt that artificial propagation alone could not keep pace
with the fishing, which had largely increased on both sides
of the line.1 An understanding with the State of Washington
was believed necessary, and as with the increased demand
1 Reports of the Commissioner of Fisheries of British Columbia, 1902, 1903-4.
456 THE FISHERIES
for salmon exploitation of the fisheries throughout the pro-
vince had proceeded, the necessity for a general inquiry by
a competent commission was recognized.
In July 1905 an order-in-council was passed by the
Dominion government appointing a commission to inquire
into fishery matters in general in British Columbia. It was
composed of Professor E. E. Prince, Dominion commissioner
of fisheries, Campbell Sweeny, Vancouver, J. C. Brown,
New Westminster, Richard Hall, Victoria, the Rev. George
W. Taylor, Nanaimo, and John Pease Babcock, deputy
commissioner of fisheries for British Columbia. In December
1905 the commission presented an interim report recom-
mending :
1. That in the interest of the British Columbian
fisheries a satisfactory adjustment of the differences
between the Dominion and provincial governments be
as far as possible hastened.
2. That the territorial or non-territorial character of
Hecate Straits waters be declared as soon as possible.
If these waters are held to be Canadian, then foreigners
are fishing there illegally.
3. That immediate measures are necessary to limit the
number of canneries on Rivers inlet, Skeena river, etc.,
or the fisheries there will be in danger of depletion. The
inspector (Mr Williams) should be instructed that the
number of boat licences at present be : Rivers inlet
550 ; Skeena river 800 ; Nass river 200.
4. That a more efficient patrol of British Columbian
waters be arranged in order to suppress the existing
extensive poaching.
5. That a survey of the fishing grounds in British
Columbia be carried out under the present Biological
Board of Canada.
6. That all natural and artificial obstructions be re-
ported on and removed from British Columbian salmon
rivers.
7. That the present snag-boat be transferred to Nass
river, and a more powerful snag-boat take its place on
the Skeena river.
8. That the prohibition of the export of fresh
herring from British Columbia in 1905 and 1906 be
withdrawn.
FISHERIES LEGISLATION 457
In 1906, in addition to other recommendations, the com-
mission urged that the regulations should be amended so as to
allow trap-nets west and south of Discovery Island, or along
the south-west coast-line of Vancouver Island. The latter
recommendation was given effect at once, so that a portion
of the Fraser River salmon run could be taken before reach-
ing the American waters of Puget Sound. The commission
completed its sessions in 1907 and rendered a report, recom-
mending the size of nets to be used on the Fraser, that the
weekly close seasons should be increased, that fishing should
be permitted to Mission Bridge, and that the patrol service
should be greatly increased.
The commission met delegates from the State of Wash-
ington, and a formulated statement of views and recommenda-
tions was adopted providing for a longer weekly close season,
subject to a condition that the Washington special fish commis-
sion should make similar recommendations to the State legis-
lature of Washington. Unfortunately the recommendations
of the Washington committee were not ratified by the legis-
lature, with the result that no alleviation of the unsatisfactory
conditions on Puget Sound was secured.
When the commission reported no immediate action was
taken by the government at Ottawa to carry out in regula-
tions the recommendations of the body. According to the
canners the chief trouble in Dominion administration of the
fisheries of British Columbia has always arisen from the fact
that invariably the responsible minister at the head of the
department has been an Eastern man, with no knowledge
of conditions in the West, although he might have a com-
prehensive knowledge of conditions on the Atlantic seaboard.
Usually, too, he was surrounded by officials largely chosen
from the Maritime Provinces or Quebec, who had only the
faintest conception of actual conditions on the Pacific coast,
where the fisheries are totally different and their operation
almost entirely dissimilar. The canners further maintained
that, although much might be said for central control in
other directions, the situation in regard to fisheries was
different. Removal of the jurisdiction to Ottawa and the
placing of it in the hands of ministers or officials not
453 THE FISHERIES
intimately acquainted with its details, so far from preventing,
rather encouraged the ' playing of parish politics ' or the
favouring of political friends at the expense not of political
foes, but of those actually engaged in the industry. Depen-
dent upon others for his knowledge of conditions, the minister
at Ottawa was apt to be misled by misrepresentations from
political friends with a selfish interest, and at the same time
he was not so directly susceptible to the influence of, or in
touch with, public opinion in the district affected.
When no action was taken upon the findings of the com-
mission of 1905-7, although no reference had as yet finally
decided the powers of the provincial government, a more
decided policy was adopted by the province following the
appointment of W. J. Bowser to the portfolio of attorney-
general and commissioner of fisheries in the government
of British Columbia. At his instance an act known as the
Canneries Revenue Act was passed in the legislative session
of 1908. This act required any person operating a salmon
cannery first to obtain a licence from the provincial commis-
sioner. Discretionary powers were granted the commissioner
as to whether or not a licence should be issued. In this
way the province took power to prevent an undue number
of canneries beginning operations within a limited area.
The Dominion government followed suit in a series of regu-
lations enacted later in the same year, which required the
possession of a Dominion cannery licence before operating
and also embodied the major portions of the recommenda-
tions of the commission of 1905-7. As a result of these
regulations practical effect was given to the recommendations
of the commission urging cannery limitations in the north,
but nothing was done to embody the suggestion to limit the
number of boats that would be allowed to fish in northern
waters.
With the growing demand for salmon the canners con-
tinued to increase their packs, and presently it began to be
feared that were additional protective measures not adopted
in the waters of the north, exclusively British, and where
no international complications ensue as in the Fraser-Puget
Sound district, these resources would be depleted.
FISHERIES LEGISLATION 459
During the season of 1909, when it became apparent
that the canners of the Nass, the Skeena, and Rivers Inlet
were preparing to increase largely the number of their boats,
the provincial government once more stepped in. By an
order-in-council, passed early in 1910, a limitation of 855
boats for the Skeena, 750 for Rivers Inlet, and 240 for the
Nass River was set. These boats, moreover, were assigned
among the existing canneries. The Dominion government
again followed the lead of the province, and in 1910 a com-
mission, composed of John T. Williams, inspector of fisheries
for Northern British Columbia, and John Pease Babcock
visited the different salmon-fishing districts of the north
and recommended a boat-rating differing little from that
placed in effect by the province in the previous year.
The gradual entry of the Japanese into the coast fisheries,
which they practically control, so far as the actual fishing is
concerned, has been an object of concern to all who have
given any thought to the question. In the salmon fisheries
of Northern British Columbia, out of 1900 men employed in
gill-netting in 1911, over 1000 were Japanese, while the same
proportion is observed in the salmon fisheries of other por-
tions of the province. They possess similar control of other
branches of fishing. The matter engaged the attention of
both the Dominion and provincial authorities, and in 1911,
after a conference between the Hon. J. D. Hazen and the
Hon. W. J. Bowser, the Dominion and provincial heads of
the Fisheries departments, it was resolved that an inquiry
should be held for the purpose of recommending some
changes in the salmon fisheries regulations designed to
encourage the settlement of white fishermen in Northern
British Columbia.
In the summer of 1912 W. A. Found, superintendent of
fisheries for the Dominion, was dispatched to the coast,
and with the present writer, deputy commissioner of fisheries
for the province, toured the entire northern district. A
report was prepared and recommendations were submitted
to the two departments. The report, which was adopted
by both departments as an inducement to white fishermen
to settle in the northern districts of the province, offered
VOL. XXII H
460 THE FISHERIES
special privileges, licences to fish for salmon independently
of the canners, and advantages over and above those held
by the fishermen, largely Japanese and Indians, who operated
for the canneries with cannery gear and who were financed
by the packers.
The arrangement, which at present (1913) has only been
in force a few months, has been fairly successful, and it is
expected that it will induce additional participation by
whites in the fisheries of the north. The recommendations
of the two officials further provided that, while the total
limitation of the boats allowed to fish in the northern rivers
should be continued as a protective measure for the fish,
the assignment of boats to canneries should be gradually
decreased as the immigration of white fishermen grew in
volume.
While both the Dominion and the province had been seek-
ing since 1901 a definite decision, as to their respective juris-
dictions, no formal action was taken until June 1910, when
it was decided to refer the following questions to the Supreme
Court of Canada for consideration :
1. Is it competent to the Legislature of British
Columbia to authorize the Government of the Province
to grant by way of lease, licence or otherwise the exclu-
sive right to fish in any or what part or parts of the
waters within the Railway Belt, (a) as to such waters as
are tidal, and (b) as to such waters as although not
tidal are in fact navigable ?
2. Is it competent to the Legislature of British
Columbia to authorize the Government of the Province
to grant by way of lease, licence or otherwise the exclu-
sive right or any right to fish below low water mark in
or in any or what part or parts of the open sea within
a marine league of the coast of the Province ?
3. Is there any and what difference between the open
sea within a marine league of the coast of British Col-
umbia and the gulfs, bays, channels, arms of the sea
and estuaries of the rivers within the Province, or lying
between the Province and the United States of America,
so far as concerns the authority of the Legislature of
British Columbia to authorize the Government of the
Province to grant by way of lease, licence or otherwise
FISHERIES LEGISLATION 461
the exclusive right or any right to fish below low water
mark in the said waters or any of them ?
In November 1912 formal argument was heard and the
Supreme Court decision in February 1913 negatived the
contentions of the province. Leave to appeal was granted
by the Privy Council in May 1913, and on December 2 of the
same year a judgment was delivered reaffirming the decision
of the Supreme Court. As a result of this decision, it is
finally established that, while the province is not debarred
from collecting licence fees under its powers of direct taxa-
tion, it has no right to regulate the fisheries in tidal waters.
In 1912 an agreement was entered into between the
Dominion and the province under which the sole right to
lease areas of foreshore, including those within public har-
bours, for the purposes of oyster culture, was assumed by
the province. The divided jurisdiction had prevented the
proper fostering of this important source of food supply,
and it is expected that, with assured tenure, improved methods
of cultivation will be practised.
In the same year attention began to be directed more
particularly to the deep-sea fisheries, and three trawlers
were brought to the coast from Great Britain. While the
inshore fisheries are rich enough to warrant exploitation by
this approved manner of fishing, it is feared that the rocky
ocean bed will militate against successful trawling. Atten-
tion has, however, been directed to the profitable field offered
for this kind of fishing by the great banks of food fishes exist-
ing off the Aleutian Islands in the open ocean. These banks
are nearer the ports of British Columbia than they are to
Japan, yet their exploitation of late years by fishing vessels
from the latter country has been very extensive. While but
few trawlers operated from Japan in 1910, in the year 1911
seventy-seven, with a total tonnage of 13,500, were laid down
in Japanese shipyards. Almost an equal number were built,
or purchased, abroad, to engage in this fishing. Hakodate,
the nearest Japanese port, is nearly five hundred miles farther
from the centre of these fisheries than is Prince Rupert.
The latter port, the most northerly transcontinental railway
462 THE FISHERIES
terminus on the continent, seems destined, with the proper
exploitation of the fisheries of the North Pacific by British
crews from British Columbia, to develop into the most impor-
tant fishing centre in the world.
Ill
THE VERTEBRATES
THE Pacific coast salmon, observed by Steller, a German
naturalist in the employ of Russia, as early as 1731
on the Siberian coast, were again encountered by
him in 1741, when he accompanied Vitus Bering on his
fatal voyage towards the western coast of America. Almost
simultaneously the genus was described by Krascheninikov,
another early investigator. Steller described them perfectly
under their native Russian names, and this nomenclature
was adopted by Walbaum in 1792. The fish wrongly called
salmon at the outset has to-day ousted the rightful salmon
of the name, for the genus oncorhynchus in its five species
is the salmon of commerce, and in its canned form is known
as salmon throughout the world.
The Pacific coast salmon is not the salmo solar, the salmon
which the Romans found running to the rivers of Gaul and
Britain in great quantities, and which, preserved in snow,
was sent to the imperial city and throughout the Empire.
The salmon of the Pacific coasts of North America and Asia,
all five species of which run in great quantities to the rivers
of the coast, are of the genus oncorhynchus or hook-nose.
It differs from the salmo solar in points of structure, although
the external form of both is similar. The anal fin in the
oncorhynchus has from thirteen to twenty rays, while that
of the salmo solar has never more than twelve. These five
species ascend the rivers between the months of April and
December in great numbers, crowding the shallows at the
heads of the streams, some travelling a full two thousand
miles from the ocean.
While the structural differences between the Atlantic and
the Pacific salmon are not very apparent, the chief distinction
w
of
W
THE VERTEBRATES 463
in their life-history arises from the fact that, in the case
of the Pacific, of all the host which ascend the stream to
spawn none return. The distance to which they go has no
bearing upon this fact. As soon as they have discharged their
breeding functions, all begin to weaken, and soon die. It is
the young, returning to the sea in from a year to fifteen
months after being hatched, that perpetuate the genus.
Commercially the salmon is the most important of American
fishes, the annual pack of the Pacific coast being valued at
from $15,000,000 to $25,000,000. The value of the salmon
pack of British Columbia for the year 1911 has been esti-
mated at $9,851,897 and in 1912 at $9,540,368.
The five species of oncorhynchus, all of which are abundant
in the waters of British Columbia, in the order of their im-
portance are as follows :
Oncorhynchus nerka (sockeye or blue-back salmon).
Oncorhynchus tschawytscha (quinnat, tyee, king or spring
salmon) .
Oncorhynchus kisutch (coho or white salmon).
Oncorhynchus keta (dog or chum salmon).
Oncorhynchus gorbuscha (humpback or pink salmon).
SOCKEYE SALMON
The sockeye run in all the mainland rivers, in some of the
rivers of the west coast of Vancouver Island, and in the
Nimpkish River near the head of the east coast of the island.
The abundance of this fish in the Eraser varies greatly with
given years, distinguished by the canners as the * big years '
and the ' poor years/ Their movement is greatest every
fourth year. In the cycle of four years commencing with
1913, the latter is a ' big year' and the run is poorer in the
three years immediately following. The causes which have
led to this most remarkable feature have given rise to
much speculation, and many theories have been advanced
to account for the runs. None, however, are satisfactorily
established. The periodicity in the run of sockeye which is
so pronounced in the Eraser has no marked counterpart in
any other river in the province or on the coast.
The sockeye weighs as a rule from three to ten pounds,
464 THE FISHERIES
though specimens weighing seventeen pounds are recorded.
The adults in salt water are free from spots, their backs are
a clear blue, and below the lateral line the colour is an im-
maculate white. The flesh is of a deep and unfailing red.
In form and colour they are considered the most beautiful
of their family. They enter the Fraser River as early as
April, but are not taken until July I, and their capture is by
regulation confined to nets of five and one-half inch mesh.
The main run in the Fraser is looked for towards the latter
part of July and is at its height during the first ten days of
August. The spawning period of the sockeye extends from
August, in the head-waters, to as late as October or November
in the waters nearest the sea, the spawning taking place in
lake-fed or in lake-feeding streams.
SPRING OR QUINNAT SALMON
This class ranks second in importance in the waters of
the province, and was the first, and for many years the only,
salmon used for canning. The species attains an average
weight of from eighteen to thirty pounds in British Columbian
waters, though fish weighing from sixty to one hundred
pounds have been reported. The head is rather pointed
and of a metallic lustre ; the back is a dark green or bluish
colour, while below the lateral line it is silvery. At spawning
it becomes almost black, hence it is often spoken of on the
spawning grounds as ' black salmon.' It is the most powerful
swimming fish that seeks the rivers of British Columbia,
usually journeying to the extreme head of the stream that
it enters. It seems to prefer the most rapidly flowing streams,
apparently avoiding the lake-fed tributaries. The colour
of the flesh is from a deep red to a very light pink — at times
almost white. This uncertainty of colour militates against
its use for canning purposes. All specimens are examined
by the canners before being accepted from the fishermen, the
fish with unusually pale flesh being almost invariably rejected.
The quinnat enters the Fraser, the Nass, and the Skeena early
in the spring, and the run continues more or less intermittently
until July. In the fall there is no pronounced run.
THE VERTEBRATES 465
COHO SALMON
This species is found in all the waters of the province
and of recent years has become a considerable factor in
canning operations. The bulk of the catch, however, is
shipped in ice to Eastern markets. Its average weight is
from three to eight pounds, though heavier specimens are
not uncommon. In colour it is very silvery, greenish on the
dorsal aspect, with a few black spots on the head and fins.
In August and September the runs take place in the rivers
of the north-west coast, and in September and October in the
Eraser. Like the sockeye, the coho salmon travels in com-
pact schools. It does not seek the extreme head-waters, but
frequents both the streams and the lakes to spawn.
DOG SALMON
These fish run in most of the rivers and coast streams late
in the fall. The average weight is from ten to twelve pounds,
but much larger specimens are not unusual. They spawn
close to the sea. They are dark silver in colour, the fins being
black, but during the spawning season they become dusky,
with lateral lines of black. There is more or less grey and red
colouring along the sides. The heads of the males undergo
the most remarkable distortion, while the teeth in front
become large and dog-like ; it is from this latter character-
istic that the species has derived its popular name. Until a
few years ago these fish were not considered of any value,
but they are now captured in great numbers by the Japanese,
who dry-salt them for export to the Orient. Latterly a
market for the canned product has been developed.
HUMPBACK SALMON
This is the smallest of the species of salmon found in
British Columbian waters, averaging in weight from three
to six pounds, In colour it is bluish above and silvery below,
while the back and the tail are covered with oblong black
spots. In the fall the males are so greatly distorted as to give
them their popular name. The fish run in abundance in the
'big years/ and then only every second year, coming in with
466 THE FISHERIES
the last of the sockeye run. They are but little valued,
though a considerable demand has sprung up within the past
few years.
With the development of the markets for cheap fishery
products a demand has come for all the varieties of salmon,
with the result that the fishing season has now been extended
to cover the runs of all five species. This lengthening of the
season is of marked benefit to the regular salmon fishermen,
and, with the development of other fisheries, it is believed
they may find regular employment during the entire year.
LlFE-HlSTORY OF THE PACIFIC SALMON
With the exception of the quinnat1 little was known of
the life-history of the Pacific salmon until 1912.
In 1903 John Pease Babcock conducted a series of investi-
gations into the movements and life-history of sockeye fry,
and established the fact that there are two well-defined
migrations of the young sockeye seaward, one within three
months of the absorption of the yolk-sac after spawning,
the second a year later ; in other words, that sockeye fry
proceed to sea at an age of three months or fifteen months.
It was not until Dr C. H. Gilbert, of Leland Stanford,
Jr. University, gave to the world in 1912 the result of his
researches into the age of salmon through scale readings,
after the system discovered and perfected by scientists in
the employ of the Scotch Fishery Board, that progress was
made. His chief deductions were as follows :
The sockeye spawn normally either in the fourth or fifth
year, the spring salmon in the fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh
year, the females of each species being preponderatingly
four-year fish.
The young of both sockeye and spring salmon may
migrate seaward shortly after hatching, or may reside in
fresh water until their second spring. Those of the first type
grow more rapidly than those of the second, but are subject
to greater dangers and develop proportionately fewer adults.
1 Claudesly Rutter, Natural History of the Quinnat Salmon : a report on in-
vestigations in the Sacramento River, 1896-1901.
THE VERTEBRATES 467
Coho salmon spawn normally only in their third year.
The young migrate either as fry or as yearlings, but adults
are developed from those that migrate as yearlings.
Dog salmon mature normally in either their third, fourth,
or fifth year, the humpback always in their second year.
The young of both species pass to sea as soon as they are
free-swimming.
The term ' grilse ' as used for Pacific salmon signifies
conspicuously undersized fish which sparingly accompany the
spawning run. They are precociously developed in advance
of the normal spawning period of the species. So far as
known the grilse of the spring salmon, coho, and dog salmon
are exclusively males, except in the Columbia River, where
both sexes are equally represented. The larger grilse meet
or overlap in size the smaller of the fish that mature one year
later at the normal period.
Grilse of the sockeye are in their third year, of the spring
salmon in their second or third year, of the coho and dog
salmon in their second year.
The great difference in size of the individuals of a species
observed in the spawning run is closely correlated with age,
the younger fish averaging constantly smaller than those one
year older, although the curves of the two may overlap.1
THE SALMON CANNING INDUSTRY
The first attempt to can salmon on the Eraser was made
in 1876. Alexander Ewen built a cannery a little below New
Westminster, and later in the same year two other plants
were constructed adjacent to this. Ewen's is generally con-
sidered to have been the first cannery in British Columbia.
It may be stated on good authority, however, that while
the honour of being the pioneer in the salmon canning in-
dustry on the Pacific coast is given to an American, William
Hume, who in 1864 constructed a plant on the Sacramento
River in California, salmon was actually canned in British
1 Charles H. Gilbert, Professor of Zoology, Leland Stanford, Jr. University, Age
at Maturity of the Pacific Coast Salmon of the Genus Oncorhynchus : published
by Bureau of Fisheries, Washington, D.C., 1912. — Report of the Commissioner
of Fisheries for British Columbia, 1912.
468 THE FISHERIES
Columbia at least two years previously. Captain Edward
Stamp, of the British mercantile marine, who settled at
Alberni on the west coast of Vancouver Island in 1860, and
engaged in the lumber business, at some time between the
years 1860 and 1862 preserved in two-pound tins a quantity
of salmon ; tins of the product opened in 1896 were of
excellent flavour and perfectly preserved.
In 1877 the three canneries operating on the Fraser were
increased in number to five, and in the same year a cannery
was located at Inverness on the Skeena River. In the
following year eight canneries operated on the Fraser, an
additional plant, the Oceanic, was constructed on the Skeena,
and a plant was completed and placed in operation at Mill
Bay on the Nasa River. The industry grew rapidly, until
in 1883 thirteen canneries were operating on the Fraser,
which in that year produced a pack of 199,000 cases. Five
plants were operating on the Skeena, two on the Nass, and
one, which had been erected during the previous year, on
Rivers Inlet.
In 1883, too, the fact that the salmon, on their way from
the open ocean through the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the
Fraser River, circled around in Puget Sound and the Gulf
of Georgia before entering the river, caused canneries to be
established at Seattle, San Juan, Bellingham, Blaine, and
Port Townsend, and resulted in the birth of a vexed inter-
national question.
For several years previous to 1883 representations had
been made to the Dominion government of the need of the
artificial propagation of salmon in the province, but it was
not until 1884 that the Dominion commenced the construc-
tion of a hatchery at Bon Accord on the Fraser River. This
hatchery was completed in the following year. The industry
made no particular progress for several years, but in 1893
twenty-two canneries operated ; in 1898 these had increased
in number to thirty-five and a year later to forty. The pack
of salmon had proved fairly satisfactory, the notable periodi-
city in the run of salmon to the Fraser effecting a large pack
in one out of four years, with a very much smaller one in
the three succeeding years.
wf
THE VERTEBRATES 469
HALIBUT
On the Pacific coast the halibut industry is ranked next
in importance to the salmon. The halibut belong to the
flounder family. Three varieties of this fish are found on
the Pacific coast — the arrow-toothed (Atheresthec stomias),
the Monterey or Bastard (Paralichthys calif ornicus) , and the
common halibut (Hippoglossus hippoglossus) . The last men-
tioned is found all along the coast from Bering Strait as
far south as San Francisco, its centre of abundance, accord-
ing to some authorities, being the Gulf of Alaska in the
vicinity of Kadiak and the Shumagin Islands, where the
extensive banks furnish a favourite habitat for the big flat
fish. It is only latterly, however, that these banks have
been fished to any extent, as an abundance of the fish have
been taken much nearer the coast's markets. A large bank
formerly rich in halibut exists off Cape Flattery in the mouth
of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. With increased fishing this
bank has become depleted, and the fishermen are compelled
to go farther afield to the banks of South-Eastern Alaska,
to Dixon Entrance, to Hecate Straits, and to the fringe of
shallow water around Vancouver Island. The method of
fishing for halibut is by hand-line from dories operating from
a steam or gasoline mother vessel. The industry had its
inception about 1885, when a few schooners from Port
Townsend in the State of Washington began to fish off Cape
Flattery. For many years it languished, as the local demand
was limited, and the existing means of transport did not
permit of shipment to the Eastern markets, which at that
time were well supplied from the Atlantic fisheries ; but
with increased centres of population farther west and the
decline of the Atlantic catch, the perfecting of cold-storage
plants and transport and fast freight service, the Pacific
halibut has become a staple in the fresh fish markets of the
East. The production grew from 6,877,640 pounds in 1899
to 21,706,000 in 1909 for the entire Pacific coast. Of this
one-half was taken by vessels operating from Canadian
ports, while a large proportion of the catch of American
vessels was taken by them in Canadian territorial waters.
470 THE FISHERIES
Much of the Canadian catch has been handled by an American
firm, the New England Fish Company, which has a bonding
privilege under which it is allowed to ship its fish through
Canada to the Eastern United States markets, which it
enters free of duty.
Halibut are taken practically all the year round, being
found extensively from September to March in Dixon
Entrance and Hecate Straits, while during the months of
May and June many are taken along the inshore shallows
of the east coast of Graham Island and the west coast of
Vancouver Island.
FLOUNDERS
Many members of the halibut family, coming under the
name of flounders, are found in these waters, all possessing
more or less value as food fishes. Certain varieties of these
fish are locally known as ' turbot,' while others are marketed
as * soles,' though there are no true turbot or soles in the
North Pacific. The catch of these fishes is limited to the
local demand. Among the varieties are the following : large-
eyed flounder, large-scaled flounder, hook-toothed flounder,
long-finned flounder, short-finned flounder, bastard turbot,
spine-checked turbot, black-tailed sole, black-dotted plaice,
and many others which are locally marketed as sole.
OULACHAN
(Thaleichthys pacificus, Richardson)
This small fish — about the size of a smelt — occurs in
great abundance from the Nass River in the north to the
Fraser River in the south, appearing from early March to
the middle of April. The schools entering the northern
estuaries — especially that of the Nass — are very large ;
they crowd in so thickly that the Indians, from an early
period, have been accustomed to make large catches by
crude methods, the chief of which is the use of a long pole
with numbers of nails inserted about one and one-half inches
apart and projecting like the teeth of a comb. By drawing
this implement through the dense school of fish the Indian
THE VERTEBRATES 471
impales a great number, which he shakes off into his canoe ;
in a short time he is able to obtain a boat-load in this primi-
tive manner. Seines are used in some localities, as also
are small-meshed gill-nets.
The tissues of the oulachan teem with oil — so much so
that it is called the ' candle-fish/ for by simply inserting a
piece of pitch through the centre of it when dried, it may be
used as a candle or torch, the pitch burning like the wick of
a well-filled lamp. The Indians are accustomed to press out
the oil into vats. It is greatly esteemed by them, although
it quickly turns rancid and is very offensive in odour. They
consume it in the same way, and to the same extent, that
butter is consumed by more civilized people.
HERRING
(Clupea pallasii, Cuvier)
The superabundance of herring on the coast of British
Columbia has been recognized from early times, but as the
local demand was insignificant, no herring fishery can be
said to have existed until about thirty years ago. At intervals,
and in a desultory way, many people engaged in the herring
industry, and quantities of the fish were converted into oil
and guano. Within the last ten years, however, the value
of this fishery resource has gradually been realized.
Herring occur practically all along the coast as far as
Alaska. In sheltered areas, like the waters near Nanaimo,
Ucluelet, Barkley Sound, Virago Sound, and near the Queen
Charlotte Islands, the schools appear to form solid phalanxes.
At Nanaimo they are plentiful from early in November until
the New Yeai, vast schools appearing in February, while
even as late as June immense quantities have been seen
moving out in the Strait of Georgia.
There are many methods of putting up herring, but the
greatest demand is for the article in pickle, and there is no
reason why the province should not put up as large a pack
of the best herring as Scotland, which produces annually from
250,000 to 350,000 tons, valued, when pickled and ready for
market, at no less than from $5,000,000 to $6,000,000.
472 THE FISHERIES
The possibilities of the herring industry are large, and,
properly conserved and exploited, it will become a valuable
source of revenue to the whole province. At present the
industry is largely in the hands of Japanese, who dry-salt
the product for export to the Orient.
STURGEON
(Acipenser transmontanus)
The sturgeon fishery of British Columbia was neglected
until late years, but in 1897 tne Fraser River inspector re-
ported that * the sturgeon fishery has become a very impor-
tant industry — the more important as it affords employment
to a large number of resident fishermen who would other-
wise spend their time in an idle or unprofitable manner.
The proceeds of the industry are upwards of $50,000, the fish
being dressed and shipped to United States markets/
It is doubtful if the sturgeon has, in any numbers, ever
frequented the northerly rivers of the province, and it is on
the Eraser River alone that any fishery of much commercial
value has been developed. Sturgeon may be found in the
river during most months of the year, but it migrates to
the sea from the fresh water, especially about the middle of
April, or even as early as February. The Indians formerly
were accustomed to take sturgeon by means of trawls with
long lines and baited hooks. Gill-nets were licensed by the
government some years ago, and for three or four years
there was quite a boom in sturgeon-fishing. In fact, so
remunerative did the fishing prove, that a large body of
men immediately engaged in it, with the result that in
three years the catch fell to one-fifth of what it had been
a short time before.
Vast numbers of small sturgeon are seen by the Fraser
River salmon fishermen at the present time, and this leads
to the belief that, with the enforcement of the present Do-
minion regulations, the fishery will in due time be restored
to its former state. This is greatly to be desired, since the
industry is carried on after the close of the salmon-fishing,
and good earnings can be made.
THE VERTEBRATES 473
PILCHARD AND ANCHOVY
(Engraulis mordox and Anchovis delicatessima)
These two valuable species are found more or less abun-
dantly in Southern British Columbian waters. The first
named is caught along with the herring on the eastern and
western shores of Vancouver Island. It is said also to be very
numerous in Barkley Sound and adjacent inlets. In its small,
immature stages it is the ' sardine ' of France. Investigation
along the Pacific coast reveals the resorts of these fish, and
shows that a canned sardine industry, which would success-
fully compete with the greatly esteemed European article, is
possible.
That the true anchovy is a British Columbian fish has
long been known ; but the migrations of this valuable species
are at present not ascertained. Once known, however, the
British Columbian anchovy could be prepared as a paste to
compete in markets that are now supplied by the Medi-
terranean.
SMELT
There are two varieties of smelt common in the markets —
the Osmerus thaleichthys and the Hypomesus pretiosus. They
are both in brisk local demand.
BLACK COD OR SKIL
(Anoplopomidae fimbria)
This delicious and much sought after fish abounds in the
northern waters of the province, especially along the western
shores of the Queen Charlotte Islands. It favours deep
waters, especially depths of from seventy to ninety fathoms,
though it is also found at from twenty to two hundred and
fifty fathoms. It is never caught in the surface waters and
avoids shallows. It is taken chiefly in the winter months.
The black cod is a delicious food fish, of firm and flaky tex-
ture, being white in colour and rich in flavour. Owing to
its rich, oily nature it is far more appetizing than the drier
and firmer true cod. On the table it bears a distinct resem-
blance to a large whiting — that is, the true European whiting
474 THE FISHERIES
— a fish wholly different from the inferior so-called whiting
of the western waters. It is caught with very long lines,
each carrying from twelve to one hundred and fifty hooks
fixed on snoods at regular intervals. Great care has to be
exercised in taking the fish off the hooks, as it is very tender
mouthed.
Investigation is absolutely essential in the case of this
species also. The determination of the spawning season
and the nature and location of the spawn and fry are im-
portant factors in the framing of regulations to preserve and
develop the industry.
MINOR VARIETIES
A number of edible fishes abound along the rocky shores
of the province, which are used chiefly to supply the local
markets. The cultus cod is the principal of these minor
fish ; it weighs from four to ten pounds and is caught by
means of baited hooks and by drag-seines. The red cod has
more the features of a bass than a cod-fish, and in California
is frequently called * sea-bass.' Its weight ranges from three
to twelve pounds. Several other bass-like fishes are largely
sold ; one species, generally styled the red rock cod, being a
most excellent table fish.
There are no soles in British Columbian waters, the fish
that is offered as such being a species of flounder. This,
however, is a choice table fish. It is small, seldom exceeding
a pound or so in weight.
WHALES
Several species of whale are found in the North Pacific
and in the Bering Sea, of which may be mentioned the
sulphur-bottom (Sibbaldius sulfur ees) , the bow-head (Balaena
mysticetus), the sharp-head finner (Balaenoptera davidsoni),
the right whale (Balaena japonica) , and the humpback (Mega-
per a versabilis). The sulphur-bottom, which is the most
common in British Columbian waters, grows to an enormous
size, an average specimen weighing about sixty tons. A
whale of this size should yield six tons of oil, worth $450, three
THE VERTEBRATES 475
and one-half tons of body bone, $175, three and one-half
tons of guano, $105, and three hundredweight of whalebone,
worth $48, or a total of $778, which, after deducting expenses
estimated at $206, would give a net profit of $572. A hump-
back, which is a smaller whale averaging about twenty-seven
tons, should give a profit of $140 ; while a fin-back, weighing
fifty tons, is credited with a gain of $338. The right whale
is much more rare than any of the others named, but offers
a grand prize to the hunters, for it is worth $10,000.
The Pacific Whaling Company has been operating since
1906 with great success, the average catch being six hundred
whales per season. The company has adopted modern
methods, and, instead of the old style of sailing ships and
whale-boats, employs fast steamers, which dash alongside
the whale, and dispatch it with a well-directed shot from
a machine-gun. The carcass is then towed to the whaling
station, where it is hauled on to a suitable stage by machinery
and cut up, so that every portion of the huge mammal is
utilized. This method of whaling was established first in
Norway and later in Newfoundland and Quebec. The profits
of whaling by this system are large, averaging from fifteen
to forty per cent.
The Pacific Whaling Company has two stations on the
west coast of Vancouver Island, at Sechart and Kyuquot,
equipped with modern plants, and two in the Queen Charlotte
Islands, at Naden Harbour and Rose Harbour. On arrival at
the station the whale is raised from the water on an adjustable
platform, for cutting up. Incisions are made in the carcass,
running from head to tail, and about a foot apart. This divides
the blubber into long narrow strips, which are then torn or
stripped off by means of large hooks attached to wire ropes,
which are operated by a steam winch. The blubber is then
cut into small squares and put through a mincing machine,
from which it goes to the steam-heated ' trying-out ' tanks,
where the oil is extracted. The residue of the blubber and the
lean meat are converted into guano and glue. The body bones
are crushed, ground, ancj sold for fertilizer, while the whale-
bone is carefully cut from the jaws, trimmed, and shipped to
Dundee, Scotland, the home of the whaling industry.
VOL. XXII I
476 THE FISHERIES
Whalers operating in the Sea of Japan and Bering Sea do
a considerable trade in whale meat, which is extensively used
for food in Japan. Instead of converting the * beef ' into
fertilizer, it is salted, and in this form commands a better price.
The importation of whale meat into Japan amounts to over
two million pounds annually, representing a value of over
$50,000. Pickled whales' tails are esteemed a delicacy in
Japan, and large quantities are shipped to that country from
the British Columbian coast.
About two-thirds of the whales captured are cow-whales,
either with suckling calves or with young unborn. The
females, which yield more oil than the males, are broader
across the body and slower in movement, and are more easily
captured than the males. This, and the fact that whales are
hunted at all seasons, should induce the authorities to adopt
reasonable restrictive measures for the preservation of these
valuable creatures. The indiscriminate slaughter of whales
in the North Sea, the Atlantic and the Gulf of St Lawrence
has practically destroyed the industry in those waters, and
without protection the same thing is likely to result in the
North Pacific.
SEALS, WALRUSES
(Odobaenidae, Otariidae, Phocidae)
The fur-seal (Callorhinus ur sinus) was formerly exceed-
ingly abundant along the coast of British Columbia. The
great breeding-ground of the fur-seals was, and is, the Pribyloff
Islands, off the coast of Alaska, but a well-marked migration
was noticeable in the spring and summer of each year from
southern waters north along the British Columbia coast to
these so-called rookeries. This seal was first made known to
science by Steller in 1751, and little was known about its
habits until 1869, when C. M. Scammon1 and W. H. Dall2
made various observations of its habits, which were followed
by an exhaustive report by H. W. Elliott.3
1 C. M. Scammon, The Marine Mammals of the Northwestern Coast, p. 141.
2 W. H. Dall, Alaska and Its Resources, pp. 492-8.
3 H. W. Elliott, Report on the Pribyloff Group, 1873 ; Condition of Affairs in
Alaska, 1875, pp. 107-51.
THE VERTEBRATES 477
Fur-seal hunting was for many years one of British
Columbia's most profitable industries, but, owing to the re-
strictions imposed upon Canadian sealers as a result of the
Bering Sea Award, and the treaty between Great Britain,
Russia, Japan, and the United States (1911), under which
pelagic sealing is entirely prohibited, it is a thing of the past.
It is sufficient to say that such rights as Canada may have in
the matter were entirely asserted through the active opera-
tions of the sealers of British Columbia. At the present
time (January 1914) a commission is sitting to consider the
claims to compensation of the Canadian sealers under the
award made by the United States under the treaty.
The common or harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) is very
plentiful in the inlets, bays, and estuaries of the province.
Whatever economic value this seal may ultimately have, it
is at present a detriment to the fisheries, as it preys largely
upon the salmon and other fishes when entangled in the nets
of the fishermen. Many petitions have been received by
the Dominion and provincial governments from canners
and fishers asking that a bounty be placed upon the hair-
seal (Zalophus californianus) and also upon the sea-lion
(Eumetopias slellari) .
GAME FISH
So far the fishes of British Columbia have been treated
from an economic point of view, but from a sportsman's
standpoint the field is a not less interesting one. The whole
interior of both Vancouver Island and the mainland possesses
a wonderful series of water communications, lakes, and rivers.
These, as well as the lesser streams, are abundantly stocked
with fish, principally salmon and trout. There are also
whitefish in the northern waters. While the best known and
favourite fishing resorts are on Vancouver Island, there is
no locality where a fisherman may not prosecute with zest
his time-honoured sport ; and even on the sea-coast, during
the salmon run, he will meet with gratifying success. The
waters of Kootenay and Southern Yale are already becoming
noted as fishing resorts, and when lines of communication
478 THE FISHERIES
are opened up, the rivers and the lakes of the whole interior,
affording as they do fish of uncommon size and number, will
attract numerous fishermen. The scenery, too, is everywhere
on a grand scale, and all natural conditions are healthful and
invigorating.
BRITISH COLUMBIA TROUT
The waters of the province are rich in trout. No other
section of the Dominion offers better fishing than can be
found here. Of the varieties of trout found in the rivers,
streams, and lakes the steelhead trout (Salmo gairdneri),
because of its abundance, great size, and ' game ' and com-
mercial qualities, is the best known and most highly con-
sidered. From its being more or less anadromous in its
habits, it is locally and in many coast sections classed with
the Pacific salmon. The steelhead more closely resembles
in form, colour of flesh, and habit the Atlantic salmon than
any other fish found on the Pacific coast. It, like the salmon,
spawns in fresh water only, but, unlike the salmon, it survives
after spawning, and returns to the sea. It feeds freely at
all times in either fresh or salt waters. The steelhead is of
importance commercially and is commonly found in the local
markets from early fall until late spring. A considerable
quantity is shipped to the Eastern market in cold storage.
It has a ready sale, and because of the demand for it in the
fresh state the entire catch is marketed in that way. In
British Columbia the steelhead averages about twelve pounds
in weight, though specimens of from twenty to twenty-four
pounds are not uncommon. As a ' game fish ' it is con-
sidered by many fishermen to have no equal in fresh water.
It readily takes a fly or spoon bait, and ' puts up a stiff fight,
taxing the skill of the angler and the strength of his tackle
to bring it to net or gaff.1
There are numerous species of trout to be found in the
upper Eraser and Thompson Rivers, and in many of their
tributary lakes, that cannot be distinguished by any technical
character from the steelhead, but which, because of many
differences in habits, form, and colour, have been given many
THE ARTHROPODS 479
different names. Of these, perhaps the best known to anglers
is the very game fish that abounds in the Kamloops, Shus-
wap, Okanagan, and Kootenay Lake regions, to which David
Starr Jordan gave the name of Kamloops trout (Salmo Kam-
loops). The smaller specimens of this trout readily take the
fly, but the larger specimens are seldom secured except by
means of trolling.
In addition to the salmon and trout which abound in
British Columbian waters, there are the Great Lake trout
(Cristivomer namaycush) and the Dolly Varden trout (Salve-
linus malma), which are easily distinguished from the true
trout by their red or orange spots. These two species — which
have been called charr — while abundant in most of the
interior waters, are not considered of great importance to the
angler, because only the young ones are taken by means of a
fly. Both these fish attain a large size, the Great Lake trout
not uncommonly weighing as high as thirty pounds, while
the Dolly Varden often weighs from fifteen to twenty pounds.
The quinnat or spring salmon and the coho or silver
salmon, despite everything that has been said to the contrary,
afford splendid sport, and will readily take the fly when it is
properly presented to them.
IV
THE ARTHROPODS
LOBSTERS
(Homerus Americanus)
DURING the past few years efforts have been made to
establish the Atlantic lobster in Pacific coast waters,
and several consignments have been imported and
planted at various points. As far as can be ascertained, and
from the opinions expressed by those charged with the work,
there seems little doubt that this valuable crustacean will
thrive in its new surroundings, and that the nucleus of an
additional branch of the British Columbia fishing industry
has been formed with its introduction. Great difficulty,
480 THE FISHERIES
however, will attend the conclusive proof of the success of
these experiments, as the lobster is very migratory in its
habits.
In June 1905 lobsters to the number of 1025 were shipped
from Halifax to Vancouver in charge of an official who was
thoroughly trained in handling them. These were safely
deposited at various points, but what ultimately became of
them is not as yet definitely known. In the spring of 1906,
1620 more lobsters were shipped from Halifax to British
Columbian waters with practically no loss. The officials
looked after the planting of these lobsters with the utmost
care, and in order that they might have some idea of how
the crustaceans would stand the introduction into new
waters, large crates were put down and the lobsters deposited
in these. After some weeks they were examined and were
found to be in a perfectly healthy condition. They were
then distributed at different places on the coast.
CRABS
(Cancer magister)
Fine crabs are to be obtained in large quantities along the
coast, and there is a brisk demand for them. This industry
is by no means exploited to the full, however, as the Indians,
by whom the bulk of the crab-fishing is done, are occupied
with the salmon -fishing throughout the summer and fall.
The demand for crabs in the local markets far exceeds the
supply, despite the fact that they are to be found in such
abundance. Saanich Arm and the lagoon at Esquimalt are
teeming with crabs, and often in the summer pleasure
parties go out for the express purpose of catching them. A
hundred or so are often taken by these parties in a single
afternoon. Some idea may be thus obtained of the numbers
that are to be caught by practical fishermen.
PRAWNS
(Pandalus Danae)
As in the case of crabs, very little attention is given to
the systematic capture of prawns, in spite of the constant
THE MOLLUSCS 481
local demand for them. All that are offered to fish dealers
are quickly bought up, for the prawns that are taken in
British Columbian waters are of exceptional quality. Most
of the prawn-fishing is done around Vancouver ; very little
is done off Vancouver Island, though it is not because the
fish do not exist there, but simply because fishermen cannot
be found to undertake their capture. Nearly all the prawns
sold by the fish dealers in Victoria are obtained either from
Vancouver or Seattle, and it is only occasionally that local
fishermen bring them in. When they do, their catch is
readily taken off their hands by local dealers.
THE MOLLUSCS
THE OYSTER
r T "'HE native British Columbia species (Ostrea lurida) is
found at points from the Alaskan boundary to the
southern limits of the province. It is much smaller
than the Eastern Canadian oyster and in colour and flavour
greatly inferior. It has a considerable local market, and at
points close to the more settled portions of the province is
cultivated, notably at Boundary Bay, south of Vancouver,
and at Oyster Harbour, near Ladysmith, on Vancouver
Island. Good specimens reach two inches in length by an
inch and a half in breadth, with a straight dorsal and a semi-
circular ventral margin. It is hermaphroditic in character,
unlike the eastern oyster, having no primary separation into
males and females.
The Eastern Canadian oyster (Ostrea virginica) has been
transplanted to Pacific Coast waters, and a considerable in-
dustry has arisen in transplanting spat or oysters of a year's
growth from the Atlantic to the Pacific, where they are allowed
to grow to maturity before marketing. The chief points
where this industry is carried on are Boundary Bay and
482 THE FISHERIES
Esquimalt Harbour. It has long been believed by practical
culturists that the Atlantic oyster would not reproduce in
Pacific waters.
In 1911 Dr Joseph Stafford of McGill University satisfied
himself that transplanted Atlantic oysters ripened their cells
in Pacific waters ; that they can and do spawn, and that the
eggs develop into active, free-swimming young.1 He has not
as yet recorded the discovery of any spat from these, or
matured product from such spawning.
CLAMS
Among the many fishery resources of the province that
are not appreciated at their real value is that of the clam
industry. There is an unlimited market in the United
States for these shell-fish, both canned and fresh. The
existence of vast clam-shell beds at numerous points along
the British Columbia coast — indeed, wherever Indians have
established themselves — shows how much the native popula-
tion relied upon the succulent food.
The clam supply in British Columbia is most remarkable ;
productive areas stocked with clams of various species occur
practically at all points. There are several establishments
for canning them located at various points in the province.
ABALONE
It has long been known that the abalone occurs plenti-
fully in certain areas along British Columbian shores, especi-
ally along the coasts of the Queen Charlotte Islands. The
soft animal contents are valuable as food, while the shell
itself is important for ornamental purposes. The beautiful
iridescent covering of the mollusc has been always in great
demand, especially by German button - makers, curiosity
dealers and others. These molluscs occur at from six feet
below the surface to great depths, and in the deeper waters
are taken by fishermen wearing diving suits and helmets.
The abalone is in much demand in China for soups.
1 Dr Joseph Stafford, The Canadian Oyster, p. 126 : Commission of Con-
servation publications, 1913.
THE MOLLUSCS
483
EDIBLE MOLLUSCA IN BRITISH COLUMBIAN WATERS
The following is a list of the more important species of
edible mollusca found in British Columbian waters :
Ostrea lurida
Pecten caurinus
Pecten hastatus
Pecten rubudus
Mytilus californianus
Mytilus edulis
Cardium corbis
Saxidomus giganteus
Macoma inquinata
Macoma nasuta
Rexithaerus secta
Siliqua patula
Schizothoerus nuttalli
Mya arenaria
Paphia staminea
Panopaea generosa
Penitella penita
Penitella ovoidea
Zirphaea Gabbi
Purpuxa crispata
Purpuxa lima
Purpuxa Saxicola
Littorina sitkana
Littorina scutulate
Acmaea per sonata
Acmaea patina
Acmaea pelta
Acmaea mitra
Haliotis Kamtschat-
kana
Cehitone (Cryptochiton,
Kafherina, and others)
Octopus punctatus Gabb
Carpenter
Native oyster
Gould
Scallop
Syb
Scallop
Hinds
Scallop
Conrad
Mussel
Linne
Mussel
Martyn
Cockle
Desh
Clam
Clam
Conrad
Clam
Conrad
Clam
Dixon
Razor clam
Conrad
Large clam
Linne
Soft-shell clam
Conrad
Hard-shell clam
Gould
Conrad
Gould
Tryon
Chemm
Whelk
Martyn
Val
Phil
Periwinkle
Gould
Periwinkle
Esch
Esch
Esch
Esch
Jonas
Abalone or ear-shell
Cuttlefish.
FOREST RESOURCES
FOREST RESOURCES
ONE of the most remarkable geographical facts con-
cerning the Province of British Columbia is the
extraordinary length of its shore-line. From Van-
couver to the boundary of Alaska the coast, behind the barrier
of its thousand islands, is honeycombed into one long succes-
sion of narrow, tortuous inlets, winding fiords, rocky bays
and estuaries. Each inlet, in its turn, reveals itself as a
network of smaller waterways whose twisted channels lead
off to right and left among the impressive mountain masses
that form the great Coast Range. The extent of water-front
is thus prodigious. Along the whole of it, from high-tide
mark to hill-top, behind the shore-side hills, up every mountain
slope — everywhere, in varying shades of sombre green cover-
ing the face of nature, is the British Columbian forest, ripe
with many centuries of growth, a forest whose area contains
millions of acres of the finest merchantable timber — the giant
timber of the Pacific Slope.
At Vancouver there is recorded an annual rainfall of
some seventy inches. The farther north we go the heavier
we find the precipitation, until at Knight's Inlet that region
begins in which one hundred and seventy inches of rain fall
each year with unvarying regularity.
In winter snow whitens the upper levels of the hills and
even falls and lies for weeks in the lower woods ; but there
is nothing rigorous about the wet winter weather, and, because
of the mild climate and the abundant fall of rain, coniferous
trees grow as they grow nowhere else upon the continent.
The depth of soil covering the rock formations is often sur-
prisingly shallow, yet scientific investigations have estab-
lished the fact that the rate of tree growth in these moist
487
488 FOREST RESOURCES
sections of the Pacific Slope is double the average rate for
the whole of North America.
Add to the forests of the mainland coast the heavily
timbered areas of Vancouver Island, and you have pictured
an immense stand of merchantable timber that has im-
pressed not only the imagination of many a descriptive writer,
but also the precise statistical forester.
Yet barely more than half the forest wealth of the great
western province is comprised within the region west of the
Cascades. One-fifth of British Columbia's timber lies within
that forty-mile zone, known as the Railway Belt, that stretches
alongside the transcontinental line of the Canadian Pacific
Railway, from Vancouver eastward to the Albertan boundary.
Another great area includes the East and West Kootenays ;
still another lies in the triangle bounded by the railway
belt, the North Thompson River, and the neighbouring pro-
vince ; and, finally, heavily timbered areas on either side
of the route of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, between
Fort George and Tete Jaune Cache, comprise the valuable
forest of Central British Columbia. The geographical dis-
tribution of these vast bodies of timber is peculiarly fortunate
— for the coast forest irresistibly invites an export trade by
its extraordinary accessibility from the sea ; the Kootenay
and railway belt timber stands almost at the door of the
great prairie market ; and the central forest is so situated
as to supply the coming needs of the new northern farming
sections both of British Columbia and of Alberta.
I
THE TREES
SINCE Archibald Menzies first gave to the world a
description of the Douglas fir, from observations made
during the voyage of Captain Vancouver in 1792,
botanists have taken much interest in this most valuable
of softwood trees, and it has become highly prized for its
quality, rapid growth, and hardiness in the reafforestation
THE TREES 489
of many areas in European countries. The wide range pos-
sessed by this conifer, extending as it does over two thousand
miles from north to south, as well as the popular carelessness
with tree nomenclature, is well illustrated by the number
of different names, such as red fir, yellow fir, Oregon pine,
red pine, red spruce and Douglas spruce, that are in use in
various sections of the American West to describe the only
two varieties into which the species is divided : namely, the
gigantic variety produced under conditions of rapid growth
in the moist climate of the Pacific coast, and the hardy but
smaller tree that has been developed in the Rocky Mountain
regions.
The Douglas fir was early recognized by the settlers of
the West as of supreme excellence for almost every purpose
for which wood is utilized. It served admirably, in the form
of fuel, to supply the primitive needs of man's existence, and
equally well it provided the soundest of structural timbers
and the finest of clear lumber. With the growth of western
lumbering this fir has been manufactured into almost every
form known to the saw-mill operator, to say nothing of its use
in the shape of bridge timbers, beams, mining props, railway
ties, and poles. In a minor way it provides veneer for door
panels, yields turpentine, fruit tree spray, shingle-stain, tar,
charcoal, and pitch, when distilled ; and to a modest extent
it may be utilized as pulp, though the density of the harder
portion of its ' rings ' and the difficulty of bleaching make
the pulp produced from it unsuitable for the finer grades of
paper.
United States statistics show that the Douglas fir has
grown steadily in importance as a commercial wood. Less
than a billion feet of it were cut in the Western States in
1899 ; considerably over five billion feet are now cut annually ;
and its value, both in the form of standing timber or ' stump-
age ' and as manufactured lumber, has enormously increased.
It is undoubtedly the most important of all American woods,
and it is peculiarly fortunate for the Province of British
Columbia that by far the greatest portion of its merchant-
able stand of timber consists of this valuable tree. Utiliza-
tion of this great asset of the province is still in its infancy,
490 FOREST RESOURCES
but the fact that the provincial cut of Douglas fir increased
twenty-six per cent in 1909 and again thirty-two per cent
in 1910 indicates the rapid growth of present demand and
the development inevitable in the near future.
On the coast the immense sea-going canoes of various
Indian tribes, each hewn from a single stupendous log, and
some capable of carrying fifty men, have long been a favourite
subject for the tourist's camera. In the barnlike buildings
of the Indian villages in certain districts hewn planks of
almost incredible length and width astonish the visitor by
their size and the flawless perfection of the wood. The conifer
from which canoes and planks have alike been hewn is none
other than the celebrated giant red cedar of British Columbia.
The evenness of texture and the extraordinary straight-
ness of grain possessed by this tree caused the white settler
of the early days to value it for many useful purposes. Sawn
into lengths and split into thin, wide sheets, it furnished him
with roofing for his buildings ; he could split long planks from
it with a few skilful blows of his ax ; it yielded him, with
little labour, rails for his simple fences ; and for every pur-
pose for which a wood impervious to moisture was necessary,
he found the red cedar invaluable. Cedar is unaffected by
dampness — it does not rot ; and in the tangled wreckage of
forests that reached maturity and fell while yet the present
growth was in its infancy, we find to-day, moss-encrusted but
still sound at heart and valuable, the trunks of cedars that
have lain in contact with surface humidity for centuries.
The lumberman, of course, has found the red cedar one of
his most useful materials, no other wood bearing comparison
with it for the production of shingles, while the brilliant
polish that it takes renders it of great value for finishing and
cabinet work. Its lightness of weight is another remarkable
characteristic.
The supply of western cedar in the United States is already
insufficient, and we find that, though the State of Washington
—cutting over half the cedar used in the Union — sawed 184
million feet of it in 1909, trade demands necessitated the
importation of two and a half million dollars' worth from
Canada. A further indication of approaching shortage is the
A VALUABLE PROVINCIAL ASSET 491
fact that, on an average, cedar stumpage in the States more
than trebled itself in value during the eight years preceding
the depression of 1908.
British Columbia is the possessor of large forest areas in
which the stand shows a considerable percentage of merchant-
able cedar, and the province already cuts four-fifths of the
cedar lumber of Canada — its output being 167 million feet
in 1911.
The two more important species of British Columbia
conifer having been dealt with in some detail, it will be neces-
sary merely to catalogue the other varieties that compose
its forests. These are : the yellow cedar, the western white
pine, white fir, yellow pine and larch, the Sitka spruce —
which has so great a future before it in the manufacture of
high-grade pulp upon the Pacific coast, apart from its value
for boat-building, boxes, sashes and similar purposes — and
the western hemlock, so long decried because of the unfor-
tunate name that classed it with an inferior species of the
eastern forests, but now coming to be recognized as a useful
substitute for the Douglas fir, and as a pulpwood of no
mean order.
II
A VALUABLE PROVINCIAL ASSET
BECAUSE of the excessive cheapness and consequent
reckless alienation of natural resources, the early days
in every new country are fraught with danger to the
public interests of the community whose establishment has
been begun. The federal government of the United States,
through the flagrant abuse of homestead laws — designed to
benefit the bona fide settler — and the Timber and Stone Act
—which was intended to give him timber for his simple
needs — handed over to the speculator and the ' timber baron '
four-fifths of the public forests and transferred to railway
companies millions and millions of acres of public lands that
otherwise would have been the perpetual endowment of the
Western States. The legislator of those days failed to realize
VOL. XXII K
492 FOREST RESOURCES
the future value of natural resources ; he gave no recognition
to the value of state-ownership, and his one idea was to settle
up a country quickly at any price and to shut his eyes to any
abuses that this policy might encourage.
Australia, after undergoing, in a smaller way, much the
same process as the United States, awoke one day to find her
progress as an agricultural country restricted and confined
because her fertile lands had been transferred, almost by
provinces at a time, to the control of sheep-owning barons
— the famous * squatters.' By a happy chance, however,
British Columbia escaped a similar misfortune. She was
spared the alienation of her marvellous crown forests, because
nobody recognized their value or wanted them until com-
paratively late in her history, when the government had
already evolved a forest policy.
In the days before the building of the Canadian Pacific
Railway, the forests of the province, like the water in the
streams, were free for all to use. It is true that one or
two of the small saw-mills of that time, desiring to secure
for themselves exclusive rights over particularly convenient
areas of standing timber, had obtained rights in the form of
timber leases, which the government of those days had been
only too willing to grant at peppercorn rentals. But when
the connection was made between isolated British Columbia
and the rest of Canada by the transcontinental line, new life
was given to every form of local commerce, and the logging
and saw-milling industries emerged from their previous in-
significance. The government soon began to realize that
standing timber had ceased to be valueless, and we find that
in 1888 coherent legislation concerning the public forests
was attempted for the first time. It was then established
that crown timber was no longer to be given away ; it was
to be sold at the flat rate of fifty cents a thousand feet, board
measure. Owners of saw-mills, or persons who would con-
tract to build and operate saw-mills, were allowed to obtain
exclusive cutting rights over any area of forest they desired,
by the payment of a holding charge of ten cents an acre
annually. Hand-loggers and other small operators could
obtain a licence to cut any chosen timber for a small fee.
A VALUABLE PROVINCIAL ASSET 493
Under this system every encouragement was given to the
lumbering industry, arid the cheapness of timber leases placed
a certain restraint upon the indiscriminate alienation of
timber-lands.
Two important principles that were introduced — the one
in 1895, the other in 1896 — will serve as illustrations of the
various steps by which the legislature of the province gradu-
ally brought itself into line with modern statesmanship in
the matter of forest policy.
In the former year the legislature decided to recognize
the existence of the investor in standing timber — the man who
wanted to hold timber for a rise in value, as distinct from the
operating lumberman. The motive behind this enactment
was of course the idea of obtaining additional revenue from
the forests, and this same motive is disclosed by the fact that
non-operating holders of crown stumpage were required to
pay higher holding charges. The public ownership of timber-
lands, as the basic principle of enlightened forest policy, was
established by the act of 1896. Thereafter timber-lands of
the crown were permanently withdrawn from sale ; only the
crop of timber upon them could be alienated by means of
timber leases or cutting licences.
From time to time, in subsequent years, the terms on
which crown timber could be obtained were varied in the
matter of the holding charge. During the last few years of
the leasing system the holding charge for non-operators was
twenty-five cents an acre annually, and that for operating
lumbermen fifteen cents, while considerable sums were ob-
tained as bonus when leases were put up to competition.
But it was becoming apparent to the government of the
province that timber leases were not in the best interests of
the community. Timber under lease was handed over to
the lessee in return for an annual rental and a stumpage
charge that were both fixed for twenty-one years ahead ;
these charges were small, and the value of timber was obvi-
ously destined to show a large appreciation in the near future.
Therefore it was plain there was little chance of disposing
of the timber at anything approaching its true value and
that the discovery of some better method was most desirable.
494 FOREST RESOURCES
At this juncture, in the year 1905, the government re-
solved upon a remarkable measure of policy that challenged
and defeated criticism as a master-stroke of bold statesman-
ship. Though the lumbering industry had been progressing
gradually with the growth of population in the province, its
demands for many years to come could obviously be expected
to make but slight impression upon the vast forests available.
The hundreds of billions of feet of standing merchantable
timber in the forests were remaining in the hands of the
government and were unproductive of any revenue. In fact,
the protection of this vast property from fire and illegal
cutting threatened to impose a serious tax upon the public
treasury. Moreover, the absence of revenue from the crown
forests had a serious bearing upon the progress and develop-
ment of the growing community. Population was flowing in
and money was needed for the opening up of new districts,
for road and trail building, surveys, bridges, and other ex-
pensive public works. How, then, could revenue be extracted
from the forests ?
As has already been remarked, the legislation that achieved
this end was of remarkable boldness : the government threw
open all timber-lands. Any one who cared to stake a square
mile of forest was encouraged to do so, and the exclusive right
to cut timber on that area was given to him. The timber, in
fact, was sold on credit, and all the government required was
that interest should be paid each year on the capital value
of the property conveyed. In other words, a rental was
charged, and what are known as ' special timber licences '
were issued. From year to year, under this arrangement,
both rental and payment on timber that is cut (royalty)
may be varied in amount by the government at its discretion,
and this fact brings out the remarkable feature of this novel
policy : namely, that it necessitated no true alienation of the
timber, the government retaining its right to share in any
future rise in value. The confidence felt by the investor in
this form of tenure is shown strikingly by the history of the
years following 1905, for within two years 15,000 square miles,
or 9,600,000 acres, of timber-lands had been taken up in this
way by investors and lumbermen, while over 12,000 sales of
THE FORESTRY COMMISSION 495
these valuable licences had been recorded between private
parties in little over three years.
By the end of 1907 the government had secured sufficient
revenue from forest sources to provide the funds necessary
for provincial development, and had reached the conclusion
that from every point of view sufficient timber had been
placed under special licence and that it was desirable to
maintain the remainder in reserve. Unforeseen contingencies
might arise, timber-holding trusts might some day come into
existence, whose machinations might need thwarting by the
throwing — or the threat of throwing — reserve timber-lands
upon a market that had been l cornered.' For many reasons
it was decided to call a halt, and a reserve was proclaimed.
As an indication of the magnitude of the forest resources
of British Columbia, it is worth while recording here the
change that took place in the public revenue through the
eagerness of the investor to obtain cutting rights during the
years 1905 to 1908. Here are the figures in question :
FOREST REVENUE OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
1901 $ 115,594, being 7 per cent of the provincial revenue
1905 486,516, „ 17
1908 2,424,668, „ 41
1910 2,448,150, „ 31
1911 2,636,186, „ 25
1912 2,753,579, „ 25
1913 2,999,328.
British Columbia thus receives more than double the
amount that either Ontario or Quebec obtains from forest
sources.
Ill
THE FORESTRY COMMISSION
IN 1901 the holders of timber leases had obtained from the
legislature the right to renew their leases upon the
expiration of each twenty-one-year term, subject of
course to whatever conditions might be in force at the time
of expiry. When timber-lands to the vast extent of 9,600,000
11 11
11 11
It 11 11
496 FOREST RESOURCES
acres had been taken up under licence between 1905 and 1908,
there arose an agitation among the licence-holders for a
similar privilege of unlimited tenure, for, so far, their licences
had merely secured them cutting rights during a period of
twenty-one years. It was at this juncture that the govern-
ment decided that the complicated nature of the situation
with respect to the tenure of crown timber-lands and the
necessity of putting into practice the new doctrine of con-
servation as applied to forest resources demanded the ap-
pointment of a special board of investigation, and it there-
fore appointed — in July 1909 — the Timber and Forestry
Commission, composed of the Hon. Fred. J. Fulton, then chief
commissioner of Lands, A. S. Goodeve, M.P. for Rossland in
the Dominion House, and the present writer.
The commissioners began their labours by making a tour
of the province and holding sittings in all the chief centres
of lumbering activity, thus eliciting a great deal of evidence
from lumbermen, timber owners, and the public generally.
They journeyed to Toronto and Ottawa for the purpose of
studying the progress made in forest administration by the
Dominion and Ontario governments ; and by visits to con-
servation congresses and to Washington, D.C., they were
enabled to obtain from the Hon. Gifford Pinchot and other
prominent officials an effective idea of the up-to-date methods
of forest policy and organization developed of recent years
in the United States. After having studied the whole sub-
ject for eighteen months the commissioners presented their
report to the government towards the end of 1910.
One of the first questions submitted for the commissioners'
consideration was the desirability of extending the period
under which timber could be held by licensees, and after
mature consideration of all the complex bearings of the
matter they had no hesitation in endorsing the proposed
abolition of any arbitrary time-limit, being led to this opinion
by the fact that the forest would receive the best treatment
at the hands of licensees who were not obliged to cut the
timber off hurriedly within a fixed time, regardless of market
conditions ; also, increased security of tenure would be of
the greatest assistance to licensees in the financing of their
THE FORESTRY COMMISSION 497
holdings, and would therefore promote the welfare of the im-
portant lumbering industry. The time-limit was therefore
abolished.
The next pressing matter dealt with by the commission
was the protection of the forests of the province from fire, a
matter that had not yet received the serious attention that
it deserved in the American and Canadian West. Owing
to the small amount of rain that falls in the summer, the
forest floor in many regions of the Rocky Mountains and the
Pacific Slope becomes tinder-dry for several months. With
the settlement of the country the danger from fire has been
constantly increasing. The public, accustomed to regard
forest fires as a natural phenomenon, has been extremely
and even cynically careless. Year after year, railway loco-
motives passing by valuable areas of timber have showered
sparks into inflammable material allowed, in direct violation
of the forgotten law, to accumulate upon the rights-of-way ;
farmers, with the sole idea of clearing land in the cheapest,
easiest way, have fired their slashings at the height of the
hot season, in absolute neglect of the safety of adjoining
forest ; campers, prospectors, hunters have given no second
thought to the fires they left to spread and devastate perhaps
a whole watershed ; and even the lumbermen, whose self-
interest might have been supposed sufficient to safeguard
the neighbourhood of their operations, have used fire, explo-
sives, and spark-emitting donkey-engines without the slightest
precautions of common sense.
The inevitable result was seen year after year in the
appalling destruction of forest property. Conflagrations
raged unchecked unless they threatened settlements ; black-
ened wastes replaced hundreds of thousands of acres of the
finest merchantable timber, and in many regions of the pro-
vince investments in standing timber were merely a gamble
against the fire hazard. A most striking example of the
results of fatalistic negligence occurred at Fernie, when a
fire that had been burning for many days near the town
and that had been neglected was fanned by a sudden wind-
storm into a cyclone of flame that obliterated the town and
caused the loss of many lives.
498 FOREST RESOURCES
In other portions of the continent — in Ontario and Idaho,
and especially in the national forests of the United States
— it was being demonstrated that a moderate expenditure
of money upon the maintenance of a force of patrol-men,
combined with a campaign for the education of the careless
public, was a most effective preventive of forest fires. In
Idaho the lumbermen banded themselves together in associa-
tions, secured the passage of what was then considered a
drastic law, and handled the whole question of forest pro-
tection themselves. They showed most effectively that, at
an average cost of about two and a half cents an acre, they
could reduce the annual destruction by fire to a negligible
amount. The association movement spread to Washington,
then to Oregon, and is now stirring timber owners in other
Western States to action.
In British Columbia the different ideas of governmental
activity that exist under the British flag caused the lumber-
men to look to the authorities for protection of their timber,
and even before the appointment of the Forestry Commis-
sion the provincial administration had already begun in a
tentative way the establishment of a fire-patrol organiza-
tion. Through the efforts of the commissioners the active
interest of the government was enlisted in the good cause,
and the preventative service in consequence began the season
of 1910 supported by a vote of $75,000. That was but the
first step, however. Nature herself intervened, and in the
presence of the disastrous series of conflagrations that marked
that fatal summer the government doubled its force of fire-
wardens and quadrupled its expenditure upon fire-fighting.
In 1911 the number of wardens was again doubled, and by
the employment of divisional inspectors and supervisors a
much higher degree of organization was obtained. The
numerous gangs of workmen employed on government roads,
in every district of the province, are all subject to the call
of any warden, and in this manner the nucleus of an effective
fire-fighting crew can always be obtained at comparatively
short notice. The work hitherto maintained by the govern-
ment has been intentionally of an emergency nature, for
both government and lumbermen realize that it is fitting
THE FORESTRY COMMISSION 499
that owners of standing timber should contribute towards
the expense of forest protection service.
The commissioners recommended that the cost of fire
prevention throughout the province should be shared equally
between the holders of timber-lands and the provincial
treasury, and the suggestion was accepted by the govern-
ment and embodied in the Forest Act of 1912. Under this
act a Trust Deposit Fund is created by equal contributions
from these two sources, one cent an acre being levied annually
on all timber-lands. The levy may be increased or diminished
from year to year as circumstances require.1 The fund is
under the control of the provincial Forest board and provides
not only for the upkeep of a large patrol force, but also for
the construction of permanent improvements designed to
increase the efficiency of this force. The experience of the
voluntary associations in the Western States and, in a still
greater degree, the results achieved on the national forests,
bear striking witness to the value of field telephone systems,
of look-out stations on high elevations, and of the systematic
cutting-out of trails and fire-lines. The field telephone, in
particular, has been brought to a high pitch of usefulness by
electrical firms acting in conjunction with the officers of the
forest service. Permanent lines are strung through the
woods and their upkeep attended to by neighbouring ranchers
in return for permission to use the system themselves ; so
that at a comparatively small cost the patrol-man who dis-
covers a fire while making his rounds is provided with the
means of summoning assistance without delay. Camps of
fire-fighters in remote localities are also kept in touch with
headquarters by the laying of light wire along the ground, a
method that in dry weather is effective up to ten or twelve
miles. These details are given to show how vastly more
effective the employment of up-to-date methods can make
the ordinary patrol-man, for prompt arrival and quick com-
munication with the base from which supplies and men must
be obtained is the secret of successful fire-fighting.
Governments, foresters, enthusiasts of the conservation
movement, and even, of late years, the larger timber owners
1 This levy is now (1914) i£ cents per acre.
500 FOREST RESOURCES
of this continent, have begun to realize that the old fatalistic
attitude in the face of forest destruction was unwarranted
and stupid. It used to be the general belief that when the
merchantable timber in any forest area had been cut, that
area could be regarded as finished and done with for all
practical purposes, for the slash and inflammable debris
created by the cutting operations would inevitably catch
fire sooner or later, kill the young growth, and so make
reproduction within the next century an extremely doubtful
matter. The creation of this fire hazard was regarded as an
inevitable feature of all logging, since it was held that the
disposal of the slash in the interests of the forest was too
costly an operation for any lumberman to attempt. It is
obvious that the continuance of this reckless policy would
in time remove the continent of North America from the
short and insufficient list of the important timber-producing
regions of the world. One by one, however, American and
Canadian governments have begun to face the thorny ques-
tion of reform, and to make the first half-hearted attempts
to save some fragment of forest wealth for the coming
generations.
Courageous and vigorous action has been taken by only
three of these governments. In the comparatively easy
matter of timber sales in the national forests, the federal
government of Canada insists that all logging debris shall
be disposed of by the operator; in Minnesota lumbermen
are required to carry out the regulations of the State forester
in this respect ; while in British Columbia, where the heavy
stand of timber and dense undergrowth would render the
cost in many districts prohibitive to the lumbermen, the
government — in a true spirit of statesmanship — has under-
taken to dispose of logging debris through the medium of
the Forest Protection Fund, to which, as already stated,
both government and timber owners contribute equally.
The upshot of the matter is that, by the creation of the
Forest Protection Fund — which can be automatically in-
creased beyond the annual quarter of a million dollars, pro-
vided by the first levy, to any amount found necessary for
a thorough-going policy of fire protection — the timber-lands
THE FORESTRY COMMISSION 501
in British Columbia will henceforward be given a protection
that no other forests of the world — except those of certain
highly developed European countries — receive. The vast
accumulations of debris that already exist in the province
will be dealt with through the fund ; the creation of fresh
dangerous areas will be prevented ; and backed by a law
that provides for the condemnation of fire-traps as public
nuisances, for the clearing up of all rights-of-way, trails
and roads, and for other precautions too numerous to mention
here, the general abatement of dangerous conditions through-
out the province will be vigorously undertaken. The effect
both upon standing timber in British Columbia and upon
the lumbering industry will be considerable, for no factor has
hitherto had so powerful an influence in depressing the value
of western stumpage and in rendering difficult the financing
of saw-mill enterprises as the investor's fear of the fire hazard.
In this respect the investments in British Columbian timber
will henceforward be classed as l gilt-edged.'
Having devoted sufficient attention to the pressing matter
of fire protection, the commissioners proceeded to consider
the many other problems submitted to their consideration.
The studies that were made of the experiences of other pro-
vinces and states, however, soon forced upon their attention
one main outstanding fact, namely, that excellent in theory
as the forest policies of governments have sometimes been
on this continent, and poor as they generally are, the
damning feature of nearly every one of these policies, good
and bad alike, has been the apathy shown by legislatures
in providing means for effective administration.
Even the admirable Forest Service in charge of the United
States national forests was for long starved into impotence
by Congress, and many a State government has supported
a well-meaning Forestry board by a grant insufficient to pay
their postage bill. The conservation movement of recent
years has at least achieved this result — that governments
are beginning to recognize that the forests of this continent
are doomed unless large sums of money are spent on them,
and that expert advice and the organization of competent
forest services, composed of men of an efficient and trust-
502 FOREST RESOURCES
worthy stamp, are essential for the proper expenditure of
this money.
Congress now votes nearly six million dollars a year for
the administration of the 170 million acres of national forests,
and with this example before it the commission recommended
that the government of the province should regard the royalty
that is received by the treasury upon the cutting and removal
of timber from the crown forests as forest capital, so that as
much of this royalty as should or could be profitably rein-
vested in the maintenance or improvement of the forests
should be retained for that purpose. The commission was of
the opinion that it was as improper to withdraw capital from
the forest business of the province as it would be to impoverish
any commercial undertaking by a similar proceeding.
No better way of reinvesting royalty in forest property
could be devised than the creation of the best expert forest
service that the province could obtain, and the commission
recommended that the continent should be ransacked in order
to discover and secure the best men available. There was a
general chorus of sincere approval throughout British Columbia
when the government announced — in introducing the Forest
Bill — that Gifford Pinchot had taken the greatest interest
in the quest for good men, and that the services of Over-
ton W. Price, vice-president of the National Conservation
Association, the man who, under Pinchot, had achieved the
splendid organization of the United States Forest Service,
had been secured as consultant forester.
Pinchot's interest is such that he proposes to give the
work of forest investigation in the province his personal
supervision as far as his other duties will permit.
Under such auspices and with such determination to
provide the province with the best forest service that money
and thought and careful work can provide, the prospects of
forest conservation in British Columbia are extremely bright.
Devastation has so far barely eaten up the fringe of the great
forest areas, and with the control of logging operations and
the work of reafforestation placed in strong, capable hands,
the use of the forests will cease to be synonymous with
destruction and abuse.
TIMBER AREAS 503
The expenditure of the fiscal year 1913-14 is as follows :
. $245,754
General administration
Forest protection
286,055
Total
The income of the Forest Protection Fund is as follows :
Timber holders and owners . . . $166,113
Government
Refunds from railways
166,113
18,456
Total
. $350,682
The forest revenue, as shown in the public accounts for
the years 1912 and 1913, is composed as follows :
Twelve Months to
December 1913
Twelve Months to
December 1912
Licence rentals
$2,115,474
$1,937,194
4.Q2 64.Q
Lease rentals
119,291
79,262
Scaling fees .
Licence penalties .
25,738
24,291
36,833
25,651
Timber bonus
18,720
Transfer fees
10,385
11,440
Hand-loggers' licences
5,025
4,125
Miscellaneous
21,215
19,237
$2,832,788
$2,603,119
Taxation from crown grant timber-lands
166,540
150,400
Totals .
$2,999,328
$2,753,579
IV
TIMBER AREAS
IN PRIVATE OWNERSHIP
AS has been mentioned in the preceding remarks, timber-
j[\, lands — previous to the year 1888 — were sold like any
other lands, no value being placed upon the timber.
For eight years subsequent to that date sales continued
to be made, but any timber cut from the lands sold was.
504 FOREST RESOURCES
subject to the payment of fifty cents per thousand feet
royalty. Timber-lands were also included in various railway
grants as late as 1901.
Wild — that is to say unimproved — lands in British
Columbia are subject to an annual tax of four per cent on
their assessed value, the tax being designed to prevent the
locking-up of large areas for investment purposes and to
compel utilization. Recognizing that so heavy a tax would
encourage tree-slaughter and be contrary to the true principles
of conservation were it applied to timber-lands in private
ownership, the government permits all bona fide holdings of
standing timber to be taxed at half the wild-land rate, namely
two per cent. At the time of writing (1913) the classification of
the six million acres granted to the five subsidiary companies
of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the southern interior of
the province is still incomplete, owing to the many delays
incident to the prolonged litigation — only brought to a con-
clusion of recent years — with these companies ; and it is
therefore impossible as yet to say what area included in these
six million acres is covered with stands of merchantable
timber.1 There are, however, over 800,000 acres of private
timber-lands subject to taxation and a further 375,000 acres
free of taxation still unsold in the possession of the Esquimalt
and Nanaimo Railway Company on Vancouver Island.
LEASEHOLD TIMBER-LANDS
Some few leases were granted at a rental of five cents an
acre by authority of the lieutenant-governor in council before
the legislature made formal provision for this form of tenure
in the act of 1888. After that date timber leases continued
to be granted at various rentals, varying from ten to twenty-
five cents per acre, and for periods ranging from fifteen to
thirty years, until the abolition of the leasing system in
1905. We find, therefore, that in 1912 timber leases covering
613,000 acres were in existence.
1 Repurchase of the bulk of these lands by the government has now (January
1914) been completed, and examination of their timber value is being conducted
by the Forest branch.
TIMBER AREAS 505
In 1901, and again in 1908, the legislature offered to give
the right of perpetual renewal, in consecutive periods of
twenty-one years, to all leases that were surrendered by
holders within a year from the date of the enactments, and
a large number of lessees took advantage of this privilege.
We find, therefore, that of the leases now in existence those
covering a total of 386,458 acres possess the right of renewal,
while the balance will lapse and determine upon the expiration
of their original periods. Any lease entering upon a renewal
term does so upon the conditions ruling at the time of renewal,
the idea of the legislature being to secure to the crown, from
time to time, a fair share of the appreciation in value of the
timber held under this form of tenure.
In connection with timber leaseholds, mention should be
made of 354,399 acres leased to four companies, under an
act passed in 1901 but which was repealed shortly after, for
the purpose of encouraging the establishment of the pulp
and paper industry in the province. These pulp leases were
issued for twenty-one years at the nominal rental of two
cents an acre. Although the legislature intended merely to
provide supplies for pulp and paper mills, it was inevitable
that a considerable stand of the choicest merchantable timber
should be included in the areas demised, and the absence of
any provision for the cutting of this merchantable timber
has caused the present government considerable difficulty in
dealing with the matter, several of the pulp companies having
equipped large saw-mills to operate upon the timber in ques-
tion. So far, the only solution attempted has been to require
these companies to take out special licences covering any
areas from which they may desire to cut merchantable timber.
Some 32,252 acres have also been leased upon similar terms
to a tanning company, for the purpose of stripping hemlock
bark.
LICENSED TIMBER-LANDS
By far the most important holdings of timber in the
province are, however, the areas taken up under special
licences during the three years 1905-6-7, when the crown
forests were thrown open to staking — no less than 8600
506 FOREST RESOURCES
square miles of timber-land being held under this form of
tenure in the regions west of the Cascade Mountains, and
6400 square miles east thereof. The annual rental or fee
charged for the renewal of the holder's option on this licensed
timber is subject to change from year to year in order that
the crown may participate in the holding profit or increase
in value of the standing timber, but so far (1913) it has not
varied from the original amounts imposed, namely, $140 per
square mile on the coast and $115 per square mile in the
interior.
These holding charges, which work out at less than
twenty-two cents and eighteen cents per acre, are thus very
reasonable, varying from less than one cent to less than
three cents per thousand feet per annum, in accordance with
the density of the stand. Upon payment of the holding
charge and upon compliance with the government's regula-
tions a special timber licence may be renewed annually as
long as merchantable material remains upon the land it
covers, provided the holder has taken care to claim this
privilege in accordance with the provisions of the statutes.
TIMBER-LANDS HITHERTO RESERVED
At the end of 1907 the government decided to stop the
issue of fresh licences and to place the remaining crown
timber-lands under reserve until such time as it had come to
a decision concerning their disposal. The Forest Bill of 1912
provided for timber sales. Any stand of timber that it was
considered desirable in the public interest to sell was to be
examined, cruised, and surveyed by the Forest Service, and
after due advertisement the licence covering the sale area
was to be sold to the highest bidder. Bids were to be made
either in the form of cash-down bonus covering the whole
berth, or on the improved Ontario system of bonus per
thousand feet of timber payable, in addition to the ordinary
royalty, at the time the timber was cut.
Circumstances may make one or other method preferable
in any particular case, but in general the bonus per thousand
feet clearly gives the better results to both government and
TIMBER AREAS 507
purchaser, since the government gets paid for all the timber
sold while relieving the purchaser from the fire risk — no bonus
being taken from the latter's pocket except for timber that he
actually cuts.
Concerning the area, stand, and general valuation of the
timber at present held in reserve there are the most varied
opinions even among those most familiar with the many
districts of the province in which the scattered areas of this
reserve exist. The chief of the difficulties that at present
precludes any authoritative statement upon the subject is
the fact that only a small proportion of the timber taken up
under special licence during the furious activity of 1905-6-7
has as yet been surveyed. In August 1910 only 1500 of the
15,000 licences had been definitely located on the map, and
though surveyors were busily at work during 1911, the govern-
ment found it necessary to extend the time-limit — within
which survey is to be compulsory — to 1918. It is hoped,
however, that, by bringing pressure to bear on dilatory
licensees and by surveys made by the government itself, the
boundaries of the reserve timber will be definitely ascertained
some years before that date.
Meanwhile, therefore, it is necessary to rely upon the
analysis of a vast number of opinions expressed by experienced
men, each of whom has spoken with familiarity of conditions
in districts known to him, and to hazard, in consequence, a
general impression that the reserve timber-lands comprise
about one-quarter of the total forest area under provincial
jurisdiction.
RAILWAY BELT TIMBER-LAND
The belt, forty miles wide, that stretches across the pro-
vince alongside the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway
was transferred, at the time of Confederation, to the juris-
diction of the Dominion government. Somewhat over one
and a quarter million acres of the timber-lands in this railway
belt are now held under licence upon terms that are essentially
different from those of the provincial licence tenure, Do-
minion timber licences being sold by auction and the holding
value of the timber being realized by way of bonus at the
VOL. XXII L
508
FOREST RESOURCES
time of sale instead of by annual rental as in the provincial
licence. A nominal rental of five dollars a square mile east of
Yale and five cents an acre west of that point is alone imposed.
Royalty on timber cut is fifty cents per thousand feet.
According to the estimate of the Dominion forester, about
half the available timber in the railway belt remains still
unalienated in the hands of the federal government. The
total stand within the belt is held to be between forty and
fifty billion feet.
TOTAL OF BRITISH COLUMBIA TIMBER
Summarizing the above discussion, we may estimate the
acreage of timber-lands and the total stand of merchantable
timber within the whole province to be composed as follows :
Acreage
Av. Stand
per acre
ft. B.M.
Total Stand
ft. B.M.
Vancouver Island
crown grant timber .
344,000
35,000
12,000,000,000
Mainland
crown grant timber .
484,000
10,000
5,000,000,000
E. & N. Ry. Co.
350,000
i4»5°°
5,000,000,000
C. P. R. (unpublished
conjecture)
822,000
. ,
6,000,000,000
Timber leaseholds
613,000
26,000
16,000,000,000
Special licence timber
9,000,000
12,000
108,000,000,000
Mill timber on pulp
leaseholds
387,000
13,000
5,000,000,000
12,000,000
..
157,000,000,000
Reserve timber-land,
conjectured to be
X total forest area
under provincial jur-
isdiction, say roughly
4,OOO,OOO
12,000
48,000,000,000
16,000,000
205,000,000,000
To this must be added the forty or fifty billion feet of the
railway belt, giving a grand total — for the whole province —
THE SAW-MILLING INDUSTRY 509
of say 250 billion feet. The gradual lowering of the standard
of what is known as merchantable timber will probably in-
crease this amount to the three hundred billion feet that
finds favour with Dr Fernow and other foresters as a reason-
able estimate of the forest wealth of British Columbia.
The United States is usually credited with 2500 billion
feet of standing merchantable timber, Canada with about
one-fifth of that amount. Over half the stand of the United
States is in the Rocky Mountain and Pacific forests, and
considerably over half the Canadian stand is in the Province
of British Columbia. Comparison of the populations and
habitable areas of the two North American powers shows
very clearly that Canada is, and will always be, far richer,
proportionately, as a forest country than the United States.
In fact the latter country is already discovering that within
another thirty years a very serious situation will arise within
its borders owing to the reckless overcutting that is at
present inevitable, and her export trade in lumber is doomed
within the lifetime of the present generation. British Col-
umbia is in a far different position, and is destined — like
Sweden and Russia — to be an exporting country for as long
as our powers of prediction can foretell. In the remarkable
climate of the section of the Pacific Slope that the province
possesses, nature provides the forests with a recuperative
power far greater than that of other forest regions ; and the
well-known fact should never be lost sight of, in any estimate
of the potentialities of our forest wealth, that the rate of
tree growth on the British Columbia coast is twice the average
for the continent.
V
THE SAW-MILLING INDUSTRY
OF recent years a marked tendency has been observable
among the holders of crown grant leasehold and
licensed timber-lands alike to amalgamate their hold-
ings, and both the general press and the lumber trade journals
have recorded a large number of important mergers. As
5io FOREST RESOURCES
a result of this movement, the financial journals of North
America and of England have devoted considerable attention
to the valuable nature of stands of timber in British Columbia,
and a great many large-scale flotations have been success-
fully placed on the market. Capital has thus become inte-
rested in lumbering operations in the province in amounts
ranging from ten million dollar issues down, and the stimulus
received by the lumbering industry has already produced
visible results in the erection of new mills, some of them both
in size and up-to-date equipment being among the finest
in the world. Though many of the heaviest stands of timber
are so accessible from tide-water that they may be logged
with the simple equipment of yarders and road donkeys, yet
the larger companies have prepared for the development of
their enormous holdings by heavy expenditure upon logging
railways.
Other improvements are under way in the gradual re-
placement of coal and wood burning engines by oil burners
to eliminate the danger of fire, and the utilization of electrical
energy in woods operations has passed the experimental
stage, though of course the large initial outlay required will
always restrict its use to operations on a very extensive
scale. All over the Pacific Slope immense stands of merchant-
able timber occur on slopes too steep for profitable logging
by ordinary methods, and considerable attention has been
directed to the invention of overhead or ' sky-line ' systems
of haulage, by means of which logs can be cheaply con-
veyed down gradients of any steepness. Several of the
systems are now being installed in the province, and there
is no doubt whatever that in many sections sky-line sys-
tems will oust other methods by reducing logging costs to
a minimum.
Owing to congestion of work caused by general increase
in lumbering activity, the Forest branch of the department
of Lands has fallen somewhat behind in the collection of
statistics, and it is therefore impossible to give many details
concerning the lumbering industry that would have been of
interest. There are approximately 270 mills in the province,
fifty-nine of them being devoted to the production of shingles.
THE SAW-MILLING INDUSTRY
The statistics of the Manufacturers' Association are as
follows :
1909
1910
1911
1912
Lumber cut :
million ft.
million ft.
million ft.
million ft.
Coast mfrs.
Mountain mfrs. .
537
330
60O
428
739
450
902
360
867
1028
1189
1262
Shipments by rail :
Coast mfrs.
Mountain mfrs. .
209
325
263
377
340
420
472
440
534
640
760
912
The coast manufacturers sell about 250 million feet a
year locally and ship about 70 million feet by sea to foreign
countries. In addition to these amounts, some 47 million
feet of logs are exported to mills on Puget Sound from lands
that do not come under the stringent provisions of the Timber
Manufacture Act, which prohibits the export of logs from
crown timber-lands.
Taking the whole province and including, therefore, the
Dominion railway belt, the statistics collected by the Forestry
branch at Ottawa show that British Columbia captured
from Quebec the second place among the lumber-producing
provinces of Canada in 1909 ; while in 1910 the value of her
cut was double that of Quebec, and its quantity — no less than
1620 million feet — was practically equal to the cut of Ontario.
It is obvious, therefore, that Ontario is on the point of losing
for ever her old-time supremacy ; and yet the remarkable
fact is that British Columbia has practically only begun the
exploitation of her forest wealth.
That the exhaustion of the East and the consequent west-
ward shifting of the source of timber supply for the North
American continent is already imminent, and that neverthe-
less the lumbering industry of British Columbia is but in its
infancy, may be seen very clearly by comparison with the
Western States. The State of Washington, with little more
512 FOREST RESOURCES
timber than British Columbia, has become the foremost
lumber producer of the Union ; and Oregon, with much the
same stand, has already shot up to the fourth place on the
list. The annual cut in the United States is about forty
billion feet, and statistics for 1910 show the following items :
Lumber cut :
million ft.
Washington
4097
Oregon ....
2085
California
1255
Idaho .
746
Montana ....
319
8502
As against these totals, British Columbia has only been
cutting from 1000 to 1600 million, and we can see how favour-
ably the province is situated from the fact that the total
cut of Canada, many of whose eastern regions have already
passed their zenith as producers, is less than the combined
cut of the first two of the Western States on the list just
given.
A serious feature in the situation of late years has been
the chronic over-production of inferior grades of lumber in
some of the Western States. The market for this is limited
at present, and to get rid of their surplus stock at any price
the American manufacturers have been disorganizing the
prairie markets by dumping into them shipments at sacrifice
rates. The recent more rigorous enforcement of the customs
regulations has, however, given a much needed protection
to the British Columbian manufacturer, and it is no longer
possible for firms south of the international boundary to
evade the payment of duty by artificially roughening the
dutiable grades of imported lumber.
THE PULP INDUSTRY 513
VI
THE PULP INDUSTRY
IN dealing with the various tenures under which timber-
lands are held in the province, mention has already
been made of the 354,399 acres that were leased to four
pulp companies under agreements made in 1901. The leases
were for twenty-one years at the nominal rental of two cents
an acre, the legislature being desirous of giving every possible
encouragement to the establishment of the pulp and paper
industry. The four concessions are as follows :
Acres
Powell River Company
Ocean Falls ,,
Swanson Bay ,,
B. C. Wood Pulp and Paper Co.
134,551
79,999
84,180
55,669
It became apparent, however, in the years following 1901,
that the time was not then ripe for the establishment of the
new industry, and the companies holding these concessions
were for long unable to finance their enterprises and complete
the erection of their mills. With the coming of good times,
however, after the great depression of 1907-8, investors began
to realize the value of the immense stands of first-class pulp-
wood in the possession of these British Columbian concerns,
and no further difficulty was found in securing the necessary
capital. At the time of writing (1913) three large plants
have been equipped for operation in connection with the
original concessions, while a fourth plant is in process of
reconstruction. Moreover, a new mill on Howe Sound has
been built without the aid of any grant of timber-lands from
the government, and is now operating.
The plant of the Powell River Company is pronounced
by experts to be the most perfect one of its kind upon the
5H FOREST RESOURCES
continent. Its present output capacity is 225 tons of
newsprint paper a day, and so pleased are its owners with
the prospects of western trade that preparations are being
made for doubling its capacity. The plant itself, to date,
has cost $3,000,000, and the total investment of the company
is in excess of $5,400,000. Apart from the purely commercial
side of the undertaking, a particularly pleasing and politically
important feature of it is that with a monthly pay-roll of
$100,000 and a force of some 1200 men — every one of whom
is a white man — a new settlement is being created upon a
hitherto sparsely populated section of the coast, and a new
bulwark against the oriental invasion is established. The
operation of the plant, moreover, marks a step forward in
practical forest conservation, for not only is the company
operating largely on inferior species, such as hemlock and
balsam, and thus making a clean cut in its operations in the
crown forests, but also, by combining the logging of merchant-
able timber with the cutting of pulpwood, the appalling
waste that is the inevitable feature of most western logging
operations at the present stage of development is very con-
siderably reduced.
The investments made by the other pulp companies of
the province are also considerable. At Ocean Falls over
$1,500,000 has been expended upon a combined saw-mill
and mechanical pulp-mill, the saw-mill waste being utilized
for pulp as well as the inferior logs in the booms. At Swanson
Bay over $1,000,000 is represented by another combination
of saw-mill and sulphite pulp-mill ; while the soda pulp-
mill of the British Columbia Pulp and Paper Company at
Port Mellon has cost in the neighbourhood of $400,000.
Plans are now being drawn up for the building of a new
mill in connection with the limits at Quatsino. On Howe
Sound is the recently opened mill, which has cost to date
(1913) in the neighbourhood of $600,000. This mill manu-
factures sulphite pulp.
We have thus a total of $6,500,000 expended in the pro-
vince within the last three or four years upon pulp and paper
mill construction alone. In Washington and Oregon there
are already six mills in operation, three of them being in
PANAMA CANAL AND LUMBER TRADE 515
the neighbourhood of Oregon City ; but British Columbia
occupies a strong strategical position, as compared \vith all
possible competition on the Pacific Slope, on account of the
valuable water-powers that she possesses, and in view of the
fact that cheap power is a factor of the highest importance
in the development of the newsprint industry. China, Japan,
and the Orient generally, Australia and South America offer
most promising markets for an export trade in both pulp and
manufactured paper, and though the selling range of coast
companies will be limited by freight rates to the western
portion of the continent, the influx of population to the Rocky
Mountain and coast regions is providing a considerable and
constantly increasing market.
VII
THE PANAMA CANAL AND THE LUMBER TRADE
SINCE we have arrived within a year of the opening of
the stupendous canal that is cutting in half the land
surface of the western hemisphere, it is natural that
the probable effects of that canal upon the world's commerce
should already be the subject of lively discussion* Pessimists
there have been who claimed that the enormous cost of
construction — four hundred million dollars or thereabouts —
would compel the American government to levy tolls so high
that the commercial advantage of the new route over the
long sea passage would be nullified in the case of bulky pro-
ducts such as lumber. As time has progressed and discus-
sion has cleared the air, it has, however, been becoming plainer
and plainer that the high-toll principle cannot possibly be
adopted by the American government. Doubtless the protec-
tion of their own mercantile marine — in so far as that marine
may survive the steady process of decay that has already
reduced it to comparative insignificance — will keep alive the
agitation in the States for discrimination in favour of American
vessels ; but it is ludicrous to suppose that any attempt will be
made to exact tolls on foreign shipping that would discourage
vessels from making the short cut by Panama. The American
5i6 FOREST RESOURCES
people, intentionally or unintentionally, have spent three
hundreds of millions upon a great work for the general benefit
of mankind. It is extremely doubtful whether the canal can
be made to pay — as a mere commercial undertaking ; and
there is certainly no hope of putting it on a paying basis unless
a large tonnage be handled steadily. With high tolls the
tonnage could not be obtained, for a very considerable pro-
portion of the available commerce will consist of lumber and
wheat from the Pacific coast and the western prairie regions,
and other commodities that must be handled cheaply.
We may draw a reasonable inference also from the actions
of the great federated transcontinental railways of the States.
For years they sought to discourage the Panama idea, and by
their control of shipping on the Pacific coast they contrived
to starve the development of trade via Tehuan tepee and
Panama. Subsequently they were the prime movers in a
campaign directed against the canal proposal itself, and more
recently the alarmist rumours concerning the high tolls that
have been put forward as a necessary feature of the canal
have evidently been set on foot by them. The great railway
interests have, however, been forced to accept the inevitable,
and — as is evidenced by their heavy expenditure upon the
improvement of Western terminal facilities — they are now
joining with zeal in the vast work of preparation that is in
busy progress in all the ports of the Pacific coast, from
Prince Rupert in the north to San Diego in the south.
The following table of distances illustrates forcibly the
advantageous effect upon the West of the opening of the
canal :
Port of Victoria, B.C., to Plymouth, England :
By the Cape of Good Hope . . 18,780 miles
„ „ Suez Canal .... 15,560 „
„ Cape Horn .... 15,180 ,,
,, the Panama Canal . . . 8,560 ,,
The distances from British Columbia ports to Europe will
therefore be halved by the new Panama route and a saving
effected of from seventeen to twenty-three days in the case
of steamers.
PANAMA CANAL AND LUMBER TRADE 517
The opening of the canal will change many currents of
the world's commerce, and its most powerful effect will be felt
upon the hitherto somewhat isolated Pacific coast. Upon no
industry will this effect of the canal be more pronounced than
on the lumbering industry. Lumber — except in its highest
grades — is a product whose transport to any considerable
distance is only commercially feasible when low freight rates
exist ; in fact, the freight rate is all-important. It is owing
to this fact that logging operations in the Pacific North- West
have entailed — and continue to entail at the present day —
much appalling waste of what will in the near future be
considered valuable wood. The present crop of timber is
being picked over and ' culled ' rather than harvested, and
yet, in spite of this initial waste in the woods themselves, the
lumber yards of western mills are glutted with the residue of
sales — the inferior grades of rough lumber which the local
market cannot absorb and which cannot be shipped to distant
points because their low value will not support high freight
rates. This era of waste — waste doubly pitiful in view of the
timber shortage that will grip the world before the end of the
present half-century — can only be terminated in one of two
ways : either by the rise in value of all timber, which will
automatically cause waste to cease, or by the opening up
of new markets that can be reached at low transportation
rates.
Western lumbermen realize that the Panama Canal will
provide these rates, and put an end to enforced destruction of
good material upon the scrap-heap and the incinerator. At
present the freight rate on fir from coast to coast is $24 or
$25 a thousand feet board measure, or roughly, twice the
price at which the product sells at the place of production.
Cut off as it is, in this way, from the big markets of the
Atlantic, the lumbering industry of the Pacific coast finds its
expansion clogged and hindered by chronic over-production.
The rich future before the industry has attracted enor-
mous investments, and impatience to realize on these has
created a mill capacity in every western forest region that
is far in excess of the existing demand. Only by mutual
agreements to limit output can any stability be given to trade
5i8 FOREST RESOURCES
conditions ; and this unsatisfactory state of affairs — so gall-
ing to enterprising Westerners — can only be removed by the
completion of the stupendous work at Panama.
It is as yet impossible to put into dollars and cents the
exact effect that the opening of the great canal will have
upon freight rates, but this may be said, that even in 1911,
with all the expenses incident to the handling and rehandling
of lumber when breaking bulk, shipments of fir lumber were
made from Portland, Ore., to New York City, via the Isthmus
railway, at little over half the transcontinental freight rate
by rail. One beneficial effect of the canal, therefore, will be
the providing of an outlet for the over-production of Washing-
ton and Oregon saw-mills, for the operators in these States
will be no longer under compulsion to dump their surplus
stocks, in times of depression, into the Canadian prairie
market. Of late years the necessity of raising a little ready
money at any sacrifice has caused these operators to de-
moralize the lumber market in Western Canada by selling
the lower grades of lumber at a loss, no less than 1 14,000,000
feet having been sent across the line in 1910 and 264,000,000
feet in 1911 ; and we have seen the distressing spectacle of
a transcontinental and government-assisted railway under
construction ignoring the saw-mills of the forest province
in which its line was being built and buying its materials
abroad. The more stringent enforcement of the customs
regulations under instructions from the government at
Ottawa has done something to check this undesirable state
of affairs, but only Panama can effect a permanent cure.
VIII
THE FORESTS AND THE FUTURE
r I ^HERE is peculiar force in the dictum that even in
JL private hands forest wealth is community wealth ;
for it is calculated that four-fifths of the value of
manufactured lumber represents the wages of labour, and in
consequence circulates through every artery of commerce.
Lumber, moreover, in British Columbia is the chief of the
THE FORESTS AND THE FUTURE 519
products that bring in and earn outside money, and we have
seen that this already means approximately $25,000,000 a
year to the province even now, while the cutting of the present
crop will yield a total of four and a half billion dollars, without
taking the least account of the inevitable rise in value that
will take place while that cutting is being carried on. In
addition to all the reasons mentioned, it is because nine-
tenths of the provincial forests have been carefully retained
as crown property that they have their enormous importance
for the people of British Columbia, and it is because of this
happy fact again that the government has been led to pay
such attention to the checking of fire losses and to recognize
that fire protection on a very large scale is one of the best
investments that it can make — hence the big campaign that
the government has now commenced through the agency of
the Forest Protection Fund.
Fire protection, however, is but a preliminary — though
an essential one — to the great work of conservation. It must
be recognized that at least as great a campaign is required in
the interests of practical reafforestation.
Experts of the United States Forest Service, basing their
calculations upon studies made on the rate of growth of
timber on the Pacific coast, have demonstrated that it is
possible, even now, to grow Douglas fir from seed at a com-
mercial profit. One at least of the large lumbering concerns
of Oregon is reafforesting its cut-over lands as a business
matter and employing trained foresters for the purpose.
Others will soon be following this example. In the case of
that great holder of Western stumpage — the British Col-
umbia government — reafforestation on a very large scale will
be recognized as a function of the state, just as it is in the
national forests of the neighbouring Republic.
Some very reliable figures are available in the case of
Douglas fir. Assuming that the standard of what is mer-
chantable will, as years go on and the fast-diminishing supply
of the world's timber becomes more valuable, permit of the
utilization of trees twelve inches in diameter at breast-high
and of logs as small as eight inches in diameter, the measure-
ment of the United States Forest Service shows that an
520 FOREST RESOURCES
average yield per acre under fairly favourable conditions in the
region west of the Cascades is (for new growth) as follows :
At 40 years 12,400 feet board measure
„ 50 „ 28,000 „
„ 60 „ 41,000 „
„ 70 „ 51,700 „
„ 80 „ 61,100 „
,, 9° » 70,200 „
„ 100 „ 79,800 „
„ no „ 90,300 „
„ 120 „ 101,500 „
„ 130 „ 113,000 „
Figures such as these are extremely encouraging, for we
see from them that even in sixty years a heavy crop of Douglas
fir timber may be grown. Picturesque as they are, and super-
fine as is the quality of the clear lumber that they yield, the
giant timber of the present crop may be cut without the
dismal feeling that by thus destroying the growth of centuries
we are irretrievably impoverishing our forest resources. The
fact is that most of the coast forests are over-ripe and, if
anything, are deteriorating and need cutting. Nature, with
a little careful assistance from the forester, will replace the
tremendous trees at which we marvel by smaller ones, but
the density of the even-aged forests that we shall obtain
in the future will produce, on an average, an even heavier
stand of merchantable timber to the area than unassisted
nature has been able to achieve so far. It is thus easily
within the power of the government to secure the permanence
of our timber supply.
History is dismal reading to the forester. Many an ancient
civilization by butchering its forests struck at the roots of
its own prosperity — namely, water supply and the farming
industry dependent thereon — and withered away. Others,
like China, have by the same action exposed their agriculture
to floods and droughts, the horrors of which form an unfailing
source of telegraphic news for our daily papers. In more recent
times the destruction of the forests has created deserts in
Europe, deserts which some countries — Austria and France, for
instance — have been reclaiming of late years with great success,
THE FORESTS AND THE FUTURE
but at an enormous expense. Germany alienated a very large
proportion of her forest land, and during the last half -century
has been spending money by the million to repurchase and
reforest the wasted remnant. Within the present generation
vast areas of timber in the United States and in Canada have
been ruined by repeated fires. But, though in certain regions
the same devastation has made inroads upon them, the forest
resources of British Columbia are still largely intact, and it is
before, and not after, the approach of ruin that the govern-
ment has awakened to the vital importance of protecting
them and ensuring their permanence.
HISTORY OF FARMING
VOL. XXII
HISTORY OF FARMING
I
THE PIONEER FARMERS
THERE is a popular misconception that the tilling of
the soil was the primal occupation of man ; and
agriculture, in eulogiums of a literary or post-
prandial nature, is often referred to as the earliest and most
honourable of all human pursuits. It may, indeed, be de-
scribed as the earliest form of civilized occupation, but hunt-
ing and fishing were before it in prehistoric times as a means
of existence. Man lived long on the animals which formed
part of his primordial environment, clothed himself with
their skins and used their bones and sinews as implements
of the chase and of domestic utility, eras before he turned to
the soil for sustenance. This was, in a sense, the order of
events in British Columbia at a very recent period. The
North-West Company and its successor, the Hudson's Bay
Company, first exploited the territory out of which the
province has been carved for the furs of animals, and subse-
quently established farming as an auxiliary to their main
operations.
It is worth recording that Daniel William Harmon, fur
trader, was the first farmer of British Columbia, as well as
the first historian of its northern interior. An entry of his on
Wednesday, May 22, 1811 — note the time of year — at Fraser
Lake, reads : ' As the frost is now out of the ground, we have
planted our potatoes, and sowed barley, turnips, etc., which
are the first seed ever sown this side of the Rocky Mountains.'
On May 10, 1815, he again records his efforts at cultivating
the soil in the Fraser Lake district : ' We have surrounded
a piece of ground with palisades, for a garden, in which we
526
526 HISTORY OF FARMING
have planted a few potatoes, and sowed onion, carrot, beet,
parsnip seeds and a little barley. I have also planted a very
little Indian corn without the expectation that it will come
to maturity. The nights in this region are too cold and the
summers are too short to admit of its ripening.' It is added
that * the soil in many places in New Caledonia is tolerably
good.' So much for the seed-time ; now for the harvest.
On October 3, 1816, Harmon writes : ' We have taken our
vegetables out of the ground. We have forty-one bushels of
potatoes, the produce of one bushel planted in the spring.
Our turnips, barley, etc., have produced well.' His last
reference to agricultural operations is as follows (February 18,
1818) : 'A few days since we cut down and reaped our
barley. The five quarts which I sowed on the first of May
have yielded as many bushels. One acre of ground, pro-
ducing in the same proportion as this has done, would yield
seventy-one bushels. This is sufficient proof that the soil
in many places is favourable to agriculture.' In this con-
nection the diarist's observations are almost prophetic :
' It will probably be long, however, before it will exhibit the
fruits of cultivation.' It was prophetic because only now,
almost a century later, is this district assuming importance
on account of its agricultural possibilities. The only agri-
culture carried on in that vast northern interior up to the
present time, except in a very few instances, has been by the
Hudson's Bay Company around its widely scattered posts.
Alexander Caulfield Anderson, to whom reference will again
be made, in a prize essay written in 1872 says :
At Alexandria long before the general settlement of
the province wheat was cultivated on a limited scale.
From 1843 to 1848 between 400 and 500 bushels were
raised annually at the Hudson's Bay Company's post
and converted into flour by means of a mill, with stones
1 8" in diameter wrought by horses. As much as 40
bushels to the acre, by careful measurement, and of
the finest quality were raised on portions of the land
cultivated during the interval mentioned. ... As high
as the Fraser Lake barley yields abundantly, and the
potato, with, of course, other culinary vegetables, which
come to perfection.
THE PIONEER FARMERS 527
In a footnote he tells us that ' in 1839 the return at Fraser
Lake from 15 bushels of cut seed exceeded 700 bushels of
potatoes of the Ladies* Finger variety.'
The fur companies, first the North-West Company and
then the Hudson's Bay Company, were, therefore, the
pioneers of farming in British Columbia, and, if we except
the farming carried on at the mission in California, the first
on the Pacific coast. The old North-West Company, about
1814, shortly after Astoria was taken from the Pacific Fur
Company, carried on some farming at their fort, then changed
in name to Fort George.
But Dr John McLoughlin, the Napoleon of the western
fur trade, was the great pioneer in agriculture. He had a
wider vision than the profits on pelts, and, impressed by the
richness of the soil in the old Oregon valleys and the possi-
bilities of trade in agricultural produce on the Pacific, even
at the early date at which his rule at Fort Vancouver began,
projected a scheme which found favour in Lime Street,
London, and the Puget Sound Agricultural Company became
an adjunct of the fur- trading company. We learn that in
1837 a large farm produced fruit, grain, vegetables, and cheese.
The farm was stocked with cattle, horses, sheep, goats, and
swine. Three thousand acres of land were fenced in, and
no less than thirty thousand bushels of grain and fourteen
thousand bushels of potatoes were harvested. Two flour-
mills ground the wheat, and the flour and other products
were shipped to Russian America and elsewhere. There
were large farms at Nisqually and Cowlitz, and a little later
three small farms were established on the southern end of
Vancouver Island, which in a lesser way duplicated the
operations in Oregon. It is no part of the purpose of this
article to inquire into the genesis of the Puget Sound Agri-
cultural Company, or the dubious relation which it bore to
the Hudson's Bay Company. What is relevant to the sub-
ject is that it did come into existence for a specific purpose
and did fulfil an important mission. It was the forerunner
and exemplar of everything agricultural on the north-west
Pacific coast. It was, for a period at least, very successful.
The farms in the neighbourhood of Victoria were perhaps
528 HISTORY OF FARMING
not as profitable as those in Oregon and Washington, but
nevertheless they formed, until 1858, the chief, if not the
only, basis of supply for Vancouver Island. In connection
with the farms were small industries such as brick-making,
saw-milling, flour-milling, etc. It may truly be said that
the agricultural business of the Hudson's Bay Company
had a great influence on subsequent development on the
Pacific. It demonstrated the capabilities of the entire
Oregon territory, which at one time included the greater
part of British C6lumbia, and thus placed the industry on a
sound basis. The operations in Oregon and in Washington
proper were much earlier and on a much larger scale than
those in British Columbia, and, as the agricultural conditions
on both sides of the line on the Pacific are similar, the ex-
perience gained in these States on the one side guided the
farmer on the other side.
A great deal respecting the genesis of farming and horti-
culture, too, is attributable to the servants of the Hudson's
Bay Company, individually. The officials were, as a rule,
men of keen intelligence and observation. Dr McLoughlin,
James Douglas, Dr Tolmie, W. Huggins, Alexander Caulfield
Anderson, John Work, John Tod, Roderick Finlayson,
J. W. McKay, and many others, brought with them their
native love of the soil. They were naturalists to a greater
or less degree. They planted trees and shrubs. They saw in
the general conditions of soil and climate, in plant growth
and in the natural adaptabilities of the entire country, so
far as the relatively small areas of fertile land were con-
cerned, a splendid field for agriculture and particularly
for horticulture. British Columbia was Scotland and Eng-
land reproduced on a huge scale, and similar to them in
many of its physical characteristics ; and the officials who
settled on Vancouver Island after retiring from the service
first gave the province the impetus towards efficiency in
horticulture and small farming. It was they who imported
seeds and plants and flowers, made orchards, and demon-
strated vegetable and grain and stock possibilities. Before
Vancouver Island had cast off the sovereignty of the Hudson's
Bay Company and the mainland of British Columbia had
AGRICULTURAL POSSIBILITIES 529
become a sister colony in the Empire, that corporation had
indicated a wide agricultural and horticultural field for de-
velopment. It had gardens and orchards and fruitful fields,
even though limited in extent, under cultivation, and those
who came in numbers in 1858, 1859, and 1860 to search for
gold could not but be impressed with the greater potential
wealth of the soil. Many were disappointed in their search
for gold, and as a consequence took up land, and thus the
nuclei of an industry were formed.
II
AGRICULTURAL POSSIBILITIES OF
BRITISH COLUMBIA
IN the files of British Columbia newspapers from the
earliest date of their publication can be found frequent
and very intelligent reference, editorially and other-
wise, to the subject of agriculture and fruit-growing. Finding
settlers to utilize the arable land available continued to be
a problem for a long time. Even to-day the problem is
a live one. This is demonstrated by the fact that a royal
commission is investigating the facts bearing, among other
things, on that very question. The progress of agriculture
in British Columbia, from the very nature .of the physical
conditions of the country, to be referred to later at some
length, was necessarily slow in comparison with the progress
of the eastern parts of British North America ; but we find
that at a very early date, apart from the beginning made by
the Hudson's Bay Company and its officials, in the delta of
the Fraser and in several districts in the vicinity of Victoria
on the Island of Vancouver some progress had been made.
The Rev. R. C. Lundin Brown, in a prize essay printed
in pamphlet form in 1863, speaks of the agricultural prospects
as follows :
Although as an agricultural country alone British
Columbia will not become great, she has, nevertheless,
as we have seen, arable and pasture lands sufficient
to maintain a large mining and commercial population.
530 HISTORY OF FARMING
He asks the question, ' Can British Columbia support
an agricultural population ? ' His reply is interesting from
several points of view. He says that * the general notion in
Europe was, as, indeed, it was everywhere, that the country
was little better than a " howling wilderness " wherein half-
famished beasts of prey waged eternal war with a sparse
population of half -starved savages ; where the cold is more
than Arctic and the dearth more than Saharan.' He quotes
the words of the chancellor of the Exchequer in the House
of Commons, uttered twenty-one years previously : ' These
territories are bounded by frost and banked by fog, and woe
betide any unfortunate individual who might be so far
diverted from the path of prudence as to settle in these parts/
Brown remarks upon this, with some truth, that the first
impression a stranger would receive might seem to confirm
such a view, especially if by some aerial flight he happened
to land among the mountains in midwinter.
Brown in the pamphlet in question refers to a farm below
New Westminster, in the Fraser River valley, comprising
fifteen hundred acres l where cattle fatten rapidly and what-
ever is sown grows well.' He was able, from information
obtained from various reliable sources, to indicate as likely
to prove fruitful such localities as the Okanagan, Thompson
River valley, the Nicola, Lillooet and Cariboo districts, and
the country around Fort George, which have since proved to
have excellent agricultural possibilities in spots. Although
cattle-ranching had scarcely begun then, Brown says that
for stock-raising the country is unrivalled, and dwells parti-
cularly upon the nutritious character and extent of the bunch-
grass of the dry interior. If we consider that this pamphlet
was written in 1862, when the entire mainland was a wilder-
ness, as unfamiliar to the arts of husbandry as are the wilds
of Labrador, except in so far as these were practised in a
limited way around the various posts of the Hudson's Bay
Company, we shall see that the progress made up to that time
was remarkable. The explanation of this is the demand
created by the rush of miners and the difficulty of keeping
them supplied with food. In the vicinity of New Westminster
there was considerable prairie and open land, and with the
AGRICULTURAL POSSIBILITIES 531
facility of acquiring land, almost for the asking, it was an
easy thing to raise cattle, sheep, etc., and to produce vege-
tables, poultry, and eggs. In the Cariboo and Lillooet dis-
tricts, where the mining industry was concentrated, there were
here and there suitable spots for ranching, and the shrewd
man, who saw opportunities in the land and was not lured
by gold in situ, set to work to supply the miners with beans
and chickens and eggs and milk, pack-horses, etc. ; and these
early operations were very profitable. This condition of
affairs obtained in nearly every part of the province to which
there was a rush of miners and where there were similar
agricultural opportunities, and in this way a settler, after
the temporary excitement in one camp after another had
subsided and the prospectors had sought other fields, was
left here and there to eke out an existence in a somewhat
primitive way, and to form the kernel of a settlement which
was to germinate and grow as the province developed. If
not already married, he usually took to himself a daughter of
the ' duskies,' and gradually, with a mixed family growing up
about him, progressed with the country. In this way the
cattle ranches of the interior came into existence, and there
was produced a race of what we now term ' old-timers,' who,
as their herds multiplied, waited with patience for the
railway and the miner to make their holdings valuable. As
there was no inducement to work or to raise crops that could
not be marketed, these men settled down to an easy life of
1 cow-punching/ which was more or less conducive to laziness
and lack of public spirit. The male members of their families
became * cowboys,' and the female members married within
the fraternity. There were a few localities more favourable
than the others, like the valley of the Okanagan, where wheat
was grown and orchards set out.
This description does not apply to all persons who became
farmers or ranchers. Many of these men were of superior
education and had had a good practical training in their
homeland, and some of them were very enterprising and
turned their opportunities to the very best advantage. It
refers to a class which was characteristic of the interior and
of British Columbia and of every other part of Western
532
HISTORY OF FARMING
America where similar conditions have existed. The old-
timers, so far as they or their families have survived, have of
recent years come into a very handsome reward for their long
period of isolation and waiting. The new interest in fruit-
growing and small farming, as the result of railway develop-
ment, created an inflation in farm-land values, and syndicates
organized for the purpose acquired these large holdings at
high prices and subdivided them. So the old order of things
is rapidly passing away, and the old-timer as a species will
soon be as extinct in British Columbia as is the great auk
in the bird world.
Returning again to Brown's pamphlet, we find among its
most interesting features a list of prices of the various agri-
cultural products.
In the interior the great price of freightage acts as a
high protective duty. Hitherto all the flour used in the
colony has been imported, its present prices being at
New Westminster £3 per barrel ; at Lillooet £4 per
barrel ; in Cariboo £40 per barrel, more or less. Barley
will always be in great demand, where so many horses
and mules are employed ; its price in June, 1862, was I2s.
per cwt. at New Westminster ; £3 per cwt. at Lillooet—
further up the wagon road £5 per cwt. The price of
hay ranged from £6 per ton to £20 or even £25 per ton,
according to the locality.
Prices of vegetables vary exceedingly according to the
supply, the season of the year, etc. The following are
the average prices throughout the past year :
PRICES OF VEGETABLES AT NEW WESTMINSTER,
LILLOOET, AND CARIBOO IN 1 862
New Westminster
Lillooet
Cariboo
Potatoes . .
6s. to 1 6s. per cwt
8s. to 2os. per cwt.
^10 per cwt.
Beans . .
6os. „
8os. „
^12 to^i6 per cwt.
Turnips . .
8s.
i6s. „
^8
Onions . .
403. to 8os. „
£3 to £4
^20 „
Carrots . .
I OS. „
20S. „
Cabbages . .
jd. to i|d. per Ib.
1 6s. per Ib.
Peas ....
is. 6d. per Ib.
2S. „
Corn (Indian) .
35. per doz.
43. per doz.
AGRICULTURAL POSSIBILITIES 533
The number of sheep imported in 1862 was 6946 ; of
cattle 5640 ; of horses and mules 6427.
Average prices of farm produce in 1862 :
Beef, is. per Ib.
Mutton, is. per Ib.
Butter (fresh), 43. per Ib.
Milk, 43. per gallon.
Cheese, 33. per Ib.
Bacon, is. 5d. per Ib. (in the mines 45.).
Hens, 43. to 163. each.
Eggs, 4d. to is. each.
These prices may seem high, but even the articles
which in a new country are counted luxuries, such as
milk, fresh butter and eggs, people are always glad to
purchase, and the supply by no means equals the demand.
At the Grange, near Lillooet, 30 Ib. of butter were sold
weekly at 6s. per Ib., and a farmer at New Westminster
weekly disposes of 30 Ib. for 43. per Ib.
Brown, though a careful observer and accurate in his
statistics, was nevertheless a clergyman with no agricultural
experience, and was inclined in his enthusiasm to proceed on
the lines of the woman who counted her chickens before
they were hatched. He cited the case of a man — and he
was writing, for immigration purposes, a pamphlet which
was widely distributed by the government of the day —
who ' two years ago bought a cow, for which he paid
$140 ; that summer he made $350 by the sale of her milk
and butter ; now she has three calves, each of them worth
$100,' thus illustrating his confident views as to how a
man might get rich quickly by stock-raising and dairying
in British Columbia. But he was even more enthusiastic
about sheep, having in mind, it is presumed, Jacob's experi-
ments upon Laban's flocks. He tells us :
By a simple calculation it might be shown that 100
ewes and two rams would, in the course of five years,
supposing the produce to be one-half lambs, and the
wethers to be sold, increase to the number of 1000. This
calculation supposes the ewes to lamb twice a year, and
to have twins one time in three, which is under the
average. Sheep cost in Victoria £2, and rams £20
(Southdowns). The animals would cost little, summer
534 HISTORY OF FARMING
or winter, and the wethers being sold for mutton, the
proceeds would cover the wages of a shepherd. As
mutton costs is. to is. 3d. per Ib. (and the sheep average
50 Ib.) it is easy to see that even allowing a wide margin
for casualties, a small fortune could thus be realized in
the course of a few years. The fleeces might either be
turned to account in the country itself, or exported ;
the price of wool at San Francisco is 40 cents per Ib.
These observations have been quoted as a text upon which
to hang certain statements. Contrary to such sanguine
expectations, sheep-raising has been practically a failure
in the province, and only under exceptional circumstances
has it been practised at a profit. Conditions are against
the industry. In the interior sheep-raising and cattle-
raising cannot be carried on together, and in addition to that
sheep-pasturing is very destructive to the bunch-grass. On
the coast there is very little range for sheep, and the wet
weather is injurious. Locally there is little or no market
for wool. Neither has cattle-raising been specially profit-
able, although it was for a long time the staple industry
of the interior. In the neighbourhood of the towns and
cities dairying has been carried on for years with profit,
but within the past ten years the price of suburban real
estate has gradually eliminated farming operations, and
dairying cows are stall-fed, the price of milk increasing
from five cents to fifteen cents a quart as a consequence.
Cattle in the vicinity of the coast have never paid for beef
purposes, for the simple commercial reason that the local
supply has not been sufficient to meet the large demands for
meat, with the consequence that butchers contract with the
ranches in the interior and elsewhere for a regular supply
the year round, so that the local beef when offered is not
wanted. The same is true of sheep as mutton, the supply
coming from Oregon or from the Middle West. The only
items in the way of live stock for which there was a demand
were : calves for veal, spring lambs, pigs, poultry and horses,
this notwithstanding that the price of beef was high and the
consumption very large. This condition obtained for a long
time in connection with fruits and vegetables of all kinds.
AGRICULTURAL POSSIBILITIES 535
Until the local supply became sufficient to satisfy the demand
fully, all, or nearly all, agricultural products were imported
through commission houses in cities south of the international
line. It can readily be understood how, in the face of the
natural difficulties in making the lands productive by clear-
ing, the imperfect communication by roads, etc., this condi-
tion operated against development, which, in spite of high
prices, big demand, and great natural fertility as well as
adaptability for widely diversified products, has been slow
and difficult. It is very hard for a citizen of Ontario, or any
of the older settled provinces, to understand why such an
apparent anomaly should have existed or should in a lesser
degree exist at the present time. Many would be apt to
reason like the Rev. R. C. Lundin Brown.
In 1872 the British Columbia government offered a prize
for the best general description of the province for the
purposes of immigration. This was won by Alexander
Caulfield Anderson, a student and a close observer, who was
not only scholarly, but specially well informed regarding the
economic capabilities of the province, having travelled over
the greater portion of its area as a high official of the Hudson's
Bay Company. Agriculture had made considerable advance
since Brown's time. There were at least half a dozen agri-
cultural societies holding exhibitions — at New Westminster,
Victoria, Saanich, Cowichan, and in the interior — which
would indicate that a considerably larger area was under
cultivation, even if those exhibitions were very small affairs
in themselves. From Anderson we learn that in ' the settled
portions of Vancouver Island all the common cereals are
produced abundantly.' He likewise gives some remarkable
yields per acre. He speaks of the peninsula near Victoria
where * the muskmelons and watermelons attain perfect
maturity in the open air without artificial aid ; the tomato
and the capsicum yield copiously ; the peach ripens its
fruit, and a standard of the grape (the Isabella variety)
produces abundantly and comes to maturity in a favourable
exposure.' Anderson was perhaps a little optimistic re-
garding these products, which only succeed in favourable
seasons ; they are mentioned no doubt to show that, despite
536 HISTORY OF FARMING
the cool nights which prevail everywhere along the coast, at
least moderate success had been achieved. In the southern
interior, however, almost everywhere in the dry belt these
warm fruits thrive luxuriantly and produce enormously.
Quoting from James Richardson, of the Geological Survey
of Canada, Anderson gives particulars of agricultural pro-
duction in the Comox district, 140 miles north of Victoria,
on Gabriola and Salt Spring Islands and in the districts of
Saanich and Nanaimo, which show that as far back as 1871
considerable advancement had been made in crops of all
kinds, including fruits.
Anderson was a trained observer, and, as a consequence
of his experience in British Columbia, an optimist in regard
to farming. He says :
To sum up the qualifications of British Columbia as
a field for settlement, I may succinctly state that,
though it may never become a large exporter of cereal
products, like the western states of America or California,
it possesses within itself all the requisites for success ;
and the power to support, in connection with its varied
industries and external relations, a population of at least
several millions in ease, happiness and comparative
affluence.
Brown and Anderson have been quoted, so far, freely and
particularly for the reason that they are practically the only
sources of information available as to the industry during
the two periods of which they write, and they give a fairly
accurate impression of conditions in 1862 and 1872 respec-
tively. From the Ontario standpoint, for instance, what was
produced, small even compared with the amount of local
consumption occasioned by 10,000 white inhabitants, would
scarcely be worth considering. To-day one or two counties
of Ontario produce as much as all British Columbia ; but
the latter province is capable of producing some day
$250,000,000 worth of farm products annually. In 1912 the
value of production was $22,500,000.
AGRICULTURAL EXHIBITIONS 537
III
AGRICULTURAL EXHIBITIONS
A WORD or two is necessary in reference to the first
agricultural exhibitions held in the province at Victoria
and New Westminster respectively. Compared with
the present ambitious endeavours at these places, which are
spread over a week and fill many buildings and draw many
thousands of people daily, the initial undertakings were
dwarfish and insignificant ; but they were the beginnings, the
acorns out of which big oaks have grown. The first settle-
ment on Vancouver Island took place about 1849, and although
the settlers for some years were few, there was an increasing
area of land brought under cultivation, especially in the
vicinity of Victoria, so that one need not marvel that the first
exhibition was held there as early as October 2, 1861, during
which year an agricultural association had been formed. It
and several succeeding annual shows were considered of such
importance as to warrant leading editorials and much general
newspaper comment, even though the list of prize-winners
was not a long one. The newspapers do not say what the
attendance was, but judging from the ' prominent ' citizens
who were mentioned in the account of the first show, it might
have amounted to five hundred persons. It was an impor-
tant function for those days, and the visitors included the
governor, naval officers, and members of the civil service.
The show was held in the Victoria market enclosure, and
we are told that the * success ' was due in a very great
degree to a few gentlemen connected with the Hudson's Bay
and Puget Sound Companies' farms. Needless to say, if
these had failed to participate, it would have very much
resembled a production of Hamlet with the melancholy
Dane omitted from the cast. The next in competition, we
are informed, were a number of ' new settlers.' The ' old
settlers ' were ' George Dean and Mr Van Almond.' Note
the distinction between ' old ' and ' new,' notwithstanding
that the first ' new ' came after 1858 and the ' old ' after
538 HISTORY OF FARMING
1851. A coloured farmer from Salt Spring Island sent in
some potatoes and Indian corn. Otherwise the exhibits
' were confined almost strictly to the district immediately
tributary to Victoria/ and, considering the small area repre-
sented and the infantile stage of the industry, they were
' highly creditable.' They comprised grains of all kinds,
vegetables, flowers, fruits, cattle, horses, sheep, pigs, etc. —
a miniature in most respects of all fairs since, including side-
shows and log-cabin quilts. The newspapers marvelled at
the * size and quality of the vegetables ' and the ' splendid
specimens ' of stock shown. Among the list of exhibitors
it is pleasant to stumble on the names of Governor James
Douglas, Dr W. F. Tolmie, John Work1 (brother of the
late venerable Senator Wark), and Kenneth MacKenzie, all
of the Hudson's Bay Company.
W. H. Keary, ex-mayor of New Westminster, and for
many years secretary and manager of the exhibition held in
that city, has given the following terse description of the first
fall show held there :
The first exhibition held in New Westminster was in
October, 1867, and it was entitled ' Agricultural Exhibi-
tion, New Westminster, B.C.' The Hon. John Robson
was chairman of the committee of management, and
W. D. Cormick, Esq., corresponding secretary. I have a
copy of a diploma issued to R. Ker, ... for the best
hops exhibit at this agricultural fair. I understand
that they [the exhibition association] had about seven
animals — one bull ; one cow ; two sheep ; two pigs ;
one goat ; a few apples and potatoes ; cabbages ; turnips
and garden products, and that is about all. However,
the exhibition has been continued from that date con-
tinuously.
The New Westminster exhibition is now the largest held
in the province and compares favourably with some of the
more important eastern fairs.
1 See p. 86.
CONDITIONS AFFECTING AGRICULTURE 539
IV
CONDITIONS AFFECTING AGRICULTURE
IT has been stated in the foregoing that the conditions
affecting agriculture in British Columbia are peculiar,
the result of physical conformation, and no one who
is not intimate with the conditions can easily understand
the unusual difficulties attendant upon agricultural develop-
ment, notwithstanding that in many respects the province
has advantages over other parts of Canada ; but if a reader
could elevate himself sufficiently high to get a bird's-eye
view of the entire surface of British Columbia, he would then
comprehend in a measure what these conditions are. The
area of the province is, roughly speaking, 381,000 square
miles, or roundly 250,000,000 acres. Now, no one knows
exactly what proportion of that vast territory is arable.
The officials of the Land department at Victoria would not
undertake even to approximate it, because, while the greater
part of the surface has at various times been roughly explored
by the Hudson's Bay Company officials, by prospectors and
miners, by hunters and trappers, by travellers, by railway
engineers and provincial land-surveyors, there are large
sections — whole districts, in fact — about which little is de-
finitely known. Only small areas, comparatively speaking,
have been surveyed, and on account of the physical magni-
tude of the task it will take many years to determine what
is available for tillage, assuming that all the province could
be made accessible by communication. The writer has, how-
ever, from such sources as are available, made an estimate,
and has endeavoured from time to time to confirm this
estimate. The conclusion reached is that the arable land does
not exceed 12,000,000 or 15,000,000 acres at the outside, less
than one-twentieth of the whole. This aggregate is made up
of scattered areas of 10,000 acres and upwards extending
from the Delta district eastward to the Tobacco Plains on
the southern boundary, and from the head of the Nass
valley, where Alaska touches British Columbia, eastward to
VOL. XXII N
540 HISTORY OF FARMING
the limits of the Peace River country in British Columbia.
These areas are in no way uniform or related to each other.
It is extremely difficult to give an impression that will
reflect uniformly, or at all adequately, actual conditions.
The entire Cordilleran region is, physically, extremely
irregular, and geologically the strata are much broken, and
no particular formula can be made to apply to the soil,
climate, and, so to speak, agricultural formation. There are
certain large, irregular areas to which certain physical char-
acteristics in the main belong, but within these areas con-
ditions are not all uniform ; and consequently what might
be true of the soil, climate, or adaptabilities of one locality
might not be at all true of those of another region only a few
miles distant.
In order to realize more fully the obstacles to rapid
development, the following circumstances must be taken into
account : that there are few compact areas of uniform char-
acter that can be cut up mathematically ; that except along
valleys with river or railway communication, or along the
sea-coast, or in favoured locations near to the towns, there
are no market facilities ; that some of the larger and more
desirable tracts of land have up to the present been too
remote to be settled ; that the building of highways and
railways and the making of surveys are unusually expensive
in a country like British Columbia, and, until very recently,
the financial situation has not permitted the carrying on of
works of this character extensively ; that there is but little
open land, and but little of that which does not require
drainage, irrigation or protection from overflow ; that by
far the greater part of the arable land has to be cleared of a
heavy growth of forest ; that the agricultural land being
relatively limited, the price is correspondingly high ; that the
local rates of transportation are high ; that interest charges
and the price of labour are higher than in the East, and gener-
ally speaking the cost of living is greater ; that outside of the
ranching country and open meadow lands there is but little
pasturage except what is made by clearing, and the forage
in the woods is scanty indeed ; that in the very nature of
the products to which farming in the main is limited — fruit-
LEGISLATIVE ACTS AND AGRICULTURE 541
growing and small farming — more intensive farming is re-
quired, and it takes longer to make the land at first productive.
Added to the difficulties imposed by nature are those for
which governments of the past are responsible. In the early
days, and, in fact, until very recent years, governments
always being in need of ready money, land, being an available
asset, was parted with at very low prices and practically
without any conditions being attached. The consequence
was that it was taken up in large tracts, selected at will in
the most favourable localities, without reference to system of
survey or availability in the matter of roads and other public
conveniences. In this way settlers were scattered here and
there in an isolated fashion over a large area, causing un-
necessarily large expenditures, which in the aggregate were
quite inadequate. A great deal of the land thus alienated
was not settled upon at all. No history of agriculture in
British Columbia could be written without taking into con-
sideration all these facts, because they account for a back-
wardness, in view of the many obvious natural advantages,
that characterized the industry for many, many years.
V
LEGISLATIVE ACTS AND AGRICULTURE
IT will now be in order to discuss the legislation and
some of the administrative acts affecting agricultural
interests in British Columbia from the earliest colonial
days. In this connection it is well to keep in mind the
peculiar character of the industry they were intended to aid,
encourage, or protect ; and the reader will readily see that
legislation which might uniformly apply to other provinces of
Canada would be largely inapplicable in the most westerly
province.
Land being the basis of agriculture, the first considera-
tion is that of the laws governing the acquisition of land for
the purpose. During the Hudson's Bay Company regime in
Vancouver Island these may be said to have been very un-
satisfactory, or, more properly speaking, the entire arrange-
542 HISTORY OF FARMING
ment under which the grant of the island was held was un-
satisfactory, and prejudicial to the very objects for which it
was ostensibly obtained. The prime objects moving the
imperial government to make a grant of the island to the
company were settlement and development ; and at the
time, owing to the peculiar state of affairs on the Pacific
coast, it was thought that the Hudson's Bay Company, which
undertook the responsibility, was best qualified to shoulder
it. Settlement and development, however, were among the
least of the considerations by which that corporation was
influenced. Hence conspicuous success resulting from the
arrangement should not be anticipated. It is not necessary
here to discuss the terms of the grant or the circumstances
out of which the quasi-sovereignty of the Hudson's Bay
Company arose, because these are dealt with in the historical
treatment of the subject elsewhere ; l but it is pertinent to
remark here that they were at least calculated to accomplish
the object which the home government had in view. The
price of the land to settlers (one pound per acre) ; the con-
ditions under which it could be obtained ; the fact that the
company reserved all the land within a considerable radius of
Fort Victoria for its own use or the use of its officials ; the
facts, also, that the land available for settlers, thus remote,
was expensive to clear and cultivate, and that the settlers
were entirely dependent upon the company for what they
had to buy and what they had to sell — these were all highly
inimical to the development of an agricultural industry under
corporate rule. It is therefore unnecessary to discuss the
early colonial days of Vancouver Island as part of an agri-
cultural thesis ; useful results were just as reasonably to be
expected as was success from the ancient Israelitish attempt
to make bricks without straw. All that was really accom-
plished from 1849 to 1859 was to demonstrate, from the
limited way in which farming was carried on, that it had
possibilities under more favourable auspices. We must look
to what was done in Vancouver Island after the monopoly
had been removed, and to the colony of British Columbia
after it came into existence in 1858.
1 See section i, p. 149 et seq.
LEGISLATIVE ACTS AND AGRICULTURE 543
First let us consider the colony of British Columbia.
Governor Douglas in his instructions from the secretary of
state was warned against allowing lands to get into the hands
of speculators and being locked up from beneficial use. It
would have been well if the spirit of these instructions had
permeated the official mind which directed these two colonies
and had determined the policy of subsequent administrations ;
but Douglas and his successors in office are not to be blamed
so much as might appear at a first glance. They were given
the responsibility of administering the country out of the
resources of the country, and only those who know the nature
of the financial task can understand how slender these were
in comparison to the obligations assumed. Douglas applied
for aid to the imperial authorities, but was given to under-
stand that a country as rich as British Columbia was sup-
posed to be must depend for support upon its own resources.
Hence, in order to supply pressing needs, land, being the
readiest asset to draw upon, was disposed of on terms that
were likely to be most attractive to investors. One can
readily conceive of a system of co-operation between home
and colonial authorities whereby the credit of the former
could have been lent to the latter, and the land and other
assets might have been wisely conserved and settlement
directed in a systematic way so as to ensure compactness of
settlement and gradual expansion, with provision for im-
provements that would have made the lot of the settler
not too hard, facilitating his operations and making them
profitable.
In his proclamation of February 14, 1858, Governor
Douglas fixed the price of agricultural land at ten shillings
per acre, half to be paid at the time of purchase and the
balance in two years. All other lands were to be put up for
public competition at an upset price. The law — proclama-
tions had the force of law — was changed in January 1860,
providing for pre-emption of 160 acres in rectangular blocks,
pre-emptors having the right to acquire any other quantity
of land they desired at ten shillings per acre. This was
modified by several subsequent proclamations, and in August
1 86 1 the price was reduced to eight shillings per acre for
544 HISTORY OF FARMING
pre-emptions and to two shillings and one penny per acre for
further purchases, the process of alienation becoming easier
as time passed on. On Vancouver Island, by ordinance,
the price of land was fixed by competition at an upset price,
but provision was made for pre-emption of 150 acres for
single men, 160 for married persons with an additional ten
acres for each of their children. The price fixed was four
shillings and twopence per acre, and a residence of two years
was required. On the mainland the conditions were again
changed : all lands were to be put up for public competition,
and lands not sold at the upset price could be sold privately
at that price. Provision for pre-emption remained, but the
most the pre-emptor could purchase in addition was fixed
at 480 acres, at four shillings and twopence per acre. It was
permitted to divert water for agricultural purposes, and land
in any quantity could be leased. Later on, other ordinances
were passed to prevent the stealing of cattle and to provide
for the fencing in of land on the interior ranges.
The foregoing briefly outlines legislation up to the time
of Confederation. It will thus be seen that, without any
system of surveys except those made by the owners of land
and without practically any conditions attaching to the sale,
vast areas could be alienated. As a matter of fact, wide
tracts of the best and most available land were parted with in
large blocks, to the detriment of bona fide settlement, and,
consequently, of the development of agriculture. A some-
what similar system was continued after Confederation, and
at that time much harm had already been done. This unwise
legislation appears all the more deplorable when it is con-
sidered that arable land was extremely limited, and that it
was obviously in the best interests of the province that
it should be carefully conserved and surveyed into small
holdings for the benefit of the greatest number.
In 1872 the legislature awoke to a sense of its responsi-
bility and imposed a tax on wild land, which was promptly
disallowed on the ground that the land had been uncon-
ditionally alienated. Another act was passed providing for
the pre-emption of 160 acres west and 320 acres east of the
Cascades, requiring four years of occupation, at the price
LEGISLATIVE ACTS AND AGRICULTURE 545
of one dollar per acre, payable in four years. In 1875 the
term of occupation was changed to two years, and the laws
in these respects have remained unchanged. Leases for pas-
toral purposes unlimited as to area were authorized ; also
hay leases limited to five hundred acres. Land was thrown
open at one dollar per acre without limit as to area, and
the minister of Lands was permitted to make free grants
for colonization purposes. During the legislative session of
1872 it was decided to adopt the Dominion tariff, which was
lower than the British Columbia tariff. There was a section
strongly opposed to it on the ground that it would be unfair
to the farmer, about whose interests a great deal of dis-
cussion centred, but the agricultural interests were not of
sufficient moment at that time to weigh against the general
interests.
In 1873 an act entitled the Drainage, Diking, and Irri-
gation Act was passed. Under its provisions the majority
of persons in a district could co-operate for the purpose of
carrying on any of the objects implied in the title, under
the direction of a commissioner, something after the manner
of procedure in the Ontario Drainage Act. This act was
amended in detail on several subsequent occasions. In 1874
an act to incorporate agricultural societies was passed. In
1875 an act was passed respecting the branding of cattle, in
order that cattlemen should be protected in their herds. The
tax legislation of 1876, imposing a general system of direct
taxation, affected farmers, inasmuch as farm lands, as real
estate, were assessed and taxed for the first time. Naturally
this tax was very unpopular, but owing to the financial
exigencies of the time it was justifiable, and has, with modi-
fications from time to time, continued in force ever since. In
the same year an act was passed for the better protection of
cattle ranges, that providing for the keeping apart of cattle
and sheep.
In 1877 an act was passed to prevent the spread of thistles,
and in that year also the Island Pasturage Act. The latter
had reference to sheep on the islands in the Gulf of Georgia,
and had for its object the prevention of others than pre-
emptors or owners of land pasturing sheep there. At this
546 HISTORY OF FARMING
time, and for a long time previously, these islands were
convenient places where dealers having sheep to sell might
pasture them free of charge, and they also served as excellent
hiding-places for animals stolen from the United States side
of the international boundary. Later on there were a num-
ber of minor acts, among them one for the extermination of
wild horses, which in the interior had multiplied so rapidly
as to have become a nuisance, stampeding the range horses
and unnecessarily depleting the ranges of pasture. Another
act that went into force in this early period of agricultural
legislation was for the prevention of contagious diseases
among animals. A few years later, in 1888, an act to prevent
the spread of noxious weeds was passed.
An important change in the Land Act was made in 1884
by which land could be purchased in 64O-acre sections at
two and a half dollars an acre, and other lands unfit for agri-
cultural purposes in similar areas at one dollar per acre. This
feature of the Land Act has remained with modifications up
to the present time. Subsequently the classification was
changed to five dollars, two dollars, and one dollar per acre
for first-, second-, and third-class lands respectively ; and more
recently the classification was changed to first- and second-
class land at five dollars and two and a half dollars per acre
respectively. In 1910 the government raised the prices to
ten dollars and five dollars. Under these land purchase
provisions something like 2,500,000 acres have been alienated
and, unnecessary to say, these areas include some of the
best land in the province. As a stimulus to improvement,
however, these lands are taxed as wild lands, until im-
proved, at four per cent per annum on the assessed value
of the lands.
In 1873, notwithstanding the limited amount of farming
carried on, provision was made for a minister of Agriculture,
the first to hold the office being W. J. Armstrong, of New
Westminster. It was not until 1894, however, that the
department was organized. In that year an act was passed
regulating and defining the powers of the minister of Agri-
culture and his officials, and making provision in particular
for the collection of statistics. J. R. Anderson, son of
LEGISLATIVE ACTS AND AGRICULTURE 547
Alexander Caulfield Anderson previously referred to, was the
first statistician and secretary of the department, and was
afterwards created deputy minister. From 1894 onward a
great deal of important work was carried on by the depart-
ment. J. H. Turner, who was minister of Agriculture as well
as premier, took a deep interest in horticulture and agriculture,
and every effort consistent with the financial resources of the
province was made to encourage the industry. One of the very
important things done was the passing of the Horticultural
Board Act, the provisions of which were amended from time
to time, and regulations were made and put into force pro-
viding for the inspection of importations of fruits and nursery
stock and for the prevention of insect and other pests.
By the rigid enforcement of this act British Columbia has
been able to remain comparatively free from those insect
and other diseases which have affected the fruit industry in
many other parts of America. In this connection it might be
stated that in 1890 the interest in fruit-growing and horti-
culture was very keen, and an act was passed incorporating
a Horticultural and Fruit-Growers' Association largely on the
lines of the Quebec and Ontario acts, and for a time much
useful work was done by the association. In 1896 an act was
passed providing for the formation of associations on the
co-operative plan, which enabled farmers and others to com-
bine for commercial purposes on a very cheap and expeditious
basis. Very little resulted, however, from this measure. In
the same year the Dairy Association Act was passed, provid-
ing for the incorporation of a Provincial Dairy Association,
the incorporation of Cheese and Butter Associations, and the
establishing and aiding of co-operative creameries. Under
the last-named provision a number of creameries were estab-
lished and the dairy industry began to take form and prosper,
the output being materially increased and the quality of the
product improved.
Another important departure was made in 1897, when
the Farmers' Institutes and Co-operation Act became law.
With the exception of the co-operative feature the act
followed the line of Ontario legislation, and under its pro-
visions a number of Farmers' Institutes were formed, with
548 HISTORY OF FARMING
a Farmers' Central Institute, which holds meetings once a
year. There are now about eighty Farmers' Institutes, with
a number of women's auxiliary associations, and the work
is very actively carried on in various ways — by lectures,
distribution of literature, etc. The co-operative feature,
whereby farmers could form themselves into an association
for carrying on the produce business, was taken advantage
of in one or two instances only, and in each case the experi-
ment was not a success. Farmers, above all classes of a
community, are least inclined to co-operation, and in this
respect require very considerable education. One of the
problems facing the farming community in British Columbia
now is that of co-operation on a commercial basis in order
to provide for proper distribution of their products and for
a legitimate profit on the same, which profit is at present
absorbed by middlemen.
One of the most progressive steps forward was taken in
1898, when the Agricultural Credit Associations Act was
passed. This was to enable farmers, as associations, to
borrow money from the government for various purposes,
and to loan it to each other, on the principle of the German
land banks, which have been marvellously successful in pro-
viding cheap money for agricultural purposes. Although at
the time great pressure was brought to bear on the govern-
ment to loan money to farmers at low rates of interest, it
is somewhat strange that not a single application has been
made to the government under the legislation in question,
and not a single attempt has been made to organize an
Agricultural Credit Association. In fact, the very existence
of the act has been forgotten by those who were in the
province at the time when it was passed, and it is unknown
to the newcomers.
This review of the history, conditions, and legislation
affecting agriculture brings us to the present period, when
the industry has entered upon an entirely new phase. During
the last fifty-five years agriculture has gone through a variety
of experiences. At the outset it enjoyed a few years of
comparative prosperity on account of the inrush of popula-
tion and the extraordinary demand and the high prices for
LEGISLATIVE ACTS AND AGRICULTURE 549
farm products. Then came the lull following the decline in
placer-mining, and farming varied little in its fortunes and
made comparatively little advance until the commencement
of the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway through the
mountains, when it again received a decided stimulus. From
the time of the actual commencement of the great enterprise
referred to until about 1892 times were good in the province
and agriculture prospered accordingly. There was a steady, if
not a large, demand for farm lands ; and in government lands
for speculation, both timber and, prospectively, agricultural,
there was a boom. Then followed the financial collapse in
the United States, which preceded a general depression
throughout the world : the agricultural and land interests
suffered severely, and the outlook for a time was very depress-
ing. The surplus foods and fruits of Oregon, Washington,
and California, the prices of which were very low at home,
were poured into the province, and conditions were indeed
hard for the farmer of British Columbia. The lowest ebb
was reached probably during 1893 and 1894, but until about
1898 there was little improvement. Most of the farms had
become mortgaged while times were good, for speculation
or the purchase of lands, and interest bore heavily on the
borrowers. There was a general demand for cheap money
on the New Zealand principle, which the government in
1898 staved off by passing the Agricultural Associations Act,
sound enough in itself, but not calculated to satisfy the man
who was paying eight or nine per cent to the mortgage
companies and wanted money at four per cent to pay them
off. By 1903 and 1904 a marked improvement had taken
place, and from that time onward until the year 1912 land
values increased enormously. It was during this period
that so many of the larger ranches of the interior were pur-
chased to be subdivided on the small-holding plan. Probably
100,000 acres in Okanagan, in the vicinity of the Kootenay
lakes, in the valleys of the Thompson, Lillooet, Similkameen,
and in the lower Fraser valley were thus dealt with. The
growing of fruit on the Oregon and Washington plan was
adopted with enthusiasm, and most of the lands indicated
proved to be suitable for the purpose, particularly for apples.
550 HISTORY OF FARMING
A series of exhibits of this fruit in Great Britain and else-
where succeeded in carrying off all awards. The govern-
ment showed great activity in the work of publicity, and the
work of the department of Agriculture so expanded that the
appropriations for the purpose grew in nine years from $20,000
to $265,000, and the departmental staff of three or four was
increased to forty, engaged in experimental and educational
work of all kinds on modern lines. Now all this, excellent
and encouraging as it was, formed so much fodder for the
real estate interests, which exploited the possibilities of every
available section until the price of land soared to one hundred
dollars and even as high as one thousand dollars an acre,
reaching a point where it was much more profitable to sell
than to farm the land. This imaginary prosperity has not
helped the industry as such, however much it may have
enriched the fortunate owners of land who disposed of their
holdings ; and it has greatly complicated the problems con-
nected with agriculture. In 1913 witnesses before the Agri-
cultural Commission appointed to investigate these problems
stated that the only way to make a profit from farm-land
in British Columbia was to sell it. This is an exaggeration,
no doubt, but it is true in one sense : the land, however
fertile, has got beyond its productive value. With the high
cost of living and the high price of labour added, the situa-
tion has not improved. It is, however, not a serious one,
except that a great many persons have bought land at too
high a price, and must consider a certain amount of their
investment as loss. The prevailing conditions will adjust
themselves. When the element of speculation in real estate
has been eliminated and the owners of the land return to the
serious business of farming on its own merits, the industry
will take another upward turn and be placed upon a per-
manently sound basis.
There are many advantages for farming in British Col-
umbia. The valleys are extremely fertile, the climate in the
main is most favourable, the general conditions of physical
and social life are pleasant, prices are high and the demand
exceptional, and the lot of the farmer is, on the whole plane
of existence, as good as, if not a little superior to, that of
LEGISLATIVE ACTS AND AGRICULTURE 551
his brother tiller of the soil in any other part of the known
world to-day.
There is a general spirit of emulation and ambitious effort
being displayed, in co-operation with which are the work
of the Farmers' Institutes and the splendid educational
machinery put in operation through the agency of the de-
partment of Agriculture. There is, therefore, every reason to
hope for an agricultural and horticultural development in
specialized forms, not equalled, except in isolated instances,
in any other portion of the globe. In specially favoured
localities and under specially favoured conditions the farmers
of British Columbia are reaping rich rewards and doing
exceedingly well — not a few of the older men having become
rich. But it is not safe to judge of the general status of the
industry by these peculiar instances, and it is to avoid a
possible misapprehension that attention is called to the fact
here. Turning again, however, to the special advantages of
farming — upon which perhaps too much stress may be laid
— there is one which pertains everywhere : the value, from
the real estate point of view, of land that has been brought
under cultivation. The pioneers who have for so many years
nursed their holdings are now becoming independent on that
account alone. It is a circumstance, also, that has so materi-
ally contributed to the active speculation in land through-
out the province. The relatively limited area makes arable
land the more valuable as it has relation to prospective
development in its locality. Therefore, if the farmer does
not pay too much for his land in the first instance, locates
or purchases it with an intelligent view to the future and
to its potential value for farming, he has an almost certain
profitable investment, and with skilful or even average
intelligent cultivation he can hardly fail to obtain excellent
results ; because it seems yet a long time off when produc-
tion will fully meet the demands of consumption, and when
there will not be a demand for his land by others. In the
future, when the speculation in land for real estate purposes
shall have subsided and the value of land is measured by its
productive capacity alone, the farmers with unencumbered
land under cultivation will be as a class the best off on the
552
HISTORY OF FARMING
average in the province. In very many communities the
farmer is still struggling against many natural disadvan-
tages, and it will be some years yet before in every part of
British Columbia he will have passed the pioneer stage in-
evitable in new countries, but his certain success will be all
the greater and his satisfaction the more real when his initial
difficulties shall have been overcome.
MINES AND MINING
MINES AND MINING
BRITISH Columbia possesses large mineral resources.
These are varied in character and some of them occur
in immense quantities. They include gold, silver,
lead, copper, iron, zinc, coal, building materials, etc. The
latent possibilities of the mining industry of the province
are, therefore, very great. In this article features of the
history of the development of the mining industry of British
Columbia and statistical information will be given.
BRITISH COLUMBIA, PART OF THE CORDILLERAN REGION
The singularly favourable position, as a part of the
great Cordilleran belt, occupied by British Columbia in regard
to its mineral resources, is given prominence in Geology and
Economic Minerals of Canada, published by the Geological
Survey branch of the Dominion department of Mines. The
Cordilleran belt
in South America, in Mexico, and in the western United
States is recognized as one of the greatest mining regions
in the world ; noted principally for its wealth in gold,
silver, copper and lead. The Cordilleras stand un-
paralleled in the world for continuity, extent, and variety
of their mineral resources. In Canada, and in Alaska,
this belt maintains its reputation, although in both for
the greater part unprospected. In Canada it has a
length of 1300 and a width of 400 miles. It is pre-
eminently a great mining region. . . . The Cordilleran belt
in Canada is not only rich in gold, silver, lead, copper
and zinc, but has enormous resources of coal of excellent
quality, varying from lignite to anthracite, which is
conveniently distributed. . . . The prospective resources
of the Cordilleran belt in Canada may, therefore, be
VOL. XXII O
556 MINES AND MINING
considered enormous. Though mostly unprospected, it
has been proved to possess the greatest coal fields, one
of the greatest copper mines, one of the greatest lead-
silver mines, and two of the greatest placer-gold camps
in Western America — a region noted for its extraordinary
mineral wealth. ... In Canada the region includes all
of British Columbia, parts of Western Alberta, the whole
of Yukon Territory, and a large tract in the adjacent
western portion of the North -West Territories — an area,
in all, of approximately 600,000 square miles.
In a paper on the ' Mining Possibilities of the Canadian
Rockies/ I by Bernard MacDonald, read before the Canadian
Mining Institute, it is shown that in Mexico the Rocky
Mountains had up to 1903 yielded of precious metals
alone, over a length of 1700 miles, a total production of
$5,500,000,000, or an average of $3,235,294 per mile ; in
the United States there was a total of $4,500,000,000 or
$3,461,538 per mile along a length of 1300 miles ; while in
Canada the total had reached only $166,000,000, or $103,750
per mile for 1600 miles. MacDonald, in the course of his
paper, observed : ' It is fair to assume that the Rockies in
Canada will yield a quantity of the precious metals equal
to that produced by them in American or Mexican territory
— mile for mile of their length — when equally developed.' 2
Another paper read at the annual meeting of the Canadian
Mining Institute in 1903 was one by Frederick Hobart,
associate editor of the Engineering and Mining Journal, New
York, who said, when speaking on ' Some Possibilities of
Mining in Canada ' :
The iron ores of the Coast districts of British Columbia
are still to be developed, but they exist in quantity.
The raw material is abundant, and coal and coke are
within reasonable distance. . . . On the western coast
the establishment of iron manufacture will enable
Canada to compete — I believe with success — for the
supply of iron and steel to Eastern Asia and probably
Australia also ; while there is nothing to prevent the
1 Journal of the Canadian Mining Institute, vol. vi., 1903.
z It should be kept in mind that much of the northern Cordilleran belt, or
Canadian Rocky Mountain region, is in British Columbia.,
IMMENSE MINERAL RESOURCES 557
capture of the trade of the entire Pacific Coast. British
Columbia has the most important supplies of iron ore
and the only good coking coal on the coast ; advantages
which will surely be realized before long.
Much other testimony along similar lines might be
adduced.
IMMENSE MINERAL RESOURCES
Before narrating the history of mining in the province,
the immensity of the mineral resources of British Columbia
will be indicated by brief notes concerning two of the various
classes of minerals.
In the Annual Report of the Minister of Mines for 1902
the provincial mineralogist gives much information relative
to the placer gold estimated to be contained in ' the great
low-grade gravel deposits, which have received their chief de-
velopment about Quesnel Forks, Cariboo/ He says, in part :
Mr John B. Hobson claims for his company that he
has leases of 500,000,000 cubic yards of auriferous
gravels, and it is quite safe to say that he has not in
these leases one-fifth of the available gravels, so that
in this section alone there must be from 2,500,000,000
to 3,000,000,000 cubic yards of auriferous gravels, which
there is every reason to think will be as rich as the Con-
solidated Cariboo Company's deposit. The immensity
of these figures is hard to grasp, but to illustrate — if ten
cubic yards yield $i in gold, then there is in the Quesnel
section alone $300,000,000 worth of gold. This vast
amount of gold is so * diluted ' with sand and gravel that
the only possible means of extracting it is by the use
of immense volumes of water under pressure ; in other
words, by hydraulic mining.
As to coal — in a paper on ' The Undeveloped Coal Re-
sources of Canada,' presented at the annual meeting of the
Canadian Mining Institute in March 1911, D. B. Dowling, of
the Geological Survey of Canada, one of the chief authorities
on the coal resources of the Dominion, gave information
relative to coal in British Columbia, from which the following
has been summarized :
558
MINES AND MINING
COAL AREAS PARTIALLY EXAMINED AND FOR WHICH AN
ESTIMATE OF CONTENT MIGHT BE TAKEN AS APPROXIMATE
Class of Coal
Area in
sq. miles
Anthracite
Bituminous
Lignite
millions of
millions of
millions of
tons
tons
tons
Vancouver Island
674
2,547
Queen Charlotte Islands .
1 60
3°7
256
Mainland of Province
517
61
36,820
234
Totals
1351
61
39,674
490
1
The total coal estimated to be contained in 1351 square miles
is, therefore, 40,225,000,000 tons. Large additions to the
quantity shown in the foregoing estimate may be expected,
for there are several fields of which little is yet known.
HISTORY OF MINING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA
The first notable event in the history of the mining
industry of British Columbia appears to have been the
discovery, about the year 1825, by David Douglas (a cele-
brated botanist who was investigating the flora of the
country), of a large outcrop of galena ore near the eastern
shore of Kootenay Lake, opposite Hot Springs or Ainsworth,
at what is now the Blue Bell mine.
Ten years later, in 1835, coal was first discovered in
British Columbia at Fort Rupert, Vancouver Island. The
late Dr George M. Dawson, director of the Geological Survey
of Canada, in a paper read before the Royal Colonial Insti-
tute, observed :
The existence of coal upon the coast of British Columbia
was recognized by Dr W. F. Tolmie, an officer of the
Hudson's Bay Company, as early as 1835 ; but though
small quantities of coal were actually obtained from
natural outcrops from time to time, for the use of the
blacksmiths at the company's posts, no importance
appears to have been attached to the discovery. The
world was at that time very spacious, and the Pacific
HISTORY OF MINING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 559
Ocean was still regarded rather as a field for the ex-
ploration of navigators than as a highway of commerce
between America and Asia. Afterwards (in 1849) the
Hudson's Bay Company brought out a few coal miners
from Scotland, and proceeded to test and open the
deposits.
Again, Dr Dawson, after mentioning the bringing of
specimens of coal by Indians, in 1835, to Dr Tolmie, then
stationed at the Hudson's Bay Company's post at Fort
McLoughlin, Milbank Sound (now Bella Coola), and the
exploratory work done at Suquash, between Port McNeill
and Beaver Harbour, on the north-east coast of Vancouver
Island, in the years 1849-53, states :
Meanwhile, in 1850, the existence of coal at Nanaimo
had been ascertained by Mr J. W. McKay, and in the
following year it appears that most of the miners were
transferred from the northern end of the island to that
place. Work was begun in earnest at Nanaimo in 1852
and, before the close of 1853, 2000 tons of coal are
reported to have been shipped, chiefly to San Francisco,
California. The price of coal at Nanaimo was at this
time $11 and at San Francisco $28 a ton. The Hudson's
Bay Company, under the name of the Nanaimo Coal
Company, continued to work the mines thus opened
until 1 86 1, when they were sold to the Vancouver Coal
Mining and Land Company, Limited.1
The first authenticated discovery of gold within the
limits of what is now the Province of British Columbia
occurred at Mitchell or Gold Harbour, on the west coast of
the Queen Charlotte Islands. This discovery created con-
siderable interest at the time, but, Dr Dawson wrote, was
in no way connected with the Fraser River excitement, and
the general commencement of placer-mining which came
later. J. W. McKay, who was conversant with all the circum-
stances at the time, stated that the first gold discovered was
a nugget found accidentally by an Indian woman. Part
of the nugget, weighing between four and five ounces, was
taken by an Indian to Fort Simpson and sold to the
1 Mineral Wealth of British Columbia, 1887, p. 80.
56o MINES AND MINING
Hudson's Bay official there. John McLellan, of Skidegate,
Moresby Island, in a paper contributed to the Canadian
Mining Institute, wrote :
The Gold Harbour area is interesting historically, as
one of the first discoveries of gold in British Columbia
was made at this place. This was by the Hudson's Bay
Company so long ago as 1852, samples of free gold having
been brought to them from the islands by Haida Indians.
An expedition was organized and proved a profitable
venture, but no accurate information as to the amount of
gold extracted is now obtainable. Estimates vary from
$5000 to a very large amount. At any rate, the ore
proved of a ' pockety ' character, and the district was
soon abandoned. The old workings consist of an open
cut some 30 ft. long, close to the water's edge and parallel
to the coast line of the harbour. The deepest part is
only about 12 ft. from the surface. This work has
exposed an irregular quartz vein, almost vertical and
varying in width from a mere seam up to 18 in., the
vein-filling being a hard milky-white quartz, with a very
small proportion of iron and copper pyrites, and con-
taining gold value under $2 per ton. No high grade
ore is now visible at this point.1
In the interior of the province gold was found in the
Similkameen country as early as 1852, while in 1854 Colville
(Washington) Indians were known to have nuggets of gold
in their possession. Bancroft, in his History of British Col-
umbia, states that Chief Trader McLean procured gold from
Indians near Kamloops in 1852. Various authorities place
the first finds in different localities. However, between 1855
and 1857 discoveries of gold were made on the Thompson,
Eraser, and Columbia Rivers, and the news of these, together
with dispatches sent to England by Governor Douglas, soon
attracted attention to British Columbia as a prospective gold-
field. Then came the rush to the Eraser River in 1858.
It is an old story now how people hurried from San
Francisco to Victoria by thousands and set up their tents ;
how they rushed up the Eraser River, many crossing the
Gulf of Georgia in open boats ; how, in coming to British
1 Journal of the Canadian Mining Institute, vol. xiii., 1910, p. 294.
HISTORY OF MINING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 561
Columbia, they crossed the Isthmus of Panama, or rounded
Cape Horn, or plodded wearily overland from Eastern Canada
or the United States. ' Victoria became a city in a day, and
the Mainland solitude was converted into a crown colony
in a year.*
Up to 1858 nothing but preliminary work had been done,
consequently little was known of the mineral resources of
the province. In that year, however, gold-mining was really
begun, and from that period dates the history of productive
mining in British Columbia. The increase in the production
of gold was rapid, and from $705,000, which is a rough esti-
mate of the value of the output in 1858, its value rose year
by year until the maximum for any one year was reached
in 1863, when the production was valued at $3,913,563. In
passing, it may be mentioned that the output for ten years,
1860-69, was of a total recorded value of $28,983,106.
In 1 86 1, after laborious journeyings by daring prospectors,
Williams and Lightning Creeks, two of the most noted gold
producers of British Columbia, were discovered, and in this
and the following year most of the other rich creeks in Cariboo
district became known. Then began that second rush which
was one of the most notable events in the history of British
Columbia, and one that has had most lasting effects in deter-
mining its future. The finds of gold were very rich, and the
lucky prospectors who became owners of the rich claims
amassed large sums of money in a very short time.
Dr Dawson wrote of these creeks :
Williams Creek has yielded more gold than any other
stream in British Columbia. As examples of its yield
in early years, Steele's claim gave a maximum yield of
409 oz. or $6544 a day. More than $100,000 in all was
taken from this claim of 80 by 25 ft. In 1862 Cunning-
ham's claim produced gold to the value of nearly $2000
a day for the season, while on several days as much as
52 Ib. weight of gold was taken out. The Adams claim
yielded to each of its three partners $40,000 clear.
These claims were above ' the canyon ' in shallow
ground. The deep ground below * the canyon ' was
first bottomed toward the end of 1861 by the Barker
Company (whence the name of the town, Barkerville).
562 MINES AND MINING
The Diller Company was the next successful in this,
and it is credibly stated that here, on one occasion, 200
Ib. of gold, worth $38,400, was obtained in one day. In
1863 three claims below ' the canyon ' yielded $300,000,
and 20 claims were steadily producing from 70 to 400
oz. a day. Four hundred miners were at work on
Williams Creek in this year — ' the Golden Year.' The
aggregate value of the yield of Williams Creek for the
first seven years of working, for which no returns are
available, was very large. In 1861, $200,000 worth
of gold was taken from Campbell's Discovery claim and
the adjacent Whitehall claim, both on Lightning Creek.
Attempts were made almost from the first to reach the
deep channel of this creek, but after much work, were
abandoned in 1864. However, sinking was resumed in
1870, and having proved successful, led to the subse-
quent great developments. The rich character of some
of the ground may be indicated by stating that at one
time the Butcher claim yielded 350 oz. a day, the Aurora
300 to 600 oz, and the Caledonia 300 oz.
Other placer-gold diggings that afterwards contributed
appreciably to the production of gold were : Wild Horse
Creek, East Kootenay ; Granite and Rock Creeks in South-
East Yale ; Omineca and Cassiar, north and north-west of
Cariboo ; the Big Bend of the Columbia, north of Revel-
stoke ; and the Atlin field, nearer the coast part of Cassiar
district. Between 1873 and 1888 mineral to the value of
about $5,000,000 was recovered from gold-bearing streams
in Cassiar district, and since the discovery of the Atlin field,
in 1898, there has been recovered from this part of Cassiar,
to the end of 1912, gold valued at $5,526,000.
Apart from the unimportant beginning in lode-mining
made at Gold Harbour, before mentioned, and the work
stated to have been done by an Australian miner named
Waddington, who in 1862-63 sank a shaft to a depth of about
130 feet on a small vein of copper ore occurring at what is
now known as ' Old Shaft ' — situated near Skidegate, Moresby
Island — it is probable this industry was commenced at the
Blue Bell mine, Kootenay Lake. Several years ago A. D.
Wheeler, of Ainsworth, stated that
late in the twenties Hudson's Bay Company trappers
HISTORY OF MINING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 563
used ore from the Blue Bell outcrops for making bullets,
and on their departure left several old drills behind.
For about twenty-five years no one appears to have
visited the place or communicated to the world any-
thing concerning it. About 1864, Mr (afterward Senator)
George Hearst, of California, a wealthy mining man,
having received favourable reports from prospectors he
had sent north, made a trip to the property. He en-
countered much hardship by the way, but persisted, and
on reaching the place erected a small open-hearth furnace
and smelted out some bullion. The remains of that old
furnace still exist on the property. The low grade of
the bullion, the distance from transportation, and the
supposed inability to market the product within his
lifetime, decided Mr Hearst on abandoning his project.
About 1887 Dr W. A. Hendryx, with a party of Minnesota
and Connecticut capitalists, obtained possession of the
property. . . . Steam power was in use at the Blue
Bell mine in 1889, and in 1891 the construction of smelt-
ing works at Pilot Bay, Kootenay Lake, was com-
menced. It was not until 1894 or 1895, however, that
smelting was actually done at these works.
In the late seventies and the eighties occurrences of
various ores in different parts of the province were known,
and prospecting was done to develop some of them. Among
these were copper-silver on Howe Sound, silver near Yale,
gold at Lillooet, copper-silver in Nicola district, gold-quartz
in Cariboo, silver-lead at Illecillewaet, galena at Hot Springs
(Ainsworth), and copper-silver near Nelson.
The first production and shipment of ore in quantity
appears to have been made by the Selkirk Mining and
Smelting Company, which in 1887 and 1888 shipped to a
smeltery in San Francisco, California, 422 tons of sorted
silver-lead ore from the Lanark mine, Illecillewaet, where
a small crushing and sampling mill had previously been
put in. In 1889 the Ainsworth mines shipped 357 tons of
silver-lead ore, and the Silver King, on Toad Mountain,
near Nelson, 70 tons of copper-silver ore. Meanwhile, de-
velopment of the Blue Bell mine (acquired, as mentioned
above, by American capitalists who afterward organized the
Kootenay Mining and Smelting Company) had been com-
564 MINES AND MINING
menced, and later — 1894-95 — a smeltery was established at
Pilot Bay, eight or nine miles from the mine, to smelt ore
from the Blue Bell, which in 1895 shipped to it about
52,000 tons. But the first smelting works completed in the
province was that of the Kootenay Smelting and Trading
Company, near Revelstoke, in the year 1889.
In its Report on the Mining and Metallurgical Industries,
1907-8, the Dominion department of Mines includes the
following in its ' Genesis of Lode Mining ' :
The first production of copper was made in 1888-89,
from the Hall Mines (Silver King), near Nelson, the
value of the product — which consisted of a consignment
of 100 tons — having been extraordinarily high, the ore
containing from 220*5 oz. silver per ton and 17 per cent
copper to 574 oz. silver per ton and 43*36 per cent copper.
A small shipment of copper ore — 10 tons — was also
made from Rossland, in 1891, followed by 700 tons in
1893 ; but regular production was not commenced until
1894. Meanwhile, it is interesting to note, in connexion
with Rossland 's first production of ore, that the excep-
tionally high smeltery returns of $84 per ton — or 5*21
per cent copper, 3 oz. silver per ton and about 4 oz. gold
— were responsible for bringing about the first important
investment of capital in the camp.
Summarizing briefly the beginnings of other lode-mining
camps and reduction works, the following includes most of
the more important of them : gold-milling was commenced
in a small way at Richfield, Cariboo, in 1876 ; gold claims
were staked at Camp McKinney,1 in the Boundary district,
in 1884, but ten years elapsed before a stamp-mill was erected
there ; many locations of mineral claims were made in the
Boundary district between 1886 and 1891, and in 1899-1901
two copper-smelting works were established ; on Trail Creek
numerous mineral claims were staked in 1889 and 1890, and in
October 1895 construction work on a smelting works was com-
menced, the first furnace having been fired in February 1896 ;
the first smeltery operated in the Coast district was that
at Van Anda, Texada Island, built in 1898 ; in 1902 blast
1 The Cariboo-McKinney mine was closed in 1903, after the company owning it
had paid about $547,000 in dividends.
MINERAL PRODUCTION 565
furnaces were blown in at smelteries at Boundary Falls in the
Boundary district, and at Ladysmith and Crofton on Van-
couver Island. In this last-mentioned year the erection of a
smeltery was commenced at Marysville, East Kootenay, but
ores were not smelted there until early in 1905.
Other notes in connection with the foregoing are as
follows : in 1890 some 1200 tons of gold-bearing quartz was
crushed at the Poorman ten-stamp mill, near Nelson, West
Kootenay ; many silver and silver-lead claims were located
in Slocan district in 1890-91, and in 1892 the shipment of
ore was commenced ; the Strathyre stamp-mill was built at
Fairview, Okanagan district, in 1893 ; in 1894 a concentrat-
ing plant was put in at the No. I mine, Ainsworth Camp, and
another at Alamo, Slocan, on the Nakusp-Sandon branch
of the Canadian Pacific Railway ; the North Star, located
in 1892, was the pioneer ore-producing mine in East Kootenay
— it made an experimental shipment of about fifty tons of
ore in 1895, and since then its aggregate of shipments has
reached to about 80,000 tons ; the St Eugene, also in East
Kootenay, which was afterwards developed into the biggest
lead-mine in Canada and has produced more than 1,000,000
tons of ore, was staked in 1893 ; the Ymir gold-mine was
developed in the late nineties, and in 1900 the number of
stamps in its mill was increased to eighty, making it the
largest stamp-mill in the province. Other important mines
are : the Nickel Plate near fledley, Similkameen, with a
forty-stamp mill and cyanide plant ; the Britannia, at Howe
Sound near the city of Vancouver, with the largest concen-
trating plant in British Columbia ; the Van Anda group and
Marble Bay copper-mines on Texada Island ; the Tyee and
Lenora on Mt Sicker, Vancouver Island ; and the Hidden
Creek group on Observatory Inlet, on which the Granby
Consolidated Company had, by the close of 1913, developed
8,000,000 tons of copper ore.
MINERAL PRODUCTION
In order of relative importance, the chief minerals of
British Columbia are gold (placer and lode), coal, copper,
566 MINES AND MINING
silver, and lead. Neither iron nor zinc has yet been pro-
duced in any considerable quantity, though both occur in
numerous places in the province.
The respective totals of value of the various minerals
produced are shown in the first of the following tables, which
exhibits the aggregate value of mineral production for all
years to 1912 inclusive ; the second table shows periodic
increases :
PRODUCTION BY MINERALS
Gold, placer $72,194,603
Gold, lode ....... 70,859,022
Total gold $143,053,625
Silver 33*863,940
Lead 27,520,753
Copper 73»723,562
Iron, zinc, etc. ...... 1,528,403
Total metallic ..... $279,690,283
Coal $118,687,488
Coke .... 14,183,667
Total coal and coke . $132,871,155
Building stone, brick, cement,
etc 17,576,084
Total non-metallic .... 150,447,239
Total value of mineral production . . $430,137,522
PRODUCTION BY PERIODS
For all years to 1892 inclusive . . . $81,090,069
„ five years, 1893-1897 . $31,420,396
„ „ „ 1898-1902 . 77,218,073
„ ten
it five „
„ ten
1893-1902 .
1903-1907 .
1908-1912 .
1903-1912 .
$109,797,744
130,611,240
108,638,469
240,408,984
.
Aggregate value of production . . . $430,137,522
It will be seen that the increase in value of production
PLACER GOLD 567
for the ten-year period 1903-12, as compared with that of
1893-1902, was nearly 140 per cent, and that nearly fifty-
six per cent of the whole production was made in the last
ten years.
PLACER GOLD
The commencement of production of placer (or alluvial)
gold dates back to 1858, for which year a yield valued at
$705,000 is on official record. The maximum production of
any one year was that of 1863, with a recorded value of
$3>9I3»563» followed in 1864 by a total of $3,735,850, and in
1865 by $3,491,205. The only other year in which produc-
tion exceeded $3,000,000 in value was in 1868, when it was
$3,372,972. Placer-gold mining was at its best during the
period 1860-68 ; thereafter the value of the production of
any single year only once exceeded a total of $2,000,000, and
that was in 1875, when Cassiar district contributed substan-
tially to the total yield. The decrease was gradual until
the early eighties, and after that rapid until, in 1893, the
minimum total of production in any year during the history
of placer-gold mining in the province was reached, with an
output for that year of only $356,131. Thenceforward there
was a steady increase for half a dozen years, to which Atlin
district contributed materially in 1899. Production was fairly
well maintained until 1905 ; then followed a decreasing annual
yield, but present prospects are that improvement will be
experienced.
During the years 1858 to 1912 inclusive the aggregate
value of the placer gold recovered is stated in the official
records to have been $72,194,603 ; the production in short
periods is shown in the next table :
For five years, 1858-1862 . . . $9,871,634
„ ten ' „ 1863-1872 . . . 26,178,910
„ „ „ 1873-1882 . . . 14,599,112
„ „ „ 1883-1892 . . 6,366,941
„ „ „ 1893-1902 . . . 7,611,086
,, „ ,, 1903-1912 • • • 7,566,920
Aggregate value of placer gold. . . $72,194,603
568 MINES AND MINING
LODE METALS
While there was only a small production of lode metals
during the seven years prior to 1894, it appears probable that
it was somewhat larger than is shown in the official tables.
However, taking the official figures, it is found that a com-
mencement was made in 1887, in which year silver and lead
to a total value of $26,547 were produced. The first official
record of lode-gold production was of a value of $23,404 for
the year 1893, and of copper $16,234 for 1894. As better
showing the production of minerals, quantities rather than
the recorded value will be given for the remaining minerals
to be dealt with, for value was affected by fluctuations in
prices of silver, lead, and copper, and in less degree of coal
and coke. It may be mentioned here that a strike of coal-
mine employees, which lasted nearly eight months in 1911,
by interfering with the supply of coal and coke seriously
affected production of all the lode minerals and coal and
coke to an estimated total value of between $4,000,000 and
$5,000,000, so that the production of these several minerals
for the last ten-year period shows less favourably by that
amount than would otherwise have been the case.
Gold. — As the first production of lode gold included in
the official records was for the year 1893, it follows that this
metal has been produced over a period of twenty years.
The aggregate quantity produced to the end of 1912 was
3,438,849 oz. Of this total, approximately 2,022,000 oz. came
from Rossland (Trail Creek division) mines, 985,000 oz. from
Boundary district mines (including Similkameen district),
303,000 oz. from mines in Nelson mining division, 97,000 oz.
from mines in the Coast district, and 32,000 oz. from other
parts of the province. It should be noted that a considerable
proportion of the lode gold produced is obtained from smelting
copper-bearing ores. In 1912 the percentage from such ores
was placed at about seventy-five per cent, while in some
years it has been greater. The remainder is from ores
treated in stamp-mills, some of which have auxiliary cyanide
plants.
LODE METALS 569
Comparing periods, the production of lode gold was as
under :
oz.
For five years, 1893-1897 . . . 215,086
„ „ „ 1898-1902 . 862,404
„ ,, ,, 1903-1907 .... i,H3,739
„ „ „ 1908-1912 .... 1,247,620
Aggregate quantity of lode gold . . 3,438,849
The largest quantity of lode gold produced in any year was in
1910, with an output of 267,701 oz. (fine).
Silver. — The maximum yearly production of silver was
in 1897, with an output of 5,472,971 oz., followed by
4,292,401 oz. in 1898. With the exception of 1901, when
the output was 5,151,333 oz., all other years have had a
production of less than 4,000,000 oz. That for 1911, of
only 1,892,364 oz., was the smallest since 1895, but con-
ditions were exceptionally unfavourable, forest fires having
destroyed mine surface works, concentrating mills, and several
miles of the Slocan railway, which is in the chief silver-
lead producing district in the province. These preventive
causes were remedied, and in 1912 the output increased to
3,132,108 oz.
The aggregate quantity of silver produced in all years to
the end of 1912 was 59,672,859 oz. The proportions obtained
from the various districts are as follows : Slocan, 33,770,581
oz. ; East Kootenay, 8,418,119 oz.; Nelson, 5,501,221 oz.;
Boundary, 5,042,132 oz. ; Rossland, 3,381,892 oz. ; Lardeau,
2,216,854 oz.; and Coast, 1,342,060 oz. The silver from
Boundary and Rossland mines, like the gold, comes almost
altogether from copper-bearing ores ; to a considerable degree
silver obtained in the Coast district is similarly associated
with copper, but the outlook is that in the future a fair pro-
portion will come from lead-bearing ores. It will be seen that
more than half of the silver produced has come from Slocan
district (which includes Ainsworth division) , in which much of
the ore has a comparatively high silver content. A com-
parison of production by periods is made in the following
table :
570 MINES AND MINING
oz.
For six years, 1887-1892 . . . 302,749
„ five „ 1893-1897 . . . 11,078,215
1898-1902 . . . 20,259,239
„ „ „ 1903-1907 . . . 15,393,812
„ „ „ 1908-1912 . . . 12,638,844
Aggregate quantity of silver produced . 59,672,859
Lead. — The records show a total of approximately 342,829
tons (of 2000 Ib.) of lead produced. As with silver, the out-
put was small during the earlier years of production — less
than 10,000,000 Ib. in eight years to the end of 1894 J m ^act,
less than 2,000,000 Ib. was produced in the six years 1887-92.
The maximum output for one year was that for 1900—
63,358,621 Ib. ; the minimum since 1895 was that for 1903,
when only 18,089,283 Ib. were produced. There had been a
decreasing annual production since 1905, from 56,580,703 Ib.
in that year to 26,872,397 Ib. in 1911. Conditions were
temporarily unfavourable in the last-mentioned year, partly
from the same causes as affected the production of silver.
A decided improvement was noticeable in 1912, when the
output was increased to 44,871,454 Ib.
The proportions of the aggregate output of 685,658,671 Ib.
of lead obtained from the various districts in which ore con-
taining this metal is mined are as follows : from East Kootenay,
354»959»347 It).; Slocan, 299,684,211 Ib. ; Nelson, 19,168,072
Ib. ; Lardeau, 10,519,414 Ib. ; other parts, 1,327,627 Ib.
By short periods the output was as under :
Ib.
For six years, 1887-1892 . . . 1,852,820
„ five „ 1893-1897 . . . 87,314,122
„ „ „ 1898-1902 . . . 191,033,903
„ „ „ 1903-1907 . . . 211,463,150
„ „ „ 1908-1912 . . . I93>994»676
Aggregate quantity of lead produced . 685,658,671
Practically all the lead produced in Canada in recent
years has come from British Columbia mines. The Dominion
government pays a bounty of seventy-five cents per hundred
pounds of lead contained in lead-bearing ores mined and
LODE METALS 571
smelted in Canada. When the standard price of pig-lead
in London, England, exceeds £14, los. sterling per ton of
2240 lb., the bounty is reduced by such excess until, at £18
per ton, it ceases to be paid. This assistance to lead-miners
has been given for ten years, in two five-year periods, the
second of which expired on June 30, 1913. The total amount
voted for such bounty payment was $2,500,000. To the
end of March 1910, $1,471,819 had been paid. Exact figures
to date are not to hand, but since payments for the calendar
years 1910 and 1911 were $219,558 and $318,308 respectively,
nearly $2,000,000 in all had been paid up to the end of the
latter year. An appropriation of $50,000 for experiments in
reduction of lead-zinc ores was authorized in 1910, this amount
to be deducted from the lead-bounty vote.
Copper. — According to official records the production of
copper was commenced in 1894, in which year there was an
output of 324,680 lb. This was probably from the Silver
King mine near Nelson. Thereafter production increased
yearly, until in 1900, the first year in which copper ore was
smelted in the Boundary district, the total was 9,997,000 lb. —
from mines in the Boundary district 5,672,000 lb., in the Coast
district 2,194,000 lb., in the Rossland camp 2,072,000 lb.,
and in other parts 59,000 lb. The average yearly produc-
tion for five years, 1908-12, was 43,899,997 lb. A record was
made in 1912, when 51,456,537 lb. were produced. The aggre-
gate of production to the end of 1912 was 503,737,902 lb. ;
the proportions of the several districts were: Boundary,
334,946,577 lb. ; Trail Creek (Rossland), 86,741,841 lb. ;
Coast, 66,992,753 lb. ; Nelson, 13,389,378 lb.; other parts,
1,687,353 lb.
The considerable increase in the production of copper
during the nineteen years 1894-1912 is shown in the following
comparative table :
lb.
For four years, 1894-1897 . . . 10,421,256
„ five „ 1898-1902 . . . 82,231,152
,f it ii 1903-1907 • • • I9i»585>5<>8
„ „ „ 1908-1912 . . . 219,499,986
Aggregate quantity of copper produced . 503,737,902
VOL. XXII P
572 MINES AND MINING
Other Metals. — The production of other metals than the
foregoing, placed at an approximate total value for all years
of $1,528,403, may be subdivided as follows : zinc, $1,413,403 ;
iron, $105,000 ; platinum, $10,000. It is probable the last-
mentioned amount is inadequate, for one unofficial estimate,
likely to be approximately correct, places the quantity of
platinum (placer) recovered in Tulameen district at 20,000 oz.,
but the quantity reported to the provincial department of
Mines was very much smaller.
Value of Lode Metals. — The aggregate value of the lode
metals produced, leaving out of account zinc and iron, appears
in the official records covering a period of twenty-six years
as having been $205,967,277. The proportion for short
periods is as under :
For six years, 1887-1892 ... $ 363,678
„ five „ 1893-1897 . . . 14,730,749
„ „ „ 1898-1902 . . 48,134,927
„ „ „ 1903-1907 . 72,761,515
„ „ „ 1908-1912 . . . 69,976,408
Aggregate value $205,967,277
COAL AND COKE
,Coal. — The production of coal appears to have been com-
menced in 1836, official records including that year. The
output during the first half-century of production, however,
was small, for the records show an aggregate for fifty years,
1836-85, of only 3,029,011 tons (2240 lb.), which was less
than the production of a single recent year (in 1910 there was
a total output of 3,139,235 tons gross). It was not until
1891 that a year's output exceeded 1,000,000 tons — in that
year it was 1,029,097 tons, in 1894 it was 1,012,953 tons, but
for other years prior to 1898 the quantity produced in each
was less than 1,000,000 tons. Since 1898 a higher annual out-
put has been maintained, and in 1910 a maximum quantity, as
stated above, was reached.
The next table will serve to show the advances made in
COAL AND COKE 573
the production of coal. All the quantities given are for net
coal, and do not include the coal made into coke :
Tons of 2240 Ib.
For all years to 1882 inclusive . . . 2,156,046
,, five years, 1883-1887 . 1,612,961
„ „ 1888-1892 . 3,602,703
„ ten „ 1883-1892 . . . 5,215,664
„ five „ 1893-1897 . 4,709,977
„ „ „ 1898-1902 . 6,739,509
„ ten „ 1893-1902 . , . 11,449,486
„ five „ 1903-1907 . 7,123,504
1908-1912 . 11,306.237
„ ten „ 1903-1912 . 18,429,741
Aggregate quantity of coal (net tons) . . 37,250,937
Prior to 1898 all coal produced in the province came from
mines on Vancouver Island ; since then there has been a
steadily increasing output from mines in Crowsnest district,
South-East Kootenay, and quite recently a small production
from Nicola valley and Princeton.
Coke. — The manufacture of coke was commenced in 1895
at Union Bay, Vancouver Island : in three years, 1895-97,
19,396 long tons were made. In 1898 the Crow's Nest Pass
Coal Company made its first coke — only 361 tons — and in
the next year increased its output to nearly 30,000 tons.
Very little coke has been made on Vancouver Island of late
years, but in Crowsnest district as much as 271,785 tons
have been made in one year.
By periods the output has been as under :
Tons of 2240 Ib.
For three years, 1895-1897 . . . 19,396
„ five „ 1898-1902 . . . 409,496
„ „ „ 1903-1907 . . 1,097,896
„ „ „ 1908-1912 . . . 1,054,469
Aggregate quantity . 2,581,257
Owing to a strike, which lasted nearly eight months, of men
employed at the coal-mines and coke-ovens in Crowsnest
574 MINES AND MINING
district, the production of coal and coke in 1911 was only
about one-third of the quantity produced under normal
conditions.
MISCELLANEOUS MINERALS
Miscellaneous minerals occurring in the province include
platinum, chiefly in the Tulameen district ; cinnabar (mer-
cury), near Kamloops and on the west coast of Vancouver
Island ; pyrites, in lower Skeena country ; scheelite (calcium
tungstate), in Cariboo district ; tungsten, at Sheep Creek,
Nelson mining division ; molybdenum, in Nicola district
and various other parts ; mica, at Tete Jaune Cache, upper
Fraser River ; hydro-magnesite, at Atlin ; gypsum, in Ash-
croft mining division and Nicola valley ; and clays, building
and other stones, cement materials, limestone, sand, etc., all
of more or less commercial value, and available for utiliza-
tion and contributing to the total value of the mineral pro-
duction of British Columbia.
While few of these non-metallic minerals, except those
used as building materials or for other construction work,
are produced in commercial quantity, no doubt others of
them will also be turned to profitable account in due course.
The increasing importance of miscellaneous products is,
however, indicated by official statistics, which show that while
the estimated value of these was $1,200,000 in 1909, there
was an increase to $3,547,262 in 1911, this total including
$1,419,000 for building stone, $650,000 for Portland cement,
and $405,100 for red brick. The utilization of the building
materials occurring in large quantity and variety will, of
course, be on a much larger scale as the province develops
and bigger towns and cities are established. There is an
abundance of granite, sandstone, limestone, and other stones
suitable for building purposes, much of it near navigable
waterways and consequently easily accessible. Marble also
occurs, both on the coast and in the interior, while the
existence of comparatively important cement manufactories,
lime-kilns, brick and pottery works, and other industrial
establishments in which non-metallic minerals are prepared
SOME OF THE LARGER MINES 575
for use, is convincing evidence of the possession of much raw
material suitable for building and other construction purposes.
A STRIKING COMPARISON
It is of interest to note that British Columbia continues
to maintain its position, held for many years, as a large
contributor to the mineral production of Canada as a whole.
Taking the aggregate value of the production of the Dominion
for the twenty-seven years, 1 886-1 9 12, included in the published
official records, at $1,371,502,000, it would appear that this
province may fairly claim to have produced between twenty-
six and twenty-seven per cent of this large sum. The
aggregate value of the mineral production of the province
for all years to 1912 inclusive is $430,137,000. Deducting
the total value of the minerals — chiefly for coal and placer
gold — produced prior to 1886, which was nearly $64,000,000,
British Columbia's approximate aggregate for the last twenty-
seven years is left at $366,137,000, which is between twenty-
six and twenty-seven per cent of that of the whole of Canada.
It is a striking fact, as indicating the substantial increase
in the value of the mineral production of the province in
recent years as compared with that of from ten to twenty
years ago, that thirty-six per cent of this large value is
the production of the last five years, while about one-half is
that of seven years, 1906-12.
SOME OF THE LARGER MINES
A complete list of the productive mines of the province
would be a long one ; only a few of the larger ones will be
mentioned.
In Cariboo District. — About Barkerville John Hopp con-
tinues to operate on a comparatively large scale several im-
portant placer-gold mines on the well-known Williams Creek
and some of its tributary creeks. These are the Mucho Oro,
Forest Rose, Lowhee, and Mosquito Creek hydraulic mines
— all productive, and giving promise of continuing to yield
much gold for years. In Quesnel division John B. Hobson
576 MINES AND MINING
recovered more than $1,000,000 worth of gold from between
ten and eleven million cubic yards of gravel he washed on
leases then held by the Consolidated Cariboo Company. In
1911 the Quesnelle Hydraulic Gold Mining Company com-
pleted its water-supply system and hydraulicking equipment
at a cost of about $1,000,000, for operating a large placer
mine.
In East Kootenay. — Coal, lead, and silver mines are most
important in this district. The Crow's Nest Pass Coal Com-
pany has three collieries equipped for a gross production
of at least 5000 tons of coal a day and much coke. The
Hosmer Mines, Limited, also has a well-equipped colliery,
with coke-ovens. The Corbin Coal and Coke Company has
opened a mass of coal of phenomenally large size — as much
as three hundred feet in width underground, and of still
greater dimensions at the surface, where it is being mined
with a steam-shovel. The St Eugene mine, to June 30, 1912,
had produced 1,015,280 tons of ore, from which had been
made 190,121 tons of concentrate containing 5,319,150 oz. of
silver and 227,614,836 Ib. of lead ; the Sullivan, owned by
the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada,
Limited, of more recent productive operation, is expected
to produce still more largely.
In West Kootenay. — Ainsworth division has a large mine
in the Blue Bell, besides many others having smaller but
richer ore bodies. In 1912 there was much activity in Ains-
worth camp, after several years of comparatively small
production.
Slocan division is big with promise. The Lucky Jim is
stated to have much zinc ore ready for shipment. The
Rambler- Cariboo has large shoots of high-grade silver-lead
ore opened at various levels between 700 and 1400 feet depth.
The Payne, from which in past years fully 50,000 tons of
silver-lead-zinc ore and concentrate was shipped to smelteries,
and which paid more than $1,400,000 in dividends, is now
being opened at considerable depth below the lowest level
worked in past years. The Slocan Star, also, has big ore
shoots at depth. The Standard is shipping much ore and
concentrate and distributing among its shareholders profits
SOME OF THE LARGER MINES 577
to the amount of $50,000 monthly. A dozen other mines
in Slocan district are looking well for an early resumption
of production with profitable results.
In Nelson division several gold-quartz mines are together
yielding much gold — the Granite-Poorman, Queen, Mother
Lode, and others. In the vicinity of the old Ymir gold-mine,
which was a large producer in earlier years, much develop-
ment of promising properties is being done. The Emerald
lead-mine has been a regular shipper for several years. The
old Silver King, known to have good ore in its lower levels,
is being worked again, and is regularly making an output.
Rossland mines have produced ore of a total gross value
of more than $55,000,000. The Le Roi, Le Roi No. 2, and
Centre Star group continue to yield freely. Figures of
total production of the other mines are not available, but
approximate figures for the Centre Star are 2,034,000 tons
of ore containing 1,016,000 oz. of gold, 1,019,000 oz. of silver,
and 34,261,000 Ib. of copper, having a gross value of about
$26,490,000. The value of metals produced at the smeltery
at Trail in all years is now (1913) about $60,503,000.
In Boundary District. — Boundary district mines produce
the greater part of the yearly output of ore in the pro-
vince. The Granby Company's mines at Phoenix have sent
about 9,236,000 tons of ore to the company's smelting
works. The British Columbia Copper Company's Mother
Lode mine has a record to date of nearly 3,000,000 tons
shipped, while other mines which this company operates have
also sent out much ore. Mining and smelting costs of both
companies are unusually low.
In Similkameen District. — The Hedley Gold Mining
Company's Nickel Plate group of mines is a comparatively
large producer of lode gold. Production is now at the rate
of fully 70,000 tons of ore per annum, from which gold to
the average value of between $11 and $12 a ton is recovered
at a total cost of a little more than $5 a ton, leaving more
than one-half net profit. In 1911 and in 1912 the company
paid dividends equal to thirty per cent on its issued capital
of $1,200,000. At Nicola there are productive coal-mines.
In Coast District. — On the mainland coast the largest
578 MINES AND MINING
metal mines are the Britannia, near Vancouver, and the
Granby Company's Hidden Creek mines, near Observatory
Inlet. In the former large bodies of copper ore have been
opened, and the 1912 output of copper was more than
14,000,000 Ib. The Granby Company has had reports from
five or six engineers, and their estimates of workable ore in
the Hidden Creek mines range from 5,000,000 to 12,000,000
tons. The company's expenditure on mines, smelting works,
etc., to the end of 1913 was about $3,000,000.
On Vancouver Island the Tyee and Lenora mines on Mt
Sicker yielded fully $2,500,000 worth of ore. Large collieries
are being operated at Nanaimo, Extension, Comox, and other
places. The Canadian Collieries (Dunsmuir) Limited at
the close of 1913 had spent $2,000,000 in developing mines,
establishing a hydro-electric power generating station, railway
connections, etc.
The above-mentioned are among the larger and best-
known mines in the province, but, as already indicated, there
are many more being worked, and a considerable number
contribute to its annual mineral production.
MINING METHODS AND METALLURGICAL FACILITIES
Mining methods in use in British Columbia vary accord-
ing to local conditions and circumstances.
In placer-gold mining, hydraulicking has largely super-
seded working by individual miners using rockers, small
sluices, etc.
In lode-mining, methods are generally much as in other
mining countries where ordinary conditions prevail. The
higher-grade metalliferous mines are usually worked with
the square-set system of timbering, but the big low-grade
copper-mines of the Boundary district, and one or two in
other parts of the province, have been operated by the
1 glory-hole ' or open quarry method. Some of these larger
mines are worked even underground with but little timbering,
the country rock standing without much support.
In regard to cost of labour and mining requisites, this is
MINING METHODS 579
much as elsewhere on the North American continent, except
that in some districts freight charges are higher owing to
either greater distance from a base of supplies, or to absence
of railway competition. Generally, relations between the
miners and their employers are amicable ; consequently
mining is usually continued uninterruptedly.
Smelting Facilities. — Copper-smelting is the chief metal-
lurgical industry. The Granby Consolidated Mining, Smelt-
ing and Power Company's smelting works at Grand Forks
is stated to be the largest copper reduction works in the
British Empire ; its treatment capacity is 3700 to 4000 tons
of ore a day. Its copper converters are equal to producing
36,000,000 Ib. of blister copper per annum.
The British Columbia Copper Company's smeltery at
Greenwood, also in the Boundary district, has a maximum
treatment capacity of 2600 tons of ore per diem, and an
average of more than 2000 tons. The plant here is quite
modern : it includes three blast furnaces and two converter
stands with horizontal shells, these taking matte at from
forty-five to fifty-five per cent copper tenor and producing
blister copper 99*3 per cent pure.
The Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of
Canada, Limited, operates on the largest scale of all the
mining and smelting companies in the province. It has at
Trail, West Kootenay, five copper blast furnaces and two
lead stacks. In the company's lead refinery the Betts
electrolytic process has long been successfully used. The
capacity of the refinery is from sixty to seventy tons of lead
a day. The refined lead is 999 fine, and the gold and silver,
also refined from the lead bullion, are 995 and 999 fine respec-
tively. The company employs between 500 and 600 men
at its Trail works.
Power for all three smelteries above mentioned is obtained
from the West Kootenay Power and Light Company's
two hydro-electric generating stations at Bonnington Falls,
on Kootenay River, eleven miles west of Nelson. This
company also has another plant at Cascade Falls, Kettle
River, in the Boundary district. The generating capacity
of the three plants is between 25,000 and 30,000 horse-
580 MINES AND MINING
power. High-voltage transmission lines connect with Boun-
dary mines, smelting works, and mills, along a distance of
ninety miles, besides which there are lower-voltage lines to
Nelson, Trail, and Rossland.
There are other smelteries — copper, lead, and electro-
thermic zinc — in the province.
Stamp-mills and Concentrating Plants. — Stamp-mills, mostly
for crushing gold-quartz ores, have been erected and equipped
in various parts of the province. Some of these have auxili-
ary cyanide plants and other gold-saving appliances.
Concentrating mills, nearly all equipped for concentrat-
ing silver-lead and lead-zinc ores, are in use in several districts.
Others, for treating copper ores, are at Rossland and Britannia
Beach.
DEPARTMENT OF MINES
Sir Richard Mc Bride, premier, is also minister of Mines.
The chief officials of the department are : deputy minister,
R. F. Tolmie ; provincial mineralogist and assayer, William
Fleet Robertson; assistant provincial assayer, D.E.Whittaker;
chief inspector of mines, Thomas Graham.
The annual reports of the minister of Mines contain a
large amount of information relative to the mining industry
of the province, and constitute a valuable record of mining,
milling, and smelting operations ; of progress made, and of
the condition, generally, of the industry.
The provincial assay office renders much useful service to
the province. Apart from ordinary custom assaying, and
gold melting, numerous free qualitative determinations are
made of rocks and minerals sent in for identification and
classification.
The provincial mineral museum contains examples of the
economic ores and minerals of British Columbia, a general
collection of minerals from various countries, and an educa-
tive collection of typical rocks properly grouped.
MINING LAWS 581
MINING LAWS
A well-known writer has observed :
The mining laws of British Columbia are regarded
as wise and liberal, and peculiarly adapted to the cir-
cumstances of the mining industry. . . . The laws
and regulations governing mining, and the policy of the
provincial department of Mines, have become fixed and
settled, and operators and miners are working out their
respective careers under a code the provisions of which
are well known and firmly established. There is a
very strong disinclination on the part of the government
and the legislature to disturb or alter the present satis-
factory condition of affairs.
It is authoritatively claimed that the laws regulating
the working of coal-mines are as nearly perfect as it is
practicable to make them. The department of Mines in
recent years gave special attention to these, and its
officials spent many months ascertaining the views of
both operators and miners before submitting the exist-
ing act to the legislative assembly for adoption. Among
other modern provisions is one making compulsory the
provision of mine-rescue apparatus at all operating coal-
mines, at most of which a number of men have taken
courses in first-aid and mine-rescue work.
THE YUKON TERRITORY
THE YUKON TERRITORY
POSITION AND EXTENT
THE Yukon Territory is in the extreme north-western
part of the Dominion of Canada. It lies between
north latitudes 60° and 69° 40' and between west
longitudes 124° 20' and 141°, forming a roughly triangular
area with a greatest length in a north-westerly and south-
easterly direction of eight hundred miles, a greatest width
at right angles to the above direction of four hundred miles.
It has a total area of 207,000 square miles. It is thus
equal in size to France or the German Empire, considerably
larger than Spain, and more than twice the size of Great
Britain.
Lying as it does on the north-western side of America,
the territory occupies a position very similar to Norway and
Sweden, or perhaps rather to North- Western Russia, on the
western side of Europe.
It is bounded on the south by the northern boundary of
the Province of British Columbia and for a short distance by
the territory of Alaska, on the west by the territory of Alaska
belonging to the United States of America, on the north by
the Arctic Ocean, and on the east and north-east by the
western boundary of the North- West Territories of Canada.
TOPOGRAPHY
Across the south-western portion of the territory runs a
range, or rather a series of ranges, of lofty snow-capped
mountains which extend parallel to the Pacific coast and
culminate towards the west and north-west in the St Elias
Alps, among which are some of the highest and grandest
mountain peaks in North America. This mountain range,
known as the Pacific Mountain Range or System, rises steeply
$85
586 THE YUKON TERRITORY
from the shores of the Pacific Ocean, and within a few miles
forms a watershed between the short torrential streams that
flow into that ocean and the streams that flow northward
across the great interior plateau to join together into the
Yukon River and finally to empty into Bering Sea.
These mountains have a roughly serrated outline with
peaks rising from six thousand to nineteen thousand five
hundred feet above the sea. In many of the intervening
valleys rest great glaciers, which often unite around the pro-
jecting peaks to form vast fields of snow and ice.
From the crest of the mountain range the country descends
north-eastward to the Yukon plateau, which is a great table-
land with a width of from two hundred and fifty to three
hundred miles and a mean elevation of about two thousand
five hundred feet above the sea, drained northward by
several streams, among which the Yukon River is the largest
and most important.
Towards the east the Yukon plateau is bounded by a
series of ranges of mountains, which in a general way may
be regarded as the northern continuation of the Rocky
Mountains farther south. In their more northern exten-
sion these mountains form a moderately well-defined indi-
vidual range, but towards the south they break into several
ranges, with a combined width of from fifty to two hundred
miles, separated by great intervening valleys. These moun-
tains have been but little explored, though several parties
of hunters and scientific men have travelled over and crossed
them.
The Yukon plateau is the most habitable and probably
the most valuable and important part of the territory, and
almost all the population is confined to it. It lies between
the Pacific and Rocky Mountain ranges. It is not by any
means a level plain, but rather a wide-spreading area of high,
rounded hills with a relief of from two to three thousand feet,
the summits being roughly at the same general elevation.
As seen from any of the summits the country stretches away
in numberless billowy hills, crest beyond crest, as far as the
eye can reach, or until the view is cut off by the higher and
more rugged peaks of either the Pacific Mountain Range or
TOPOGRAPHY 587
the Rocky Mountains. The hills have no kind of definite
linear arrangement, They present the characteristics of
having been moulded into their present shapes by atmospheric
denudation and stream erosion from a pre-existing peneplain,
though this peneplain itself, having been underlain by rocks
of very different degrees of hardness, may have had a some-
what irregular surface. Remnants of this peneplain can be
seen on the tops of the hills and on the crests of the ridges
at an average elevation of from four thousand to five thousand
feet above the sea, while some of the higher mountains, like
Mount Maloney on Nisling River, and the Dome at the head
of Hunker Creek, rise above it. Wide valleys traverse the
plateau from side to side, or from end to end ; deep lateral
valleys join these main arteries ; while harder and more
resistant areas have formed central masses from which
smaller valleys radiate in all directions to join the large
main arteries.
One of these main valleys extends from the head of Lynn
Canal, up Chilkat River, across the summit of the Chilkat
Mountains at an approximate elevation of two thousand
six hundred feet, down the Alsek River, up Klukshu River
to Klukshu Lake, across a low plain to Dezadeash Lake,
down Kaskawulsh River to Aishihik River, up Aishihik
River, past Aishihik Lake, across a swampy flat to Nisling
River, down Nisling River to White River, and down White
River to the Yukon River. Perhaps it is a continuation of
the same great valley in which the Yukon River flows just
above Dawson, and which at Dawson continues eastward
up what is now the valley of Klondike River. Below the
town of Dawson the Yukon flows in a narrower valley to the
mouth of Fortymile River, and then turns eastward into
the mountains, while the main valley continues up Forty-
mile River. In fact, it would appear that the Yukon valley
for fifty miles below Dawson is the lower part of the original
Fortymile valley, and that it joins the Yukon-Klondike
valley at Dawson. Many other large valleys also traverse
the country.
The region would appear to have been unequally depressed
and elevated since these great valleys were originally formed
VOL. xxn Q
588 THE YUKON TERRITORY
or outlined. Consequently the large streams do not neces-
sarily follow the valleys continuously, but, as is the case
with the Yukon River near Dawson, often cut across from
one into another.
The direction in which the water flowed in many of these
old valleys when they were the main arteries for the drainage
of the whole country is as yet uncertain, but it 'would seem
not improbable that it was generally towards the Pacific
Ocean and that the old valleys are genetically connected
with the deep fiords which indent the coast, the flow of water
southward having been broken and stopped by the geologically
late elevation of the Pacific Mountain Range, which eleva-
tion gave the whole land a gentle slope towards the north.
Among the smaller areas with radiating drainage none
are of greater interest, or are better known, than the Klondike
gold-bearing district, in which the valleys diverge outwards
in all directions from a high central point, known as the
Dome, and finally open into the Klondike valley on the one
side, or into the Yukon valley on the other.
The Yukon plateau may be divided into two great sub-
divisions by a line roughly parallel with the trend of the
Chilkat Mountains, marking the northern limit to which the
country was generally glaciated during the Glacial period.
North of this line the drainage is perfect, the streams have a
fairly regular current, being rarely interrupted by rapids or
falls, while lakes, as far as the present writer is aware, are
entirely absent. Recent terraces are not found at extreme
heights, the highest observed in the vicinity of Dawson
having a greatest elevation of about one thousand seven
hundred feet above the sea. Such terraces are either rock-
cut or are built up of coarse sand and gravel well rounded and
smoothed by stream and wave action. They would seem
to have been formed near the shore of the ocean during a
subsidence of the land. They will again be mentioned under
the head of * Geology/
South of the line of general glaciation, and within the
region which was more or less completely covered by the vast
mer de glace, or sheet of snow and ice, which stretched north-
ward from the Pacific Mountains during the Glacial period,
HYDROGRAPHY 589
the drainage is imperfect. Lakes occupy the bottoms of
many of the valleys and depressions. The streams are in
places sluggish and in places broken by swift rapids, for they
have not had time to clear their courses of all obstructions
and to assume a quiet, regular flow since the glaciers with-
drew from the lower land to the higher parts of the moun-
tains. Recent terraces are present up to great elevations,
some along the north side of the Coast Range in the vicinity
of the Dalton trail having elevations of more than five thou-
sand feet above the sea. These terraces are for the most
part composed of deposits of light grey silt or rock flour,
laid down over the glacial till, and consequently somewhat
later than it in age. In general character this silt is very
similar to the white sediment brought down at the present
time from the mountains by glacial streams, and it would
appear to have been deposited as deltas near the mouths of
such glacial streams where they flowed into lakes dammed
back by glaciers, or against the sides of the large glaciers
themselves. These terraces, though numerous and well
defined on the landward sides of the mountains, seem to be
utterly wanting on their seaward sides, facing the Pacific.
HYDROGRAPHY
With the exception of an area of seven thousand square
miles in the mountain region of the south-west, which is
drained southward by the Alsek River into the Pacific, the
surface waters of the Yukon Territory flow northward either
into the Arctic Ocean or into Bering Sea.
In the south-east portion of the territory is an area of
twenty-nine thousand square miles, drained by the upper
Liard River and its tributaries, which flow eastward through
a gap in the Rocky Mountains and finally empty into Mac-
kenzie River at Fort Simpson. In the north-east corner of
the territory Peel River, another tributary of the Mackenzie,
flows northward from a western spur of the Rocky Mountains,
known as the Ogilvie Range, and, within the Yukon Territory,
drains an area of twenty-eight thousand square miles. In
addition to these two rough and mountainous areas which
590 THE YUKON TERRITORY
drain into the Arctic Ocean through Mackenzie River, there
is a comparatively unknown tract of country, along the Arctic
coast, with a probable area of ten thousand square miles,
draining northward by a number of small streams directly
into the Arctic Ocean itself.
But the stream which drains the greater portion of the
Yukon Territory, and practically the whole of the Yukon
plateau, is the Yukon River itself. It is the fifth in size
among the rivers of the North American continent, those
larger being the Mississippi, Nelson, Mackenzie, and St
Lawrence. Its total length is about two thousand three
hundred miles, and its total drainage area three hundred and
thirty thousand square miles.
Taking it and the Lewes River as one stream, it rises in
Teslin, Atlin, and Bennett Lakes in the northern portion of
British Columbia, or rather in the tributaries that flow north-
ward into these lakes, and, as the Lewes and Hootalinqua
Rivers, flows north-westward, crossing the northern boundary
of this province in north latitude 60°, into Yukon Territory,
thence through the central part of the territory, where the
two streams join, and below their junction continue on as
Lewes River to a point opposite Selkirk, in north latitude
62° 47' 12", where Pelly River empties into it from the east.
From here the united streams are known as the Yukon, and
as such the water continues its course first eastward and then
north-westward, past the city of Dawson, to the boundary
of Alaska, which it crosses a few miles above Eagle City.
Its greatest length in Canadian territory, from the head of
the southern tributaries of Teslin Lake to the international
boundary-line between Yukon and Alaska, is seven hundred
and twenty miles, or from the head of the tributaries of Lake
Bennett to the same point six hundred and sixty-five miles —
six hundred and forty and six hundred and thirty-eight miles
of these distances respectively being in the Yukon Territory.
From the international boundary it flows westward through
Alaska for one thousand four hundred and fifty miles to
Bering Sea.
The following are some distances as measured along the
course of the stream :
HYDROGRAPHY 591
Lewes River
Crater Lake to Northern Boundary of British
Columbia . . 27 miles
Northern Boundary of British Columbia to
Carcross . . . . . 16 ,,
Carcross to Whitehorse . 70 ,,
Whitehorse to Hootalinqua . . . .90 ,,
Jennings Creek . . . . . 60 ,,
Teslin Lake 60^,,
Teslin River I39X »
Hootalinqua to Selkirk . . . . .192 ,,
Yukon River
Selkirk to Dawson . . . . .178 miles
Dawson to International Boundary 92 ,,
The Lewes- Yukon River is navigable for light-draught
stern-wheel steamers from Lake Bennett to its mouth, except
for a short distance at White Horse Rapids and Miles Canyon.
Its basin in the Yukon Territory, including that of its tribu-
tary the Porcupine River, has an area of one hundred and
thirty-three thousand square miles.
The principal tributaries of the Yukon River in that
portion of Canada now under consideration, with their
approximate lengths, are as follows :
Lewes . . 395 miles White . . 200 miles
Teslin . . 260 „ Stewart . . 375 „
Big Salmon . 170 „ Klondike . . 150 ,,
Nordenskiold . 130 ,, Fortymile. . 150 ,,
Pelly and Ross . 450 ,, Porcupine. . 500 ,,
Macmillan . 200 ,,
Lewes River rises in a number of long irregular lakes fed
by rivulets, some of which take their rise close to the summits
of the Pacific Mountains, while others gush from the feet
of glaciers that move down their northern slopes. In the
Chilkoot and White Passes, the summits of which are re-
spectively three thousand five hundred and two thousand
eight hundred and sixty-six feet above the sea, brooks rise
within eighteen miles of tide-water in Lynn Canal, and flow
592 THE YUKON TERRITORY
northward to Lake Bennett and the Yukon River, so short
and steep is the slope on one side of the watershed, and so
gradual is the slope on the other side. The largest and most
important of the lakes discharging into the Lewes River are
Bennett, Atlin, Tagish, Marsh, and Laberge. Teslin River
and Teslin Lake, not taking tributaries into consideration,
have a length of two hundred miles, and flow in a direct
north-westerly course to join Lewes River thirty miles below
the foot of Lake Laberge. The river is navigable by very
light-draught steamers at high stages of the water. The lake
has a length of sixty miles, a width of one to two miles and a
greatest depth of about four hundred feet. Nisutlin River,
a stream from two hundred to four hundred feet in width,
flows into the east side of this lake. It rises in the high
mountains near the head-waters of the Liard River and is
from one hundred and fifty to two hundred miles in length.
Big Salmon River is a small rapid stream one hundred to
three hundred feet in width and one hundred and seventy
miles in length. Nordenskiold River averages one hundred
feet wide near its mouth, and is about one hundred and thirty
miles long. It rises in Hutshi Lake, which lies in the bottom
of a wide grassy valley, and flows northward, joining Lewes
River twenty miles above Five-finger Rapids. The sides of
its valley are for the most part gently sloping, and scarped
banks are seldom seen. The river may be ascended or
descended in canoes, but is too small and crooked for steam-
boats. Pelly River, with its tributaries the Ross and Mac-
millan Rivers, rises in the high rugged mountains not far
from the head of Liard River, and after a general north-
westerly course for four hundred and fifty miles joins Lewes
River at Selkirk, where the two confluent streams form the
Yukon River. It is navigable by light-draught steamers
from its mouth up to the mouth of Ross River, a distance
of two hundred and fifty miles. White River rises in Alaska
on the north side of the St Elias group of mountains and
flows at first eastward, across the international boundary, and
then northward to join the Yukon ninety-eight miles below
Selkirk. Its waters are so heavily loaded with white mud or
silt, doubtless carried down from the glaciers at its source,
HYDROGRAPHY 593
that below its junction with the Yukon it renders the waters
of that stream quite white and opaque with mud. It has
a total length of about two hundred miles. It is much too
swift and shallow for steamboats to navigate. Stewart River
flows into the Yukon from the east, ten miles below the mouth
of White River. It rises in the Rocky Mountains near the
head-waters of the Peel and Gravel Rivers, and flows at first
swiftly and then with a quieter current through extensive
wooded or grassy plains. Its total length is approximately
three hundred and seventy-five miles. Except for one break
at Eraser Rapids, where the water tumbles over a rough ledge
of schistose rock, the river is navigable by small stern-wheel
steamers from its mouth almost to its source. Klondike
River rises in many small streams that flow from the south-
western face of the spur of the Rocky Mountains known as
the Ogilvie Range, which projects westward towards the
Yukon. It is a beautifully clear stream about one hundred
and fifty miles long and from one hundred to two hundred
feet wide at its mouth. Fortymile River rises in the rather
high but wooded mountains of the Ketchumstock Range,
in Alaska, and, taking a general north-easterly course for
about one hundred and fifty miles, flows into the Yukon
River forty miles above where the latter stream crosses the
international boundary-line. That portion of it within the
Dominion of Canada is only twenty-three miles in length.
It is a rapid stream of clear water averaging, near its mouth,
one hundred to one hundred and twenty feet in width, and
with a depth of from one to three feet. Its valley is here
from three hundred to five hundred feet in depth. Neither
of these last two streams is navigable by boats larger than
canoes or small bateaux, which can be propelled against the
stream with poles or tow-lines.
Porcupine River was explored by R. G. McConnell of the
Geological Survey of Canada in 1888, and the following
statements are made by him in reference to it :
It heads within 30 miles of the Yukon, approximately
in north latitude 65° 30', and after describing a great
semicircular curve to the north-east, falls into the same
river a hundred and fifty miles farther down. At its
594 THE YUKON TERRITORY
most easterly point it approaches within eighty miles
of the Mackenzie, but it is separated from it by the main
range of the Rocky Mountains. Its total length approxi-
mates five hundred miles [the lowest 150 miles being
in Alaska]. Below the mouth of Bell River its width
varies from 150 to 200 yards, and its current barely
averages two miles an hour. The valley is generally
rather wide and shallow. [The adjoining country is
wooded with spruce and poplar. Near the boundary
is a stretch of swift water known as 'The Ramparts.']
While passing through the Ramparts it contracts con-
siderably and in places does not exceed seventy-five
yards in width. Its current is more rapid than in the
upper part, and was estimated to run at the rate of from
three to four miles and a half an hour. Short riffles,
with a much greater velocity than this, occur occasion-
ally, but no rapids or other obstructions were met with,
which would prevent the navigation of the stream by
small steamers.
The Ramparts is a local name employed by the
traders to designate a contracted walled valley or canon.
The portion of the valley of the Porcupine which .passes
under this name is exceedingly picturesque. In the
upper part the banks rise steeply from the water's edge
on both sides to heights of from three to five hundred
feet, and their green slopes are everywhere broken by
shattered pinnacles and bold crags and cliffs of bril-
liantly tinted dolomites and quartzites standing almost
on edge.
Lakes are confined almost entirely to the glaciated district
north of the Pacific Mountains. The largest have the
following areas :
Teslin ..... 245 square miles
Kluane 184 „ ,,
Tagish 139 „ „
Laberge 86 „„
GEOLOGY
The following account of the older geology of the Yukon
Territory is reproduced, by permission of the director of
the Geological Survey branch of the department of Mines,
Canada, from a communication by Dr D. D. Cairnes :
GEOLOGY 595
As the physiographic provinces of Yukon are co-
extensive with those of British Columbia to the south-
east and also with those of Alaska to the west, and
follow, in a general way, the configuration of the Pacific
Coast line ; and as topographic features are, to a certain
degree, but expressions of the bed rock structure and
composition, it is but reasonable to infer, that in all
probability the same general geological horizons which
compose the cordillera of British Columbia and adjoin-
ing districts to the east might extend through Yukon
and Alaska, and, in a measure, this has been found to be
true. This persistency of geologic horizons in Yukon,
however, and their parallelism to the strike of the
physiographic provinces, is only apparent when a broad
tract is considered, and is most evident when the entire
territory is reviewed.
The Pacific Mountain system in Yukon includes a
small portion of the St Elias range and also the northern
end of the Coast range of mountains. The extreme
southwestern part of the territory is thus occupied by
a portion of St Elias range, which seems to be built
up of complexly folded sedimentaries, probably chiefly
Paleozoic, together with many intrusives. The Coast
range consists of an igneous complex of granite rocks
intruded mainly as a great batholithic mass exceeding
1000 miles in length, that reaches from south of the
49th to nearly 100 miles north of the 60 th parallel.
The geological formations composing the Central
Plateau province in Yukon in but few places show any
tendency to parallelism with the topographic terranes,
but instead are generally very irregularly distributed
throughout the district, and include igneous, sedimentary,
and metamorphic terranes ranging in age from pre-
Ordovician to Recent. The most ancient rocks consist
of a series of pre-Devonian schists, gneisses, and lime-
stones, which have suffered intense dynamic-meta-
morphism, and represent rocks of both sedimentary
and igneous origin. These are chiefly or entirely of
lower Paleozoic age, but some members may possibly
be pre-Cambrian ; they have their most important
development in the Dawson district and are thought to
have contributed the gold contained in the world-
famous Klondike gravels. The sedimentary rocks in-
clude Ordovician and Silurian limestones and dolomites ;
596 THE YUKON TERRITORY
Devono- Carboniferous limestones, cherts, quartzites, and
slates ; Mesozoic conglomerates, sandstones, graywackes,
shales, breccias, quartzites, slates, phyllites, dolomites
and magnesites ; Tertiary sandstones, shales and clays;
and Quaternary gravels, sands, silts, clays, peat, muck,
soil and ground-ice. The igneous terranes consist of
granites, grano-diorites, diorites, syenites, granite, and
syenite porphyries, diorites, diabases, dacites, basalts,
tuffs, and various related rocks, ranging in age from
Devonian to late Tertiary.
As to the extent and distribution of these various
geological terranes of the Yukon Plateau province, only
fragmentary information is available, as but a relatively
small portion of this territory, chiefly along the main
waterways, has as yet been geologically mapped. How-
ever, although so much of Yukon is as yet unexplored,
the different geological formations are known to occur
in certain localities.
The pre-Devonian schists, gneisses, etc., extend over
at least 12,000 square miles of territory, and occur mainly,
so far as is known, in the Klondike and adjoining districts;
along the upper waters of the Stewart and Macmillan
Rivers ; adjoining and to the southwest of Kluane
Lake ; and extending from Aishihik Lake and vicinity
northward to White River. Numerous smaller areas
of these rocks also have been noted in the Conrad and
Whitehorse districts, and in the Tantalus coal area west
of Nordenskiold River.
Ordovician and Silurian limestones and dolomites
have been mainly identified along the I4ist meridian
south of Porcupine River, where they occur somewhat
extensively developed.
The Devono - Carboniferous limestones, quartzites,
cherts and related rocks are developed in southern Yukon
throughout a broad belt, extending along the Tagish
Lake, Marsh Lake, Lewes River, and Lake Laberge,
where they cover at least 1500 square miles. Similar
beds also have been identified along the I4ist meridian
between Yukon and Porcupine Rivers and occur exten-
sively along the upper waters of the Stewart and
Macmillan Rivers.
The Jura-Cretaceous sediments are somewhat exten-
sively developed in three areas and cover an area of
perhaps 600 square miles. Perhaps the largest develop-
GEOLOGY 597
ment of these beds occurs along Lewes and Nordenskiold
Rivers, and extends from somewhat south of the latitude
of the mouth of Big Salmon River northward to near
Pelly River ; these rocks also extend along the greater
part of the western shore of Lake Laberge and extend
in a somewhat broken belt in a northwesterly direction
for over 40 miles, crossing thus Kluska Creek, Braeburn
Lake and Schwatka and Hutshi Rivers ; the most
southern development of these beds in Yukon lies to the
south and southwest of Whitehorse, and is in the form
of a northwesterly trending belt of possibly not over
200 square miles extent. The most important coals
of Yukon occur at two different horizons in these rocks.
The Tertiary beds extend over possibly 1500 to 2000
square miles of territory and occur mainly in three areas
bordering or included in the Klondike gold district.
Lignite seams are in places contained in these rocks.
Possibly the most extensively developed igneous
terrane consists of the Coast range granitic intrusives
of Jurassic or Cretaceous age, that not only comprise the
great Coast range batholith composing the Coast range,
but also occur in numerous localities in the plateau pro-
vince to the east, northeast and north. The total extent
of the known exposures of these rocks in Yukon is over
12,000 square miles.
With the exception of the granitic intrusives, the
igneous rocks of the Yukon plateau are largely volcanics
and are distributed more or less throughout the entire
plateau province. Some of the most important develop-
ments of these rocks occur in the Conrad and White-
horse districts and also in the Lewes and Nordenskiold
coal area.
But little definite information is available concerning the
geology of the Rocky Mountain system in Yukon. From
what is known, however, this terrane appears to be anti-
clinal in structure and to be composed mainly of Paleozoic
and Mesozoic sediments, of which Devonian and Carboni-
ferous limestones and quartzites, as well as Cretaceous
sandstones, shales, etc., are prominent members.
The high peneplain of the Yukon plateau, which may be
called the ' Dome peneplain ' from the Dome at the head
of Bonanza and Hunker Creeks, was developed in Tertiary
times by what may be called the ' First Cycle of Erosion.'
598 THE YUKON TERRITORY
It may be roughly correlated with the Klamath peneplain in
California, though the Miocene rocks which are included in
it in Yukon are probably younger than any which have been
recognized in the Klamath peneplain. At the time of its
completion the country would appear not to have stood very
high above sea-level.
But after the close of this ' First Cycle of Erosion,' or
period of formation of the ' Dome peneplain,' the land gradu-
ally rose until it reached an elevation of something like two
thousand feet above its previous level, and a ' Second Cycle
of Erosion ' was inaugurated.
During this period of elevation, the country received its
present configuration, most of the valleys were formed, and
their sides were worn down by rain and atmospheric agencies
to gentle slopes. In the bottom of the valleys extensive
gravel deposits were accumulated ; and where the underly-
ing rocks were gold-bearing, or contained gold-bearing quartz
veins, as in the Klondike region, the gold was washed down
the slopes with the harder and heavier particles, and settled
in these gravels. In this way the gold-bearing placers of the
lower portion of Dominion Creek and of the white gravel
terraces of Bonanza and Hunker Creeks were formed. These
gravels are thought to be of Pliocene age, but as no fossils
have yet been found in them their exact age is uncertain.
After the close of the ' Second Cycle of Erosion ' or White
Gravel period, the Glacial epoch began, and great fields of
ice accumulated on the Pacific Mountain Range to the south-
west and on the Rocky Mountain Range to the north-east.
From these mountains glaciers flowed inwards over the
plateau country, rounding the tops of the hills and scouring
the bottoms and sides of the valleys. But, unlike the con-
ditions in Eastern Canada, these glaciers never at any time
covered the whole of the plateau country. In the valley of
the Yukon the glaciers from the Pacific Mountains extended
only as far as the mouth of the Nordenskiold River, while
those from the Rocky Mountains reached only to the valley
of Flat Creek. All the intervening country remained free from
ice, except possibly for the presence of small local glaciers at
the heads of some of the valleys.
GEOLOGY 599
During this epoch of glaciation the country had again
been raised and a ' Third Cycle of Erosion ' began. At this
time the elevation took the character of a tilting of the land
from the south northward, so that the streams flowing north-
ward in the unglaciated area were accelerated, and were
enabled to deepen their channels rapidly, while at the same
time the streams flowing southward were not given any
additional power of erosion. In consequence the Klondike
River, Bonanza and Hunker Creeks and other streams flow-
ing northward rapidly deepened their channels and cut gorges
from two hundred to five hundred feet in depth in the bottoms
of their old valleys, while Gold Run, Sulphur, and other
creeks flowing southward continued to meander down their
old channels without materially deepening them.
In the northward-flowing streams newer and more recent
deposits of gravel were formed, partly derived from the
erosion of the older white gravels, and partly from the wearing
down of the adjoining harder rocks. These lower gravels
formed most of the richest placers of the Klondike, having
collected into themselves the gold from the older gravels
which had been eroded away, and concentrated it into
narrower and richer pay-streaks or bed-rock. These gravels
are of Pleistocene age, and contain a large number of bones
of mammals which are now extinct. The most abundant
are those of Bison crassicornis and the mammoth (Elephas
primigenius) , while the following have also been recorded :
Bison occidentalis, Bootherium bombifrons, Mastodon ameri-
canus, Ovibos moschatus, Symbos tyrrelli, Cervus canadensis,
Equus sp., Ovis sp., Alee sp., Rangifer sp., Arctotherium
yukonense, Ursus sp., Canis sp.
On the gentler slopes and on the higher parts of the hills
in the unglaciated portions of the plateau country the rock
is decomposed to a considerable depth, forming loose sand or
silt, which produces a moderately fertile soil. In the southern
portion of the territory these hillsides are usually thinly
wooded with small poplar trees, or covered with grass and
low sage bushes, while farther north they are usually timbered
with poplar, birch, and spruce.
In the glaciated areas the bottoms of the valleys are also
6oo THE YUKON TERRITORY
often dry and lightly timbered, while in the unglaciated areas,
as in the Klondike district and vicinity, they are usually
covered with sphagnum swamp. Here, too, the ground is in
most places perpetually frozen, often to depths of two
hundred feet beneath the surface ; though where the moss
has been removed, or is absent, it may thaw to a depth of
six or ten feet each summer.
Among the features common to this and other subarctic
countries are sheets of clear ice, known as chrystophenes, in
the bogs beneath the surface of the moss, formed by springs
rising through the otherwise frozen subsoil, and spreading
out in winter beneath the solidly frozen surface.
CLIMATE
The two features of climate of most importance to ordi-
nary inhabitants are temperature and precipitation. Now
the Yukon plateau, comprising almost all the habitable parts
of the territory, lies in the interior of the country, shut off
from the oceans to the south-west and to the north-east
of it by great mountain ranges which arrest the moisture
from the winds that blow from these oceans and cause
enormously heavy falls of rain and snow on them. After
the winds have passed over the mountains and have reached
the lower interior country they are consequently dry, and
the rainfall from such naturally dried winds or air is there-
fore light. The months of July, August, and September are
the months of heaviest precipitation, the average of these
months being from one to two inches each, much of which
comes with thunderstorms. Most of the snowfall occurs
in the autumn, but light falls occur throughout the winter
up to April or May. The average depth of the snow in
winter is between three and four feet.
The following table gives the average temperature of the
various months of the year as taken at the city of Dawson,
and it may be remarked here that the mean monthly tempera-
tures at Dawson in the northern part of the territory are
several degrees higher in summer than the temperatures at
CLIMATE 601
Whitehorse in the southern part of the territory, and, on
the contrary, they are several degrees lower in winter.
MEAN MONTHLY TEMPERATURE AT DAWSON,
YUKON TERRITORY
January . . — 24° July . . .60'
February . . — 12° August . . 54
March . . 5° September . -41
April . . 28° October . 24
May . . . 46° November . . — i
June . . . 57° December . . — 10
The diurnal variations in temperature are slight. On
the 2 1st of May, June, July, and August the sun is respec-
tively above the horizon at Dawson for the following lengths
of time :
1 8 hours and 51 minutes,
20 hours and 48 minutes,
1 8 hours and 54 minutes,
15 hours and 39 minutes.
High winds are rarely known, the highest wind recorded
in Dawson in February 1899 being only ten miles an hour.
Judging of the climate by the vegetation, Professor John
Macoun says : * The spring and summer climate in the
vicinity of Dawson is as mild as that many degrees further
south in Western Canada.
The following are the average dates for some of the
principal seasonal events in the vicinity of Dawson :
April 20 to May I . First flowers appearing on the sunny
hillsides. On the Tatter date the
present writer has picked five or six
species in bloom.
May 15 . . . Ice breaks up in the Yukon River at
Dawson.
June I . . . First steamer reaches Dawson on the
Yukon River.
June 5 . . . Ice breaks up on Lake Laberge.
July I . . . Roses and great numbers of other
plants blooming in profusion.
August 23 . . First frost.
November 10 Yukon River freezes over.
602 THE YUKON TERRITORY
TRANSPORTATION
In the early days of the rush to the Klondike gold-fields
transportation into and through the Yukon Territory was
in the summer time either on foot or by canoe, and in the
winter time on foot with dogs hauling sleds.
Among the many routes by which the eager gold-seekers
endeavoured to reach the Klondike in the years 1897, 1898,
and 1899 were the following : from the Pacific Ocean, the
Chilkat Pass, the Chilkoot Pass, the White Pass, the Dalton
Trail, the Copper River, the Stikine River, the Yukon River
up from its mouth. From the east it was approached by
what was known as the ' Edmonton route,' which in its turn
divided into many different ways as it crossed the watershed
between the Mackenzie and Yukon Rivers, by many different
passes, almost every pass across the Rocky Mountains from
Peace River northward to Peel River having been tried with
more or less success. Some of the great army of travellers
and adventurers who came in by all or any of these routes
reached Dawson quickly, while others kept straggling in for
a couple of years.
At the present time there are only two routes in ordinary
use into the Klondike district, which is the heart of the
Yukon Territory. One route is by ocean-going steamers
from the Pacific coast ports of Seattle, Victoria, or Vancouver
to Skagway, a distance of about one thousand miles, the
average time occupied on the journey being from four to five
days. At Skagway the passenger is transferred to the White
Pass and Yukon Railway, which carries him for one hundred
and ten miles over the summit of the Coast range of moun-
tains to the town of Whitehorse at the head of continuous
steamboat navigation on the Yukon River, twenty and a
half miles of this distance being in Alaska, thirty and a
half in British Columbia, and fifty-nine in the Yukon Terri-
tory. Here, in the summer time, large steamers are waiting
to take him four hundred and sixty miles down the Yukon
River to the city of Dawson, the metropolis of the gold-fields
of the Klondike district, while in winter a tri-weekly stage
TRANSPORTATION 603
takes him overland for three hundred and thirty miles, on
one of the most delightful drives in the world, to the same
place. The whole journey can be made in summer in from
five to seven days, and in winter in from seven to eleven days.
The other route is slower, but somewhat less expensive,
and is consequently largely used for heavy material and
freight which is not perishable. It is by steamer from the
Pacific coast ports of Seattle, San Francisco, etc., to St
Michaels, near the mouth of the Yukon River, the distance
from Seattle being 2487 miles, and the travelling time about
ten days. Here passengers and freight are transferred to
powerful flat-bottomed, stern-wheel steamers, with excellent
passenger accommodation, and by them are brought one
thousand six hundred miles up the Yukon River to Dawson.
Many of these steamers carry as much as five hundred tons,
and at the same time they may also tow barges carrying in
all two or three times this quantity.
From Dawson small steamers run up the Lewes River
and around Tagish and Atlin Lakes, while similar steamers
occasionally run up Stewart River for two hundred miles,
and up the Pelly River for two hundred and fifty miles,
besides up several other smaller streams for varying dis-
tances, in order to accommodate, and bring supplies to, pro-
spectors and fur hunters.
In the Klondike district itself the Klondike Mines Railway
runs from Dawson for thirty-two miles to Sulphur Springs,
on the southern slope of the divide between Bonanza and
Dominion Creeks, giving easy access to most of the gold-
bearing creeks in the district.
In the basin of the Yukon River, and especially in the
vicinity of the towns of Dawson and Whitehorse, excellent
wagon roads, with a total length of between four hundred and
five hundred miles, have been built by the Canadian govern-
ment. The immediate effect of building these roads was
that rates for freight to points along them were cut down
from six dollars to one dollar a ton, or in this proportion. In
addition to these roads, which are serviceable throughout
the year, seven hundred miles of roads have been cut out and
partly graded so as to be serviceable for horses and sleighs
VOL. XXII R
604 THE YUKON TERRITORY
during the winter. One of these roads runs from Whitehorse
to Dawson, a distance overland of three hundred and thirty
miles, and is used by the stages of the White Pass and
Yukon Railway. On it stage-houses are located at con-
venient places about twenty miles apart, where horses are
changed, and meals and accommodation for the night are
provided.
In the winter time horses and stages provide means of
communication along all the most travelled routes, but to
remote districts or to places to which no roads have been
built dogs and dog-sleds, such as those used by the Indians
before the advent of the white man, are still in general use.
HISTORY
Towards the end of the eighteenth century and at the be-
ginning of the nineteenth the energetic and hardy fur traders
of the Hudson's Bay and the North- West Companies pushed
northwards down the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean
and across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean on
waterways that carried them in one case east and in another
case south of what is now the Yukon Territory. Trading-
posts were established on these waterways, and the Indians
of the country were not only invited to come into these
posts to trade, but were followed to their hunting grounds,
often at long distances in the interior. In their active
competition to secure furs the employees of the two com-
panies above named travelled long distances and endured
great dangers and hardships. Few of them left any records
of their travels, but at a later date they often served as
guides for others who did leave accounts of their journeys
through the country for the guidance of posterity.
In 1821 these two great fur-trading companies decided to
cease commercial hostilities and form a coalition, and for a
number of years after that date very little exploration was
prosecuted, the fur traders settling down quietly to enjoy
the fruits of their previous energies, or of the more active
and energetic endeavours of their predecessors. However,
it was inevitable that, in their eager search for furs, they
HISTORY 605
should continue to push farther and farther back into the
most remote recesses of the wilderness. In the prosecution
of the fur trade Robert Campbell seems to have led the way
into the Yukon Territory.
In the year 1838 Robert Campbell ascended the Liard
River to its head-waters at Dease Lake in Northern British
Columbia, where he occupied a trading-post for a year. In
the spring of 1840 he again ascended the Liard River from
Fort Halkett, with seven men in one canoe, to the junction
of the Dease and Frances Rivers, but this time, instead of
turning southward up the Dease River into British Columbia,
he turned northward up the Frances River, and ascended
the stream as far as Frances Lake in the Yukon Territory.
Here some of Campbell's men remained and established a
trading-post, first called Glen-Lyon House and afterwards
Fort Frances, while he himself continued over the height-
of-land and descended the Pelly River for a short distance,
naming the stream after Sir John Henry Pelly, governor of
the company. At that time Campbell does not appear to
have had any idea as to where the waters of this river finally
emptied.
In 1842 Fort Pelly-Banks was built on the Pelly River,
and the following spring Campbell descended this river to
the mouth of the Lewes, where the two streams join to form
the Yukon. In 1848 Fort Selkirk was erected at this point
and was occupied until 1852, when it was destroyed by
Indians. In 1842 J. Bell of the Hudson's Bay Company
crossed from the Mackenzie River by the Peel to the head-
waters of the Porcupine, and in 1 846 he descended this stream
to where its waters join the Yukon. Here, in the following
year, Fort Yukon was built by Murray, another employee
of the Hudson's Bay Company. In 1850 Campbell descended
the river from his own Fort Selkirk to Murray's Fort Yukon,
thus establishing the identity of the two streams. After
the destruction of Fort Selkirk in 1852 there was no white
habitation in the whole territory for many years, for Fort
Yukon, the Hudson's Bay Company's trading-post at the
mouth of the Porcupine River, was in what is now Alaska.
About 1873 Harper and a number of associates prospected
606 THE YUKON TERRITORY
westward from the Mackenzie River over to the head-waters
of the Porcupine and other tributaries of the Yukon River,
and found gold in the sand and gravel along their banks,
but nowhere in sufficient abundance to pay the expenses of
mining in that remote country. So these men entered the
service of one of the American companies trading for furs
on the lower portion of the Yukon River. But shortly after-
wards the rich discoveries in the vicinity of Juneau, Alaska,
in 1879, gave a new incentive to search for gold in the North,
and within the next few years Harper, McQueston, Mayo,
Densmore, and others were trading along the river and occa-
sionally doing a little prospecting.
About 1884 some of these men, along with others who
came into the country over the Chilkoot Pass, discovered
gold in paying quantities on Stewart River, and two years
afterwards coarse gold was also discovered on the Fortymile
River close to the international boundary-line, the rich placer
diggings on Franklin Gulch, a little farther west, being dis-
covered the following year. From that time onwards for the
next decade the mouth of Fortymile River, known as Fort
Cudahy, was the centre of the government of the country.
Here a post of the North- West Mounted Police was built and
a mining recording office, with a properly constituted govern-
ment recorder, was established.
On August 1 6, 1896, George Carmack discovered coarse
gold on Rabbit Creek, afterwards called Bonanza Creek, and
staked two claims — Discovery, and one below Discovery ;
Tagish Charlie staked two below, and Skookum Jim staked
one above, Discovery. The story goes that Carmack's Indian
wife panned the gold from the gravel at the side of the
Creek and showed it to him as he was lying idly smoking
in his camp, but perhaps this is merely a definite statement
invented to give interest to the discovery. These men re-
corded their discovery at Fort Cudahy, showed the gold
which they had found, and started a stampede of all the
people round the place to Bonanza Creek, which was almost
immediately staked from its source to the mouth. So the
great Klondike rush began. But it was not until the follow-
ing year, when a steamer arrived at Seattle with a load of
CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT 607
Klondike gold, that the outside world began to look towards
the northern country.
That year, 1897, all the boats plying northward from
Seattle and Vancouver were loaded with prospectors and
fortune-hunters. In the following year there was a great
rush over the Chilkoot and White Passes and down the Yukon
River to the Klondike. The North-West Mounted Police,
who had gone to the country in 1894 and were therefore close
at hand when gold was discovered on the tributaries of the
Klondike, kept record of the number of people who crossed
the summit and descended the Yukon River.1 Since that
time a city has been built at Dawson and towns have been
built at Grand Forks, Granville, and several other places on
the gold-bearing creeks, as well as at Whitehorse at the
northern terminus of the White Pass Railway, and the country
has assumed a settled character with stable government and
all the amenities and comforts of civilized existence.
CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT
In 1909 the Dominion government issued a blue-book2
giving an account of the Yukon Territory, which relates
in detail the manner in which the law is administered in this
remote corner of Canada. It is as follows :
In 1894 a detachment of the North West Mounted
Police had been sent to the Yukon under the com-
mand of Inspector Constantine, who was authorized to
represent all the different departments of government
in the district. In the following year the mining in-
dustry had grown to such proportions that Inspector
Constantine was no longer able to handle all the busi-
1 MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE INTO THE YUKON TERRITORY
BETWEEN YEARS 1897 TO IpOO INCLUSIVE
Prepared by Col. A. B Perry, Supt. R.N.W.M. Police.
700 Boats, scows, etc. . . 150
28,000 „ „ „ . 7124
5,434 » » » • 88°
8,452 » », » • 973
1897. Men, Women, and Children
1898. „
1899- „
1900. „ „ „
Total . 42,586 Total . 9127
* The Yukon Territory, its History and Resources : Dominion Government, 1909,
pp. 15-18.
6o8 THE YUKON TERRITORY
ness he was called upon to transact, and an officer
was appointed to take charge of the customs. In 1897
a gold commissioner was appointed, and the record-
ing office was removed from Fortymile to the site of
the present city of Dawson. In 1898 the Yukon was
created a Territory by an Act of Parliament, and pro-
vision was made for local government by a legislative
council composed of the commissioner and six persons to
be appointed by the Governor in Council. In July 1898,
Mr William Ogilvie was appointed commissioner, and
assumed the administration of affairs, the other members
of the council being the registrar, the superintendent of
the North West Mounted Police, the judge of the Terri-
torial Court and the legal adviser to the commissioner.
In the following year the gold commissioner was also
appointed a member of the council. The council, at
that time, met several times each month for the transac-
tion of business, which included not only the enactment
of necessary legislation for the peace, order and good
government of the Territory, but also the expenditure
of much money for hospital and charitable purposes
and for the construction of roads and trails to the different
creeks, as well as the disposal of a multitude of minor
affairs of a purely municipal nature.
In 1899 the Yukon Territory Act was amended, and
provision was made for the election of two members
to the Yukon Council. In 1902 the Act was further
amended, providing for the election of five members.
By Chapter 37, 2 Edward vii, provision was made for
the election of a member to represent the Yukon Terri-
tory in the House of Commons of Canada, and on the
2nd December, 1902, the Honourable James H. Ross,
who had resigned the commissionership, was elected
the first member of parliament.
The Yukon Territory Act (Chapter 6, 61 Victoria),
1898, provided for the appointment of a commissioner
to administer the government of the Territory under
instructions from the Governor General and Minister
of the Interior, and the appointment of not exceed-
ing six persons to be a council, to aid the commis-
sioner. This Act as amended in 1899 (Chapter n,
62-63 Victoria) provided for two elected members of
council, and as further amended in 1902 (Chapter 34,
2 Edward vn), for five elected members. The elected
CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT 609
members hold office for two years, and are paid an
indemnity for attendance.
The Act was further amended in the year 1908,
Chapter 76 of 7-8 Edward vn, so as to provide for a
wholly elective council of ten members, to hold office
for a term of three years and to be convened by the
commissioner at least once in every year. This council
to sit separately from the commissioner and to present
bills passed by it for the commissioner's assent. This
amendment to come into effect on the 1st day of May,
1909.
The Supreme Court of Record is the Territorial Court,
which is presided over by a senior judge and two
other judges. It has appellate, civil and criminal juris-
diction. The Territorial Court en bane has appellate
jurisdiction in appeals from the judgment of a police
magistrate given under Section 785 of the Criminal Code,
1892. In relation to mining disputes an appeal lies
from the decision of the Territorial Court en bane to
the Supreme Court of Canada. For the purposes of
Part LII, Criminal Code, and amendments, an appeal
lies from the judgment of the Territorial Court to the
Supreme Court of Canada, unless the judges of the
Territorial Court are unanimous, when there shall be no
appeal.
Under Chapter 6 of 1906, the commissioner may refer
to the Territorial Court for an opinion upon constitu-
tional or other territorial questions. The decision of
the court, although advisory only, shall, for purposes
of appeal, be treated as a final judgment of the court
between parties.
The commissioner, members of council and judges
of the Territorial Court, and every commissioned officer
of the Royal North West Mounted Police, can exercise
in the Yukon Territory all the powers of one or two
justices of the peace, under any laws or ordinances,
civil or criminal, in the Territory. All persons possess-
ing the powers of two justices of the peace can act as
coroners.
The commissioner can establish unincorporated towns,
and arrange for the election of an overseer. Overseers
shall hold office for the calendar year ensuing after the
day on which the election is to be held, but may be
removed by the commissioner.
6io THE YUKON TERRITORY
But the government of the country has not always been
as satisfactory as it is to-day. Of the conditions as they
existed in the autumn of 1901 J. H. Curie, the author of
The Gold Lines of the World, writes as follows :
The Government of the Yukon Territory, in which
lies the Klondike district, is controlled by the Canadian
minister of the Interior at Ottawa. He, in his turn,
has had to rely on advisers who knew nothing of condi-
tions there, and, as a consequence, the handling of the
mining industry — the backbone of the country — has been
weak and inefficient. There are, firstly, far too many
officials, and from the gold commissioner downwards,
nearly all are ignorant of mining matters. The local
mining laws are weak ; the miners are for ever quarrelling
over boundaries and water rights, and the only remedy
appears to be a lawsuit, or series of suits, in the local
courts. The gold commissioner, his assistants, and
the claim inspectors, seem to have no power — or to be
afraid to use it. Their only remedy is ' Oh ! take it
into court.' Dawson, as a consequence, reeks with
lawyers and litigation. A couple of Australian mining
wardens, of the old school, who would ride up the creeks
themselves, interrogate the parties to a dispute, and
settle the matter on the spot — sticking the boundary
and water-right pegs into the ground themselves, and
warning the men to touch these at their peril — would
do more good than the dozens of officials there now, and
would soon empty the courts of litigants.
POPULATION
The population of the Yukon, with the exception of the
native Indians, having been chiefly attracted by the rich gold
discoveries in the Klondike, was drawn from almost all parts
of the world, and is, consequently, of an exceedingly motley
character. The total number of Indians, according to the
census of 10,01, was 3302, made up of a few Tlinkits in the south
who travel backwards and forwards from the Pacific coast,
of Athapascans of a number of different tribes in the great
Interior district, and of a few Eskimos along the Arctic coast.
The census of 1901 is very imperfect as to the nationality of
the people, for out of a total population for the territory of
WATER POWERS 611
27,219 the birthplace and nationality of 6384 is not given.
Deducting this number, with the 3302 Indians already
enumerated, the record of places of birth of the white or
foreign residents is as follows : Canada, 4861 ; Great Britain
and Ireland, 2416 ; Australia and other British possessions,
253 ; United States, 6707 ; Norway and Sweden, 1265 ;
Germany, 746; France, 174; Japan, 87; other foreign
countries, 1024.
Since 1901, when the production of gold in the Klondike
was at its highest point, the population of the territory has
gradually declined, until in 1911 it was only 8512.
WATER POWERS
The streams in the territory, rising as they do in the
mountains to the south and north, will be able to furnish a
large quantity of electric energy when power-plants are in-
stalled on them. The mean flow of some of the more im-
portant rivers is as follows :
Yukon River at International Boundary 135,000 second feet
Stewart River .... 27,000 ,, ,,
Fortymile River . . . 6,500 ,, ,,
Klondike River . . . 2,000 to 4,000 „ ,,
Twelvemile River . . . 250 to 500 ,, ,,
Fifteenmile River . . . 300 ,, ,,
Indian River .... 100 ,, ,,
Pelly River .... 5,000
Rock Creek .... 100 ,, ,,
The lower portions of these streams have moderately even
grades, so that any attempt to develop power from them
there would be difficult and expensive, but there are many
favourable places, as at Fraser Falls on the Stewart River,
where power-plants could be readily installed. On the upper
courses of many of the tributaries of the above-named
streams the grades are steep, and power-plants could be
installed at comparatively slight expense. At the present
time (1913) a plant is being installed on the upper Twelvemile
River which is intended to generate five thousand horse-
power.
612 THE YUKON TERRITORY
FLORA
Throughout the Yukon basin the timber line has a general
elevation of from 3500 to 4500 feet above the sea. On the
islands, and in the intervales in the bottoms of the valleys, as
well as in many of the gullies on the hillsides, white spruce
(Picea canadensis) may be found up to twenty inches or even
more in diameter, with good tall trunks, so that in some
cases three logs, each twelve feet long and at least twelve
inches in diameter, can be cut from a tree. On the Klondike
River and on Bonanza and Hunker Creeks such timber once
grew in considerable abundance, before it was cut down to
serve the necessities of the miners. Along the banks of many
of the streams balsam poplar (Populus balsamifera) grows
to a large size. On the more imperfectly drained places in
the intervales, and on most of the hillsides, black spruce
(Picea mariana) grows with an average thickness of about
six inches. In the same localities canoe birch (Betula
alaskana) grows to about the same size, while many of the
drier benches are covered with small aspens (Populus tremu-
loides). The western jackpine (Pinus murrayana) is found
on some of the drier benches as far north as the banks of
Stewart River. The subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa) is found
on the higher slopes of the mountains in the southern portion
of the territory.
On April 30, 1899, the following notes were made by
the present writer : ' Walked up the hill behind the town
of Dawson and found a large number of purple anemones
(Anemone patens, var. NuUalliana) in bloom. Mr Cran,
Manager of the Bank of British North America, informs me
that he collected them on the 2 1st inst., and that he saw them
with others on the i6th inst.' On May I : ' Walked to the
hill across the Yukon. On the sunny hillsides many of the
aspens are in flower, while the catkins are out on the birches,
alders and willows. Anemones are in great profusion, and
Saxifraga reflexa (?) is beginning to open. The sage-bushes
are soft and green, and the buds on the rose-bushes are
reddening, ready to burst.' On May 14 : ''The anemones
AGRICULTURE 613
are fading, but many other plants are beginning to shoot up.
A pretty blue flower (Polymomium humile, var. pulchellum)
is in bloom in a few places, and Sheperdia canadensis is in
full flower.' Of the wild fruits native to and growing in
the country the following are the most common in order
of abundance : blueberry (V actinium uliginosuni), cranberry
(Vacdnium vitis-idaea) , red currant (Ribes rubrum), red
raspberry (Rubus strigosus) , cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus) ,
Arctic raspberry (Rubus arcticus, var. grandiflorus) , bearberry
(Arctostaphylos uva-ursi), black currant (Ribes hudsoni anum) .
During the summer of 1899 the present writer made a
collection of one hundred and thirty-three species of plants
from the bottoms of the valleys and from the lower hillsides
in the Klondike district, about which Professor John Macoun,
the Dominion botanist, made the following comment : ' The
great majority of the plants found in meadows, bogs,
woods and river-bottoms grow within one hundred miles of
Ottawa.'
Very little timber is now available on the principal creeks
in the Klondike district, where mining is being actively
prosecuted. There is excellent timber along the Stewart
and Pelly Rivers and their tributaries. The chief supply
for the mills at Dawson is obtained from the islands along the
upper Yukon and from the Klondike valley, which is bordered
at intervals from the mouth of Hunker Creek to the moun-
tains by groves and small tracts of well-grown spruce timber.
Good timber is also available along the Yukon, and can be
easily and cheaply floated down to Dawson.
AGRICULTURE
To the world at large the Yukon territory has seemed,
since it was first exploited, little more than a treasure-house of
furs and minerals. That it has agricultural possibilities is
rarely taken into consideration. But the government blue-
book,1 already quoted with regard to the government of the
territory, in the following account of its agricultural resources
1 The Yukon Territory, its History and Resources : Dominion Government,
1909, p. 123.
6i4 THE YUKON TERRITORY
shows that it has tracts of cultivable land that can be made
highly productive.
Though the agricultural resources of the Yukon are
beyond doubt of considerable economic value, yet it
must not be considered that the territory is suitable
for occupation, at the present time, by a large number
of agriculturists depending absolutely upon this in-
dustry. A large agricultural community can only exist
in a country where the produce of such an industry can
be disposed of, at a reasonable profit, or where access
can be obtained to markets at a distance, provided
transportation rates will permit of fair competition. In
the Yukon the principal industry is mining, and agri-
cultural development must necessarily proceed according
to the requirements of the population engaged in the
mining industry. Farming operations can only be suc-
cessful so long as those who are engaged in agricultural
pursuits produce no more than is required for consump-
tion within the Territory.
During the past few years comparatively large quan-
tities of oats, potatoes and vegetables have been grown
along the Yukon valley, particularly in the vicinity of
Dawson, and in nearly all cases excellent results have
been obtained. It is computed that the quantity of
potatoes grown near Dawson in 1908 and placed on the
market aggregated 200 tons. It has been estimated
that the population at that time in the Yukon consumed
annually over $200,000 worth of potatoes. Potatoes
grown in the Yukon are quite equal in size to the im-
ported product, and when the proper kind of seed is
planted in suitable soil and attention is given to the
cultivation, potatoes can be grown fully equal in quality
to the best outside product. The best quality of
potatoes so far have been grown on the islands in the
Yukon River. On the land surrounding Dawson, either
in the valleys or on the benches, potatoes of good
quality can only be grown after the land has been culti-
vated for a few years. On an island in the Yukon River
at Ogilvie 175 pounds of potatoes were planted on the
1 2th of May, 1906, and by the first or second week in
September the crop was ready for lifting, and yielded
8000 pounds. The ground was ploughed as early in
April as the frost would permit, stable manure and
AGRICULTURE 615
about 300 pounds of lime per acre being applied. The
potatoes were planted as near the surface as possible and
hilled up as the vines grew. It is estimated that during
the present season a much larger quantity of potatoes
will be grown than in former years, and some of those
interested in agriculture predict that within the next
few years there will be a sufficient quantity of potatoes
grown to supply the market. Besides what is required
for the local market, a considerable quantity of potatoes
is shipped every year to Fairbanks, and other points in
Alaska.
On an island in the Yukon at Ogilvie three or four
bushels of oats per acre were sown about the first of
May, and harvested about the middle of August. The
yield was about two tons of oat-hay per acre, which was
sold at an average of $50 per ton. Native hay, averag-
ing one and one-half tons per acre, was also harvested
about July 15.
About thirty miles up the Stewart River is what is
known as the Mazie May ranch, owned by Mr Samuel
Henry. Mr Henry applied for this land in 1897, and
in the summer of that year harvested 26 tons of native
hay. In 1906 about 100 acres were under cultivation.
In 1902, 125 tons of oat and native hay were cut and
sold from this ranch. The native hay is cut about the
middle of July and the oat-hay about the first of August.
After the hay is harvested it is placed in stacks for about
three weeks, and then baled in a 16 by 18 baling press.
It is then shipped to Dawson by steamer, if possible,
and if a steamer is not available it is brought down the
river on rafts. The rate for carrying this hay to Dawson,
a distance of about 100 miles, is $7.50 per ton. Mr
Henry has also grown rye and barley, but finds the oat-
hay more profitable. A mixed lot of 800 pounds of
timothy, clover and red top, was sown on a piece of well
cultivated land of about eight acres, but the result was
unsatisfactory. Clover seems to grow well in a wild
state around Dawson, and there does not seem to be
any reason why it should not grow equally as well on
cultivated land if it is properly seeded. Mr Henry is
of opinion that much of the seed may have been lost
by being covered too deeply. The native hay grown
on this ranch was sold at from $55 to $60 per ton.
At the head of Flat creek, about sixteen miles from
616 THE YUKON TERRITORY
Dominion, there is a ranch of 160 acres, on which are
grown oat-hay, turnips, potatoes, vegetables, and a
large quantity of native hay is also harvested. On this
ranch there are cows, hogs, poultry, etc. Dairy farming
is carried on on a small scale, butter being made,
for which there is a ready demand on the creeks in the
locality. Besides the native hay required for the cattle,
a large quantity is sold to freighters. It is estimated
that along the Flat creek valley there are twenty square
miles of good agricultural and meadow land. Of the
large quantity of excellent hay which grows wild in
this valley, only a comparatively small quantity is har-
vested, apart from the ranch, some freighters cutting
only as much as is required, under permit, for feed for
their horses. There are also several farms situated
along the Klondike valley.
About four miles up the Pelly there is a farm of 100
acres which supplies oat and native hay to the road-
houses along the winter trail, and also to cattlemen who
drive cattle over the winter trail in the spring, the hay
for the cattle being placed at different points along the
trail. Most of the root crops grown in this vicinity are
disposed of at the roadhouses along the trail. Oats
have been ripened and threshed in the Pelly district,
but not to any great extent.
At the present time, however, we can only say that
the development of agriculture must necessarily depend
upon the development of the mining industry. Under
existing conditions the Yukon agriculturist could not
possibly compete in outside markets. The price of
labour is high, and for competition in agricultural pro-
ducts, distance and transportation rates are prohibitive.
FAUNA
In the settled districts, such as the Klondike, where
miners are working steadily and constantly, the wild animals
indigenous to the country have been driven back into the
forests, while in the vast unsettled and often unexplored
regions the animals and birds are fairly plentiful, at least
as plentiful as they are in other remote portions of North
America. The animal and bird life of the territory is similar
to that of most of the northern parts of the continent.
FAUNA 617
Moose (Alces americanus gigas) are abundant in the forests
of all the unsettled parts of the country, wherever the miners
and prospectors have not killed them off. Their shed horns
may be seen lying in profusion among the willows and dwarf
birches on the summits of the ridges. Caribou (Rangifer
arcticus) are reported to cross parts of the country in great
numbers on their annual migration to and from the shores
of the Arctic Ocean, and the large woodland caribou (Rangifer
montanus osborni) are moderately plentiful in the mountains
at the head-waters of the Pelly and Macmillan Rivers.
Mountain sheep (Ovis dalli) inhabit the higher peaks and
open tracts on the summits of most of the mountains in the
extreme northern portion of the territory, as well as in the
Pacific Mountains to the south, but in the mountains at the
head-waters of the Klondike, Stewart, and Pelly Rivers these
white sheep are replaced by darker varieties, which are known
as Ovis fanningi and Ovis stonei.
From time immemorial these animals have furnished the
native Indians with their most important supply of food.
They have also proved of great assistance to prospectors and
miners in their efforts to explore and open up the country,
for from them was derived their principal and often their only
supply of fresh meat. During the early days of gold-mining
in the Klondike, when food was often scarce and always
expensive, many thousands of carcasses of these animals were
brought down from the mountains and sold to the miners,
providing them with wholesome and necessary food.
Of fur-bearing animals marten (Mustela americana) are
probably the most abundant and valuable, the dark, glossy
pelts of many of these animals caught in the country near
the upper waters of the Pelly and Stewart Rivers being par-
ticularly beautiful. Mink (Lutreola vison), otter (Lutra cana-
densis), wolverine (Gulo luscus) and black bear (Ursus ameri-
canus) are also abundant, while lynx, beaver, musk-rat, and
black and red foxes are occasionally met with in south-eastern
sections of the territory. Rabbits (Lepus americanus macfar-
lani) are abundant everywhere in certain years, after which
they regularly die off and almost disappear. In 1903 they
were particularly numerous along the Yukon River.
6i8 THE YUKON TERRITORY
Of birds the willow and rock ptarmigan, ruffed grouse and
spruce partridge, as well as the raven, Canada jay and a
small redpoll, winter in the country, while many other birds,
including water-fowl, spend the summer in it, or pass over
it on their way to and from their nesting grounds farther
north.
Where wild animals are so abundant and thrive so well,
domesticated animals have also been found to thrive. Dogs,
both native and introduced, the latter of all kinds, from the
St Bernard to the bull-pug, are common. In winter they
are almost indispensable for hauling loaded sleds over the
snow and ice.
Horses were first used in the Yukon by E. J. Glave and
J. Dal ton in 1891, and were found to thrive well on the native
grasses. Since then great numbers have been brought into
the country. In the winter of 1898-99 a large band of horses
belonging to the Royal North-West Mounted Police were
allowed to run loose over the hills near Tagish without
attention or food other than the grasses that they could
themselves procure from under the snow, and almost all
were found alive and in fairly good condition in the spring.
Another band roamed at will all winter, and gathered their
own food, on the hills near the mouth of the Nordenskiold
River, and were brought down the Yukon River to Dawson in
the following spring. In the beginning of the same winter at
Dawson a horse had been turned out to die, as the owner
had no food for it, but it passed the winter in the hills behind
the town, pawing away the snow and cropping the grass
beneath it, and in the spring it was again caught by the
owner and put to work, after which it continued to work in
Dawson and vicinity for a number of years.
Cattle have been brought into the country in large
numbers, most of them to be killed for beef, but some cows
are kept on dairy farms to supply milk to the people. As
yet labour is too expensive and feed is too dear to permit of
raising cattle in the country, but there is nothing otherwise
in the nature of the country or climate to prevent people
from breeding cattle.
King and dog salmon ascend the Yukon River and many
MINING 619
of its tributaries, and are caught in great numbers opposite
the town of Dawson and as far up the Stewart River as
Fraser Falls ; while grayling (Thymallus signifer) may be
caught with the hook and line in almost all the streams in
the country. The total catch of fish of all kinds in the
year 1908 is given as follows :
ib.
King salmon ...... 101,500
Dog salmon ...... 15,000
Whitefish 69,500
Grayling ...... 52,000
Lake-trout ...... 24,400
Tullibee 7,000
Ling . .... 5,500
Pickerel ...... 4,000
Mixed and coarse fish .... 7,200
286,100
MINING
Gold. — Gold-mining has been the principal and controlling
industry in the territory up to the present time, the agricul-
tural and other products having been used for the support of
the gold-miners and those dependent on them. Gold has as
yet been mined entirely from gravel deposits, for although
it has been found in reefs and ledges in a number of places,
none of these have so far been worked at a profit. The his-
tory of gold-mining in the country, therefore, is the history
of its placer-mining, and this has been confined largely to
the Klondike district, though gold-bearing gravels have been
found on many other streams outside this district, such as
the Big Salmon, Lewes, Stewart, Fortymile, etc. The native
gold in nuggets, pellets, and dust is found free in the gravels
on the banks and bars of streams and in the alluvial deposits
that form the bottoms of the valleys. These gravel deposits
are classed as placers, but there is a very vital difference
between such mines on the tributaries of the Yukon River
and other alluvial or placer mines in countries farther south,
a difference so great as to put them, from an operative stand-
point, in a class by themselves.
VOL. XXII S
620 THE YUKON TERRITORY
The gravel is frozen into a solid mass, and remains frozen
summer and winter alike, and at the same time it is almost
everywhere covered by a layer, from two feet to as much
as one hundred feet in depth, of vegetable mould or * muck,'
which is also frozen into a solid, coherent, icy mass. On the
banks of the streams farther south the miner, with his pick,
shovel and rocker, or sluice-boxes, can take up the gravel
and wash the gold from it cheaply and easily, but here the
pick will make little or no impression on the frozen ground.
The gravel has to be first thawed by some means before it
can be raised, and the development of the most economical
methods of thawing it has been a dominant factor in profitable
mining in the Klondike.
For two years after gold was discovered by George Carmack
on the banks of Bonanza Creek mining was almost exclusively
confined to the gravel deposits in the bottoms of the valleys,
and was performed entirely by hand, with the assistance of
such simple implements as the pick, shovel, wheel-barrow,
and windlass.
Two general methods of mining were in vogue, depending
on whether a claim was worked as a pit or ' cut ' open to
the surface, or through a shaft or shafts and tunnels or
chambers underground. The first method, usually known
as ' ground-sluicing and shovelling in,1 involves expensive
preparation before the pay-dirt can be reached. It is con-
ducted as follows : a narrow ditch is dug in the muck length-
wise of the claim, and a part or the whole of the water from
the adjoining brook is turned into the ditch by a wing-dam.
The water rapidly deepens the ditch to the level of the bottom
of the muck, or the top of the underlying gravel, and the
miners pick down the muck and ice from the sides of the
ditch into the running water below, by which it is in part
dissolved and in part carried away down the stream. As
the ditch is thus widened, the water is kept flowing against
one side by little dams, and thus an area from one hundred
to two hundred feet in length and fifty feet or more in width
is freed from its covering of muck, and the underlying sand
and gravel is laid bare to be thawed by the sun and warm
winds and rain of the remainder of that or the following
MINING 621
summer. Of the gravel so exposed the upper portion usually
contains so little gold that it is of no value. It is, therefore,
shovelled into wheel-barrows and wheeled away and dumped
to one side, all the ground being removed until the gold-
bearing layer near the bed-rock is reached. A dam is then
built in the stream some distance above the area of un-
covered gravel, which being now lower than the surrounding
part of the bottom of the valley, or than the bed of the stream
itself, is known as the cut ; and a flume is built from this
dam to sluice-boxes, which are strung on a proper grade
across the top of the cut. Water is turned into the flume
and sluice-boxes, and the pay-dirt is then shovelled, usually
in two stages, from the bottom of the cut into the sluice-
boxes.
This shovelling-in is a slow and expensive process, for
wages are high, even though many of the men employed have
never been accustomed to handle a shovel. An average
gang of six men, working in a cut and shovelling dirt into the
sluice-boxes in two stages, will thus handle from fifteen to
twenty cubic yards in a day of ten hours. In some of the
richest mines the expense was, of course, a trifling matter
compared to the great value of the output. For example, in
the summer of 1898, at one mine, a force of six or eight men,
working for three shifts of ten hours each, produced eight
gold-pans full of clean gold. The owner at the time was
obliged by law to pay a royalty of ten per cent of this gross
output, and the return made by him of the value of this
clean-up was $45,000.
The other method — drifting — in vogue in the early days
of the Klondike camp, chiefly on claims where the muck and
underlying barren gravel were too deep to permit of their
being removed economically by the process of open cutting
just described, was conducted as follows :
In the winter season a shaft, about three feet by six feet in
horizontal dimensions, was picked down through the frozen
muck to the sand or gravel. As a rule it is not difficult to pick
out the muck, as it flakes off easily ; and much of it is so free
from grit that it will not even blunt the point of the pick.
As soon as the shaft was sunk to the gravel, a fire was built
622 THE YUKON TERRITORY
in the bottom of it, and after this fire had burned out, and
the gases arising therefrom had risen to the surface, the
gravel that had been thawed by the fire, extending probably
to a depth of from twelve to eighteen inches, was dug out
and hoisted to the surface with a bucket and hand-windlass.
Another fire was then built in the bottom of the shaft, the
gravel being afterwards removed as before, and so the work
went on until bed-rock was reached. One and sometimes
two fires were lit in a shaft each day. When bed-rock was
reached, fires were built against the face of the gravel, green
timber being piled on the dry wood to keep the heat down
as much as possible, and the gravel and bed-rock were
hoisted to the surface as before and piled up in a dump.
During the following spring, when the water was flowing in
the adjoining creek, it was diverted into sluice-boxes and led
past the dump, the surface of which, as it was thawed by the
sun and atmospheric agencies, was scraped off and shovelled
into the water in the boxes, the rate at which this pay-dirt
could be handled being determined by the rapidity with
which the dump thawed. If the dump was large, it might
not thaw out thoroughly until well on towards the end of the
summer ; and, when the creek was a small one, it very often
happened that the water in it, supplied by the melting snow
of the previous winter, failed and so put an end for that
season to the possibility of sluicing.
Exact accounts were rarely kept in the Klondike in those
days, except by the banks, so that it is difficult to determine
the precise cost of much of the mining that was then done,
but it is safe to say that it varied from ten dollars to twenty-
five dollars and more to the cubic yard.
Such underground mining, with the help of wood fires,
could only be carried on in winter, for at that time of year the
air in the drifts, though at freezing-point, was much warmer
and lighter than the air above, which was probably 50° lower
in temperature, and the noxious gases formed by the fires
would quickly rise to the surface and be dissipated ; while
in the summer the air in the drifts, with its load of noxious
gases, being surrounded by frozen ground, was still at freez-
ing-point, and the air above was much warmer and lighter,
MINING 623
so that the poisonous gases generated by the fires would
not rise to the surface, and men were consequently unable
to work in the drifts.
But the miners were determined, if possible, to prospect
and work their claims whether the season was summer or
winter, and after a number had been overcome and killed by
gas, the following plan was adopted :
A shaft was picked down through the frozen muck to the
gravel as before, and then a big fire was built on the surface
at the top of the shaft in which a number of large rocks were
heated. These were then thrown to the bottom of the shaft
and covered with moss or brush. Next day the moss, brush,
and rocks, now cool, were hoisted to the surface with a wind-
lass and as much of the gravel as the hot rocks had thawed ;
then the rocks were again heated and thrown down the shaft,
and the process was repeated until the bed-rock was reached.
Such were the methods of mining practised in the Klondike
in 1897 and 1898, and it must be remembered that such are
still the only methods available in remote districts to which
machinery cannot be transported.
But men soon began to recognize that while shallow
ground might be worked by hand with a possibility of profit,
deep ground, which would need to be undermined, must be
thawed in some other way than by wood fires or hot rocks if
it was to be mined quickly and cheaply, and that most of the
mining in the country must be done in deep ground. Many
plans were suggested and tried for thawing ground, but it
would appear that John McGillivray, a mining engineer from
California, was the first to adopt the method which has since
come into general use. In the winter or spring of 1899 he
took a small steam-boiler to a mining claim on Sulphur Creek,
and then began thawing the frozen gravel by steam, the
method adopted being about as follows :
A shaft was picked down through the muck, and near it
the boiler was set up on the surface. A small iron pipe was
connected to the boiler and run down to the bottom of the
shaft, where it was connected by an india-rubber hose to a
loose piece of one-half-inch pipe pinched in at the point.
Steam was raised in the boiler to a pressure of from twenty to
624 THE YUKON TERRITORY
thirty pounds to the square inch, a valve which had been set
in the pipe was opened, and steam was let into it. The loose
pipe, known as the ' point/ was then gradually pushed or
driven into the gravel to its full extent, the steam issuing
from the aperture at its tip thawing the gravel in front of it,
and it was allowed to remain for several hours, during all
which time steam was supplied through it from the boiler to
the gravel in front of and around it. In this way the gravel
was thawed to a much greater depth than a wood fire would
penetrate, and by increasing the size of the boiler and the
number of points, a long section of the wall of a drift could
be readily thawed at one time.
McGillivray's plant was undoubtedly inefficient, as the
pipes, rubber hose, and especially the points were too weak
for the work required of them, but nevertheless he had dis-
covered the correct way of thawing frozen ground by steam.
From his little boiler and plant has developed the efficient
steam-thawing plant in use at the present time in so many
of the placer mines of the Yukon Territory and Alaska. The
plant consists of a boiler of twenty-five to fifty horse-power,
not too heavy so as to be immovable under ordinary con-
ditions ; iron piping to conduct the steam to the place where
it is to be used ; steam-hose of the best quality ; and points,
five feet or more in length, made of double-thickness hydraulic
steel-pipe, each with a tip of very hard manganese steel, in
the end of which is a hole a quarter of an inch in diameter,
and a heavy steel head, into the side of which is welded a
hollow nipple over which the steam-hose may be clamped.
The points are driven into the gravel, or loose bed-rock, with
a heavy mallet, while at the same time the steam from the
boiler, which is kept at a pressure of from eighty to one
hundred pounds, is turned into them. As a rule they can
be driven to their full length in a few minutes, for the steam
thaws the gravel in front of them very quickly, while at the
same time it prevents any pebbles or chips of rock from
becoming wedged in the hole in the tip.
One great advantage of this steam-thawing plant was
apparent from the first, namely, it made underground mining
of frozen ground possible in summer. It not only meant that
MINING 625
mining could be prosecuted throughout the whole twelve
months of the year, it also meant that the dirt mined in
summer need not be piled up in dumps, from which it would
again need to be thawed and afterwards shovelled into sluice-
boxes, but that it could be discharged into sluices as soon as
it was extracted, and that the gold could be immediately
separated from it.
There are many occasions on which the steam-thawer is
now used, other than for thawing the gold-bearing gravel in
the drifts underground. A shaft may be sunk with it, either
by driving short points vertically into the frozen ground,
and digging out the thawed dirt from time to time, or by
driving a long point, from twenty to thirty feet long as
occasion may require, vertically down through the muck and
gravel to bed-rock, steaming it for a day or two, and then
digging out the whole of the thawed dirt at once, the result
being a shaft with roughly circular outlines. Dumps of pay-
dirt extracted during the winter, and again frozen hard,
may be quickly thawed by the steam-thawer in order to enable
the miners to make full use of the heavy rush of water in the
spring to wash the gold from the gravel. In the open cuts the
uncovered gravel may be thawed in order to hasten the mining
work in the early summer, or to prolong it in the autumn.
In some mines pulsometers are used underground to thaw
the pay-dirt in the drifts, the water being pumped over and
over again against the face of the gravel, breaking it down and
washing it and the gold contained in it back for a short dis-
tance, this latter process being assisted by a man with a rake.
In this process the water is heated by the condensation and
discharge into it of the steam used in the pulsometer. In
other mines a similar result is attained by pumping -water
with a small duplex pump from the sump against the face of
the gravel, the water being first slightly heated by steam
direct from the steam-pipe.
At first the steam generated in the boiler was used entirely
for thawing the frozen ground, and the pay-dirt, as before,
was shovelled into small buckets, dragged on skids to the
shaft, hoisted with a hand-windlass, and then emptied by
hand on the dump or into the sluice-box. This arrangement
626 THE YUKON TERRITORY
necessitated the keeping of one windlass man on the surface
for each miner underground, and so, with firemen, wood-
haulers, etc., it meant that altogether too small a proportion
of the crew was actually engaged in getting pay-dirt. Small
steam-hoists were therefore introduced, which would hoist
as much as two or three men could shovel up and bring to
them ; but this did not materially lessen the cose of opera-
tions, for more wood as fuel was needed to generate steam
to supply the hoisting engine, a man was needed at the
engine and another at the top of the shaft, and thus the
amount of unproductive labour demanded was but slightly
reduced. The limit of size of the bucket raised by the hoist
was determined by the size and weight which the man at the
mouth of the shaft could handle and empty.
The greatest improvement in the mechanical moving of
the pay-dirt was accomplished by the invention of the self-
dumping cable- tram, or * Dawson carrier/ carrying a bucket
with a capacity of from nine to eleven cubic feet. By its
means one man at the hoist can raise from the shaft, and
either pile up in a conical dump or empty into a sluice-box,
as much dirt as eight or ten miners underground can pick down
and wheel to the hoisting bucket. By its assistance pay-
dirt in solidly frozen ground can be mined from tunnels and
drifts, and hoisted and sluiced for about three dollars a cubic
yard, with wages at six dollars a day and dry spruce wood for
fuel at ten dollars a cord. Since, with this plant and in a
properly conducted mine, about two-thirds of the men em-
ployed are working underground with pick and shovel, it is
not likely that this cost can be greatly reduced while wages
remain at their present rate.
The modifications of the methods of open cutting and
ground-sluicing adopted in 1897 and 1898 have been usually
on well-known engineering lines, and have not exhibited the
same originality as has been shown in the improvements of
the underground mining methods. The general practice is
still to pick the muck down into the stream and then to allow
the water to carry it off. After the muck has been removed
and the frost has been drawn out of the gravel by the warm
air of one or two summers, the barren upper gravels are
MINING 627
usually removed, either with shovels and wheel-barrows, horse-
scrapers, or steam-scrapers, and piled into waste dumps.
After the barren gravel has been removed the pay-dirt is
either shovelled into sluice-boxes set in the bottom of the
cut, the water used being afterwards raised by a centrifugal
pump to the general surface level ; or the sluice-boxes are set
over the cut, and the pay-dirt is shovelled, usually in two
stages, into them ; or the sluice-boxes are set above and to
one side of the cut, and the pay-dirt is wheeled to a bucket
which is hoisted in some way, preferably by a ' Dawson
carrier,' and emptied into the sluice-boxes.
In mining the gravel on the terraces or benches, high
above the level of the streams, the early miners were usually
at the disadvantage of having no water immediately avail-
able, so that the pan and rocker were the only washing
plants that could be used, and water for these had often to
be carried up a height of several hundred feet in pails.
The owner of one of the richer of these claims might have
from six to ten men with rockers working for him, but on
account of the great expense of such work no attempt was
made to mine ground that would yield gold of less value than
fifteen or twenty dollars a cubic yard.
After thp narrow belts of rich and shallow ground along
the edges of the benches or terraces had thus been shovelled
off, and the gold extracted from them in rockers, the miners
began to run adits into the hills along the bottom of the
gravel, on top of bed-rock, and to bring out the pay-dirt to the
' rim ' to be washed in rockers. But this process of mining
and hand-washing proved entirely too slow and expensive.
Consequently the pay-dirt was mined and brought out to the
mouths of the adits, where it was piled up for a time, and
was then either run down the hill in a chute to a sluice set
near the creek, and supplied with water from it ; or, if it was
impossible to dump tailings on the creek claim, a pump was
installed, and water was pumped up the hill, and allowed to
run down again through the sluice-boxes, being often used
two or three times over by different parties in its descent.
At a later date ditches, sometimes several miles in length, were
dug to bring water from tributary streams at a sufficiently
628 THE YUKON TERRITORY
high elevation to enable the miners to wash these dumps of
pay-dirt.
The methods of mining adopted on these terraces, or so-
called ' hillside ' claims, were for the most part very similar
in character to those used in underground mining in the creek
claims. An adit was run along the top of the bed-rock to
the rear boundary of the claim, or as far as pay-gravel could
be found, and drifts were driven at regular intervals at right
angles to it. The intermediate pillars were then taken out,
a certain amount of timbering being usually necessary to
support the roof while the pay-gravel from these pillars was
being recovered. In most of these mines the ground was
frozen and had to be thawed with steam-points ; but in some
cases, generally where the overburden of barren gravel was
more than two hundred feet thick, the ground was not frozen,
and in such places mining could progress much more steadily
and regularly. In some instances, however, the claim which
the miner desired to work did not extend to the rim, so that
it could not be worked from an adit ; and in that case it was
necessary to sink a shaft and mine in the same manner as in
the bottom of the valley, the chief difference being that the
shaft was usually deeper, and the expense of obtaining water
for washing the gravel was very much greater. In other in-
stances, after the value of the gravel in these bench deposits
had been proved by tunnelling, water was pumped up from
the creek in the bottom of the adjoining valley to heights of
from fifty to one hundred feet above the level of this gravel,
and was then delivered against it through hydraulic giants,
thus washing it off the rocky bench on which it lay, the
water with its load of gravel being directed in its flow
through cuts in the bed-rock, and then through sluice-boxes
in which the gold was caught before it was allowed to fall
into the valley below. The enormous expense of install-
ing such a pumping plant in a region so remote and diffi-
cult of access, and the great cost of fuel after the plant
had been installed, soon proved that such a method of
mining was too expensive, even for the very rich ground
that was being operated upon ; but it also proved that
hydraulic methods of mining were quite feasible in the
MINING 629
Klondike, and that the frost in the ground was no bar
to the employment of such methods.
The gold-washing and separating apparatus in use in
the Klondike has remained practically unchanged throughout
the life of the camp. Leaving the ' rocker ' out of considera-
tion, it consists of a string of sluice-boxes, each twelve feet
long, twelve or fourteen inches wide at the upper end, and
two inches narrower at the lower end. These boxes are
placed so that the small end of one box just slips into the
large end of the one below it, and are supported and braced
so as to have a grade of from six to nine inches to each box.
In the middle of the string there is usually one box much
larger than the others, called a ' dump-box,' in which a man
stands with a heavy ' sluice-fork ' to stir the gravel and throw
out any rocks too large to run easily through the smaller
boxes. In the bottom of all these boxes small rounded poles,
called ' riffles,' are laid lengthwise, and are fastened together
by short transverse strips every six feet. Water varying in
quantity from two hundred and fifty to seven hundred gallons
a minute is turned into and allowed to flow through these
sluice-boxes, and as the pay-dirt is shovelled or emptied into
them, it is carried along by the water, and the gold settles to
the bottom and is caught between the riffles, while the gravel
and sand is discharged from the lowest box at the tail of the
sluice. The riffles are raised and taken out from time to
time, and while a small quantity of water is allowed to flow
through the boxes, the gold is carefully separated with
wooden paddles and brushes from the gravel caught with it
in the riffles.
In 1900 a dredge was installed on the Cassiar Bar, on the
Lewes River, twenty-seven miles below the mouth of the
Teslin, and was operated for a year or two without success,
apparently because there was not sufficient gold on the bar,
or because the gold did not descend to any considerable depth
into the gravel. In the following year it was brought down
to Bonanza Creek and set up on Claim 45 below Discovery,
where it operated for a short time and whence it was removed
to the Discovery group of claims, where it finally operated
with great success. This was a ladder and bucket dredge
630 THE YUKON TERRITORY
with bucket stacker, and though too small for the work, it
proved to be the correct type. Dredges of such type, if
properly managed, save very nearly all the gold at a very
much lower cost than the material can be handled in any
other way. However, they labour under the disadvantage
of not being able to work in frozen ground. So far this diffi-
culty has been overcome by thawing the ground in front of
the dredge with a steam-thawer, which, however, adds greatly
to the cost.
Since this dredge was installed many others have been
added, so that during the summer of 1911 there were work-
ing on the river bottoms in the Klondike in all about seventeen
dredges, most of which were digging in frozen ground, though
in a few cases, on account of local conditions, the ground
proved not to be frozen. The absence of large boulders makes
the gravel very easy to handle with these dredges, after it
has been thawed or when it is free from frost, and the dredg-
ing industry should prove one of the most profitable of the
mining industries of the country for many years to come.
Hydraulic mining was begun early in the history of the
camp, but with comparatively little regard to the expense of
obtaining the large quantity of water that is necessary for
this method of operation. The first hydraulic plant was
started on Hunker Creek by George Johanssen, who spent
a large sum of money in buying a number of hill claims. He
operated by pumping up water from the creek at an enormous
cost. Other similar operations were then begun on Bonanza
Creek, but, in most if not in all cases, without financial
success, even though a very large quantity of gold might be
recovered. Gradually all these pumping plants were aban-
doned, and water was taken from the small creeks and
tributaries of the larger streams and was used at a low head
against the gravels, cutting them down, the gold being re-
covered from them in sluices.
About 1906 a large impounding dam was built near the
head of Bonanza Creek, forming a reservoir with a capacity
of three hundred and fifty million gallons. The water from
this reservoir is taken through ditches, flumes, and pipes, with
a total length of nine miles, and is used on the hill claims in
MINING 631
the valley of Bonanza Creek, near the mouth of Eldorado
Creek. In the same year the Yukon Gold Company also
undertook to bring water to Bonanza and Hunker Creeks
from the upper waters of the Twelvemile River, which flows
into the Yukon eighteen miles below Dawson, and has its
source in the Rocky Mountains to the north-east. This
great artificial waterway has now been completed to carry
125 second feet, or five thousand miner's inches of water, at
a cost of more than $3,000,000. It has a total length of
seventy miles, made up as follows : ditch, 38 miles long
and 9-20 feet wide, with 3^2 feet depth of water ; flume, 19*6
miles long, 6 feet wide, and 4 feet deep ; pipe, wooden-stave,
steel bound, 8*8 miles in total length and 42-54 inches in
diameter ; pipe, steel, 3*8 miles in total length, 42-49 inches
in diameter, the steel varying from ^ to Illl6 inch in thickness.
The water enters the ditch at an elevation of 3320 feet
above the sea, and is delivered from the pipe on the south
side of the Klondike valley at an elevation of 2240 feet above
the sea, or 1040 feet above the level of the Yukon River at
Dawson. The water from this great ditch is being used to
break down and wash the gold from the extensive deposits
of white terrace gravel that occur along the Klondike River
and its tributaries.
In the Klondike the chief producing creeks have been
Bonanza, Eldorado, Hunker, Bear, and Dominion with its
tributaries Gold Run, Sulphur, and Quartz.
In 1906 R. G. McConnell, of the Geological Survey of
Canada, made a careful estimate of the past production and
future possibilities of the gold-bearing gravels, and the
following figures are taken from his report to the Canadian
government.
Speaking of the gravels of the Third Cycle, or Creek
gravels, he says : ' The Eldorado paystreak has a length of
about four miles, and its production up to the present is
estimated at $25,000,000, or about $1200 a running foot for
the bottom of the valley/ But some of the claims 500 feet
in length yielded more than a million dollars, or more than
$2000 to the running foot of valley bottom. ' Upper Bonanza
Creek, the portion above Eldorado Forks, proved rich up
632 THE YUKON TERRITORY
to Victoria Gulch, a distance of about four miles. The pay-
streak in places rivalled that on Eldorado Creek in richness,
but the general average grade was considerably lower. The
past production is estimated at $15,000,000,' or more than
$700 to the running foot. Lower Bonanza Creek has a
length of about ten miles, and with the tributary gulches has
produced about $11,000,000. Klondike River flat has pro-
duced $1,000,000. Bear Creek has produced $1,000,000.
Hunker Creek with its tributaries has produced $14,000,000.
Dominion, with its tributaries Gold Run, Sulphur and Quartz,
has produced $24,250,000.
Some of the gravel on the creeks was phenomenally rich.
One pan of gravel weighing about fifteen pounds, taken from
undisturbed deposits on Bonanza, and washed in the presence
of the writer, yielded forty and a quarter ounces of gold,
the largest nugget in the pan weighing an ounce and a half.
In speaking of the terrace gravels of the Second Cycle
of Erosion McConnell says : ' The gravel in the paystreak
of all these Upper Bonanza (and Eldorado) hills proved rich
everywhere, and in places the values returned appeared
almost fabulous. Whole claims are reported to have averaged
from $60 to $100 per square yard of bedrock. Portions
of French, Gold, Chichaco and Magnet hills were particu-
larly rich, and yields of a dollar a pan, or $150 per cubic
yard for the lower four or five feet of gravel, are stated to
have been obtained from small areas of these hills.' A
number of cases of much higher values than the above have
been credibly reported. On both French and Gold Hills men
have taken out with a rocker as much as five thousand dollars
a day, and as the men probably would not handle more than
two and a half cubic yards apiece, the yield would be about
two thousand dollars a cubic yard. The yield of these gravels
from Boulder Hill upwards is placed at $24,000,000. The
terrace gravels on Bonanza Creek below Boulder Hill yielded
$750,000. The similar gravels on the hills of Hunker Creek
produced $2,500,000. At the same time (1906) McConnell
placed the estimated future output of all the Klondike gravels
at about $63,000,000, since which time up to January I,
1912, the country has produced a total of $19,715,000.
MINING
633
Up to January I, 1912, gold-mining in the Yukon has pro-
duced gold of the following quantities and values :
Calendar year
oz. (fine)
Value
I8851
1886 J '
4,387
$IOO,OOO
1887 .
3,386
70,OOO
1888 .
i,935
40,000
1889 .
8,466
175,000
1890
8,466
175,000
1891
i,935
4O,OOO
1892
4,233
87,500
I893 .
8,514
I76,OOO
1894 -
6,047
125,000
1895 .
12,094
25O,OOO
1896
14,513
30O,OOO
1897
120,937
2,500,000
1898
483,750
10,000,000
1899 .
774,000
16,000,000
I9OO
1,077,553
22,275,000
I9OI
870,750
18,000,000
I9O2
701,437
14,500,000
1903 .
592,594
12,250,000
1904 .
407,938
10,500,000
1905 .
381,001
7,876,000
I9O6
270,900
5,600,000
1907 .
152,381
3,150,000
1908
174,150
3,600,000
1909 .
191,565
3,960,000
I9IO
4,550,000
I9II
4,455,000
$140,754,500
These are the official returns as given by the Geological
Survey and the bureau of Mines of Canada and computed
from the returns of the American Mint and the banks and
government offices in the Yukon, with reasonable allowance
for gold that could not be accounted for through these
channels. Some people are inclined to add largely to these
634
THE YUKON TERRITORY
figures for gold lost and unaccounted for, but a residence of
seven years among the miners of the Klondike convinces the
present writer that such enlarged figures are mostly gross
exaggerations and that the official estimates are quite high
enough to account for every ounce of gold that has come out
of the country.
Silver. — The production of silver has been confined, with
the exception of a very small amount taken from the pro-
spects in the Southern Yukon, to the quantity occurring
with the gold and extracted from it when it is reduced to
bullion. In the early days of the camp no account was
taken of the amount of silver produced, but later the follow-
ing may be taken as its production :
Calendar year
oz.
Value
IQOO .
29O,OOO
$177,857
IQOI .
195,000
U4,953
I9O2 .
185,000
96,965
1903 .
I56,OOO
83,382
1904 .
133,170
76,201
1905 .
94,255
56,885
I9O6 .
66,665
42,522
1907 .
35,988
23,510
1908 .
63,000
33,304
1909 .
45,000
23,176
Copper. — Copper occurs in the southern portion of the
Yukon Territory in a belt extending from near the town of
Whitehorse westward to the international boundary-line. In
the vicinity of Whitehorse the ore is in the form of sulphides
and is found in more or less extensive contact veins along the
contact of limestone and acid intrusives. A large number
of claims have been staked, and from these some ore has been
shipped southward to the smelter on Vancouver Island, but
the high cost of transportation and the consequent exces-
sive cost of labour and supplies has militated very strongly
against the successful operation of these properties.
MINING 635
Near the international boundary-line at the head-waters
of the White River and its tributaries native copper is found
in some abundance in the gravel along the stream, and in
time the recovery of this copper may prove to be a productive
and successful industry.
Tin. — As yet tin has not been found in commercial
quantities in the district, but rounded particles of cassi-
terite or tinstone were constantly found in the sluice-boxes
in the Klondike with the gold, and it is possible that in some
places it may be discovered in paying quantities.
Tungsten. — Scheelite, one of the ores of tungsten, was
found in some abundance associated with gold in the sluice-
boxes on Duncan Creek near the head-waters of the Stewart
River, but so far it has not been discovered anywhere in
commercial quantities.
Antimony. — Some veins rich in antimony ore have been
discovered in the mountains on the Wheaton River south-
west of Whitehorse, but up to the present (1912) they have
not been worked.
Coal. — In rocks of Lower Cretaceous age, at about the
same geological horizon as the Kootanae rocks in which coal
is so abundant in the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, coal is
found at a number of places in the Yukon Territory, varying
in character from anthracite in the Wheaton district to lignite
at many places on the Lewes and Yukon Rivers. In the
reports of the Geological Survey the area known to be under-
lain by coal is given at four hundred square miles, and the
estimated quantity available is given as follows
Anthracite ...... 32,000,000 tons
Bituminous coal, often making excellent
coke ...... 32,000,000 „
Lignite ...... 850,000,000 „
But further examination will doubtless add largely to these
figures.
Some coal from the Tantalus mine on the Lewes River
has been used to supply the steamers on the Yukon River,
and some from the mines on Coal Creek, north of Dawson,
is being supplied to the Dawson market at about thirteen
VOL. XXII T
636
THE YUKON TERRITORY
dollars a ton retail, but the quantity used in the territory is
not large. However, as industries of various kinds increase
in number, this great reserve of fuel and potential energy
may prove to be one of the greatest natural assets of the
country.
THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES
THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES
POSITION AND EXTENT
THE North -West Territories of Canada as here under-
stood comprise the provisional districts of Mac-
kenzie, Franklin, and Keewatin, which lie north of
the Provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, and
extend from the northern boundaries of these provinces
northward to the Arctic Ocean, and in the Arctic Ocean
itself include the islands as far north as land has been
discovered.
This vast district has a total area of one million two
hundred and fifty thousand square miles. It reaches from
north latitude 60° to about latitude 83° at the northern point
of Grant Land, or a total distance of fifteen hundred and
eighty-seven miles, and from west longitude 64° on the eastern
side of Baffin Land to west longitude 136° 30' at the eastern
boundary of Yukon Territory, or a total distance east and
west of two thousand three hundred and seventy miles.
TOPOGRAPHY
In such an enormous area there are naturally many
different kinds of country, though there are none which
can be distinctly classed as mountainous. As a general
designation it might be characterized as an undulating plain
or tableland, the undulations in places becoming somewhat
strongly accentuated ; while in the great area near the west
coast of Hudson Bay, and on most of the Arctic islands, they
are not strongly accentuated, and the country accordingly
has an even and regular relief.
Of the Arctic shore we as yet know very little. In
639
64o THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES
most places it is low, and it probably rises gently inland,
except where it is broken by occasional rocky hills.
Of the western shore of Hudson Bay we have much more
exact information. A great alluvial plain, rising usually not
more than a few feet to the mile, extends inland for distances
varying from one hundred miles in some parts to three or
four hundred miles in others. This plain extends from south
of James Bay northward past York and Churchill up to
Chesterfield Inlet, and doubtless beyond. Throughout this
area the minor inequalities have been levelled or filled, and
many old shore-lines and gravel beaches show the height
at which the water of Hudson Bay once stood. The slope
of this alluvial plain is so slight, and the drainage is so much
impeded by the raised beaches, that the land is very wet.
Within the more southern forest area it is almost one con-
tinuous swamp or * muskeg.'
West of the alluvial plain the surface is more irregular
in detail, and many small lakes occur, but at the same time
the greatest elevations do not rise to any great altitude, and
the highest point known between the west coast of Hudson
Bay and the Mackenzie River is only about fourteen hundred
feet above the sea. West of the Mackenzie River the land
rises fairly regularly, and the western boundary of the North-
West Territories is for a considerable part of this distance
marked by the watershed of the eastern range of the Rocky
Mountains.
HYDROGRAPHY
That portion of the North- West Territories lying within
the continental area has a shore-line on the Arctic Ocean
between the eastern boundary of Alaska and Lyon Inlet
on Fox Channel, exclusive of minor irregularities, of 3500
miles, and on Hudson Bay and Strait between Lyon Inlet
and Cape Chidley of 4200 miles. The islands in the Arctic
Ocean and Hudson Bay also have a shore-line of many
thousands of miles.
All the shores look out over tidal water, but the tide
rises to very different heights in different places : on Hudson
Strait, 37 feet ; in Chesterfield Inlet, 18 feet ; at Fort
pd
I
p<
g
3
C/3
Z
O
•J
S
O
HYDROGRAPHY 641
Churchill, from 9 to 15 feet ; at Fort Nelson, from 9 to
14 feet ; at Moose Factory, 5 feet ; and near the mouth of
Mackenzie River not more than a few inches.
On the Arctic coast and on the west coast of Hudson Bay
harbours are not numerous, as the water for the most part
is very shallow, the wet tidal shore often having a width
of several miles.
As the surface of the country is very irregular the drain-
age is imperfect and immature, and there are great numbers
of lakes often connected by rapid shallow streams with
comparatively small and insignificant valleys. In some dis-
tricts lakes are so numerous and water so abundant that at
least a quarter of the surface is covered with water.
The principal lakes with their areas are as follows :
Great Bear Lake. . . . n, 800 square miles
Great Slave Lake . . . 10,700 ,, ,,
Dubawnt Lake .... 1,600 ,, ,,
Kasba Lake .... 200 ,, ,,
Clinton-Colden Lake . . . 670 ,, ,,
Aylmer Lake . . . . 612
Point Lake. .... 600
Yathkyed Lake .... 850
Baker Lake .... 1,000
Martin Lake .... 1,200
Pelly Lake .... 330
Schultz Lake . . . . 125
Of the rivers which flow through the country the largest
is the Mackenzie with its great tributaries the Liard and
Slave, besides a number of smaller tributaries, such as the
Gravel, Peel, Arctic Red, Hare Indian, and Great Bear.
The Mackenzie River rises in the Rocky Mountains between
latitudes 52° and 53° 30', and as the Athabaska River flows
eastward and northward through the Province of Alberta
into Lake Athabaska, whence it issues as the Slave River,
and thence descends to Great Slave Lake, picking up the
waters of the Peace River on its way. The total drainage
area of the Mackenzie and its tributaries is 682,000 square
miles.
In the Slave River, just on the boundary-line between
642 THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES
Alberta and the territories, there is a heavy rapid, but from
that point northward the river is continuously navigable,
so that steamers of considerable draught can run through
Great Slave Lake, up the Liard River for one hundred and
twenty-five miles, and down the Mackenzie River to its
mouth in the Arctic Ocean. The total length of this river
from its source to its mouth is 2525 miles, the length of the
Slave River is 265 miles, and the Liard River is 550 miles,
the upper portion of this latter river being within the Pro-
vince of British Columbia.
Peel River is chiefly in the Yukon Territory, but it flows
for sixty miles within the North- West Territories.
The next largest river is the Dubawnt, which rises in
Wholdaia Lake at an elevation of 1290 feet, and flows a little
north of east and then eastward into Chesterfield Inlet. Its
total length, including the inlet, is 875 miles, and its drainage
area about 60,000 square miles. It is a series of wild shallow
rapids over boulders or rough loose stones connecting small
lakes. At only one place, just below the outlet of Dubawnt
Lake, is there a rapid with rocky walls and with any con-
siderable drop, the river at this rapid having a drop of two
hundred feet in two miles.
East of Dubawnt River, Kazan River rises in Kasba Lake
at an elevation of 1120 feet above the sea and flows north-
north-east parallel to Dubawnt River, emptying into the
south side of Baker Lake, an expansion at the head of
Chesterfield Inlet. The total length of this river from its
source to its mouth in Baker Lake is 500 miles.
Backs River rises in Sussex Lake and flows with a rapid
broken current into the Arctic Ocean south of King William
Island, its length being 600 miles and its drainage area 47,000
square miles.
Coppermine River has been traced for a length of 300
miles from Point Lake to the Arctic Ocean, but its length
above Point Lake is not known, probably from 100 to 200
miles, giving it a total length of about 500 miles and a
drainage area of about 30,000 square miles.
These rivers and lakes form the main highways of travel
through the country, both in summer, when the water in
CLIMATE 643
them is open, and in winter, when they are covered with snow
and ice. As the length of time that they are open has very
much to do with the ease of access into the country, this
matter will be discussed in the section of this article dealing
with transportation.
CLIMATE
The climate over this vast area varies greatly, from tem-
perate in the south-western portions of Mackenzie through
sub-Arctic to Arctic on the northern shores of Hudson
Bay and on the islands in the Arctic Ocean. Throughout
most of the country the winter is severe, and it is prob-
able that much of the general impression of the country is
derived from this winter temperature. After all, it is the
summer temperature which counts in considering the habita-
bility of the country and what it will produce to support
its population.
The precipitation of rain and snow together, judged as
rain, varies from ten to thirty inches, being greatest near the
shore of Hudson Bay, and decreasing to about ten inches in
the Mackenzie valley. Near Hudson Bay the air is moist
and the weather is very often cloudy, while farther inland
bright clear skies and dry atmosphere are the rule, rain falling
generally in sudden and heavy showers.
R. F. Stupart, director of the Meteorological Service of
Canada, makes the following reference to the temperature
of the country west of Nelson River :
The temperature conditions of the district between
Lake Winnipeg and Split Lake in the several months,
May-September, may be compared with Europe as
follows :
May . . 50°- 40°, with north of Scotland and
Southern Norway.
June . . 56°- 54°, with Scotland.
July . . 63°, with south of England.
August . 57*5° to 55°, with Scotland.
September . 50°- 45°, with Northern Norway and
Sweden.
644 THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES
GEOLOGY
The geology of the territories west of Hudson Bay is
fairly simple in general plan, though often very complicated
in detail. Through the whole country from south-east to
north-west runs a great ridge or belt of Archaean granites
and gneisses, etc., known as the Archaean protaxis, and over-
lying this granitoid belt, both to the north-east and the
south-west, newer rocks are found extending upwards in the
geological scale as high as the Cretaceous.
In the Archaean protaxis itself most of the rocks are sili-
cious in character, being chiefly granites, grano-diorites, etc.,
of Laurentian age. But included in it are also large areas of
dark-coloured and often fine-grained basic rocks of Keewatin
age, and it is interesting to note that the latter are far more
likely to contain valuable mineral deposits than the former.
Therefore it is highly desirable that their presence and extent
should be determined in order to guide the prospector in an
intelligent investigation of the country.
On the north-east side of the Archaean protaxis, or perhaps
included in its edge, are the Huronian quartzites of Marble
Island and other localities on the west coast of Hudson Bay.
Overlying these are extensive areas of Cambrian or pre-
Cambrian sandstones, which are known to occur on the
lower portion of the Dubawnt River and at many places
along the Arctic coast. At the north-western end of the
protaxis these sandstones would appear to cross completely
over it from the Arctic coast to the valley of the Mackenzie
River at Great Bear Lake. With these sandstones are
associated extensive areas of amygdaloidal trap and basalt.
On the shores of Dubawnt Lake these traps are very well
developed, but their greatest extensions appear to be in the
vicinity of the Coppermine River and of Coronation Gulf,
where they are associated with native copper. A further
description of them will be found in the discussion on mineral
deposits.
Ordovician and Silurian limestones overlie the crystalline
Archaean rocks on parts of Southampton and other islands in
GEOLOGY 645
Hudson Bay and on a large number of the islands in the
Arctic Ocean, as well as on some of the shores of Boothia and
Melville Peninsulas. Farther north these limestones are
again overlain by Carboniferous sandstones and limestones
containing extensive beds or seams of coal. From one of
these coal-seams the Canadian steamer which regularly
patrols the Arctic Ocean takes its supply of coal. To the
south-west and west of the Archaean protaxis a somewhat
similar series of rocks is found.
In the valley of Great Slave Lake the Cambrian or pre-
Cambrian sandstones and traps are exposed over consider-
able areas, while a little farther south, within the Provinces
of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and just outside the boundaries
of the territories, the same sandstones are very extensively
developed to the south-east of Lake Athabaska.
Farther north on the Slave and Mackenzie Rivers the
Ordovician and Silurian limestones do not outcrop, for here
the Devonian limestones rest directly on the Archaean. These
latter extend down the Mackenzie River and to the west of
it for a long distance. As the country rises towards the
mountains along the western boundary of the territories the
lower limestones, etc., again make their appearance. Overly-
ing all these Palaeozoic limestones, sandstones, etc., Cretaceous
and Laramie sandstones and shales cover small areas in the
vicinity of the Great Bear Lake River and along the Mac-
kenzie River near and below it, as well as on the Liard River
in the extreme south-west portion of the territories.
Since Archaean times, or at least since the age of the
copper-bearing sandstones and traps, at times in the earth's
history when the various parts of the territories were beneath
the level of the sea, the rocks were deposited in regular
sequence one above the other. At other times, when the
country was above sea-level and subject to active erosive
agencies, these same rocks, along with any earlier ones which
were exposed, were worn down and carried away into the
sea, where they were redeposited.
It is doubtful if any portion of the earth's surface has been
more stable, during the long period of time since the pre-
Cambrian era until now, than this northern part of Canada.
646 THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES
It has been subjected to slight movements up and down, but
no great Orogenic movements have broken it, or twisted and
distorted the rocks by which it is underlain.
Such are the underlying rocks occurring throughout this
great area of nearly a million and a quarter square miles.
Since these rocks were formed, and after their surface was
subjected to processes of decay through long ages, the Glacial
period set in, when the whole country from east to west and
from north to south was covered with a vast body of ice.
This ice appears to have had its greatest thickness somewhere
in the vicinity of Dubawnt Lake and to have moved outwards
in all directions from that lake northward, southward, east-
ward, and westward, carrying with it the rock that had been
disintegrated by atmospheric agencies during preceding ages,
while at the same time it often shattered, and to some extent
broke to pieces, the underlying harder rock. This moving
ice had the effect of carrying away all the disintegrated
rocks from the higher portions of the surface to regions that
are far outside the area under consideration, and of filling
in with rough loose stones and broken fragments of rock
some of the deeper depressions, leaving the country a little
more level than it was before the ice covered it, and at the
same time leaving its surface either bare rock or stony clay
and silt.
When the ice-sheet disappeared the country was four or
five hundred feet lower in elevation than it is at present, and so
surfaces that are now less than four or five hundred feet above
the sea were then beneath it, and received the drainage from
the adjoining land. But as the ice disappeared the land
began to rise to its present level. In rising, beaches and
shore-lines were formed one after the other, and beds of clay,
sand, and gravel were deposited on the glaciated surface.
These old beaches are conspicuous features in the vicinity of
Hudson Bay.
In the part of the country nearest the centre of distribu-
tion of the ice-sheet, and where it last disappeared, there
has been little oxidation or decomposition of the rock, and
very little soil has been formed ; but in the valley of the
Mackenzie River and in the country to the west of it, which
TRANSPORTATION 647
were only reached by the margin of the ice-sheet, and from
which it consequently first melted away, the summers are
very much warmer than they are farther to the north-east,
and the surface clays have been much more thoroughly
oxidized, so that a deep layer of rich and fertile soil has been
formed.
TRANSPORTATION
The means of transportation in North-Western Canada
are still in a very primitive condition, and the methods of
travel throughout most of the region are much the same as
those used by the natives and the fur traders from time
immemorial. As yet no railways have entered this country
and no wagon roads have been built in it, so that travel is
necessarily limited to boats on the streams and lakes in
summer and to sleighs drawn by dogs over the frozen surface
of both the land and water in winter. The Arctic islands
are, of course, a partial exception to this rule, because they
can only be reached occasionally by ships.
The largest stream in the country, and in fact the third
largest river on the continent of North America, is the
Mackenzie. This river has an average width of about a
mile and is navigable without obstruction from Fort Smith
through Great Slave Lake to the Arctic Ocean, a distance
of about twelve hundred miles, to which may be added the
total length of Great Slave Lake, about three hundred and
fifty miles, and two hundred and fifty miles of the lower
course of the Liard River. On the Mackenzie are steamboats,
with a draught of six feet, which make one or two voyages a
year from the head of navigation to its mouth.
Apart from the Mackenzie River, the only means of
travelling by water as yet is with small boats or canoes, and
as the length of the open season on the various streams and
lakes is the important factor in governing this travel, the
following information with regard to the various streams is
of interest.
On the Mackenzie River below Great Slave Lake the ice
usually breaks up each year some time between the first and
648 THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES
middle of May, and from that time onwards until the first of
November the river is open. Approximately the same dates
hold good for the Slave River above Great Slave Lake, but
this lake itself does not break up until much later, the usual
time for the ice to leave it varying from the last week in June
to the first week in July ; sometimes, however, it is possible
for a boat to work its way through or around the western
portion of the lake from the mouth of Slave River to the
head of Mackenzie River a little earlier. Great Bear Lake
is late in opening. It begins to break up about the end of
June, but it is not until the first or second week in August
that the ice is all out of its eastern end. It freezes again
about the same time as Great Slave Lake, namely, about
November. In regard to the smaller streams throughout
the country, the ice begins to break up in them before the
middle of May, and they are usually free of ice before the
first of June ; but the smaller lakes which form expansions
along their courses are usually covered with ice until the
second week of June. Dubawnt Lake is probably the most
ice-bound of all the water stretches in the country. In 1893
it was found to be largely covered with ice from the first to
the tenth of August, though it was possible to travel in
canoes close to the shore between the ice and the land. The
natives state that it is never entirely free from ice.
For a little while, both in the spring and fall, while the
lakes and rivers are breaking up, and again while ice is forming
on them, it is practically impossible to travel, except for short
distances, on land, but for the remainder of the year land travel
is entirely on foot or with sleighs or toboggans drawn by dogs.
This method of progression is necessarily slow and the quantity
of goods or baggage that can be carried is small, but long
distances can be covered if proper arrangements are made
and sufficient time is allowed for the journey.
POPULATION
The population of the Mackenzie valley has suffered con-
siderable change and modification since the country was first
visited towards the end of the eighteenth century. It was
POPULATION 649
then occupied entirely by Indians belonging to the Tinne or
Athapascan family. The various branches of this family,
with the districts now occupied by them, are as follows :
Chipewyans . Athabaska and Reindeer Lakes and
vicinity.
Yellow Knives . Great Slave Lake and eastward to the
Barren Grounds.
Dogribs . . Great Slave Lake northward to Great
Bear Lake.
Hare . . North of Great Bear Lake.
Loucheux . Lower Peel River.
Slavics . . Valley of Mackenzie River, above
Great Bear Lake River.
Nahane . . Mountains west of Mackenzie River.
The total number of these Indians is about 5100.
To the north-east of the Mackenzie River, in the southern
portion of the Barren Lands, the country was formerly occu-
pied by the Northern or Chipewyan Indians, but towards
the end of the eighteenth century they were destroyed by
a plague or disease, probably smallpox, and doubtless the
country was untenanted for a time. At some time since that
date the Eskimos from the Arctic coast or from Hudson Bay
moved inland and now occupy the basins of the Dubawnt
and Kazan Rivers, while at the same time they still continue
to live around the shores of the Arctic Ocean and Hudson
Bay. The total number of Eskimos, as given in the report
of the department of Indian Affairs for 1911, is as follows :
Western shore of Hudson Bay . . . 1360
Arctic coast-line to Herschel Island . . 850
Herschel Island ..... 400
2610
Until the Royal North-West Mounted Police built a
police post at Cape Fullerton on the north-west side of
Hudson Bay there had never been any white settlement in
this country north of the edge of the forest ; in fact, the most
remote line of trading-posts, chiefly belonging to the Hudson's
Bay Company, may be indicated as follows : Fort Norman,
650 THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES
Fort Providence on the Mackenzie, Forts Rae and Resolu-
tion on Great Slave Lake.
The total population of the territories here considered is
about 10,500. Of these 7710 have been accounted for as
Indians and Eskimos, and the remaining 2790 are half-breeds
with a few fur traders and missionaries.
VEGETATION
In the western portion of the territories, along the valley
of the Mackenzie River and to the west of it, the vegetation
is similar to that of the forests of Manitoba, Saskatchewan,
and Alberta. The trees are : canoe birch, white and black
spruce, tamarac, black and white poplar. In the more open
places there is strong growth of grass and sedge associated
with vetches and l pea-vine.' But proceeding to the north-
east and north the vegetation becomes more stunted and is
confined to the river bottoms, the higher hills back from the
streams being quite bare. Then the forest in the lowlands
breaks up into disconnected groves, which become farther
and farther apart until they finally disappear, and all the
country becomes what is known as the *' Barren Lands.'
These Barren Lands are great treeless plains which comprise
about half of the total area of the North- West Territories,
including the Arctic islands, have a generally stony soil, and
as a rule are lightly covered with sedges or short grasses
interspersed with many Arctic plants of which the following
are perhaps the most abundant and characteristic :
Ranunculus affinis and lapponicus, Papaver nudicaule,
Cardamine pratensis and digitata, Draba hirta and in-
cana, Cochlearia officinalis, Silene acaulis, Lychnis apetala
and affinis, Stellaria longipes, Cerastium alpinum, Oxy-
tropis leucantha, Hedysarum boreale, Dryas integrifolia,
Potentilla nivea and nana, Saxifraga oppositifolia, caes-
pitosa, rivularis, cernua, nivalis, punctata, and hirculus,
Hippuris vulgaris, Erigeron uniflorus, Senecio palustris,
Arctostaphylos alpina, Cassiope tetragona, Rhododendron
lapponicum, etc.
ANIMALS 651
In some places low stunted willows a few inches in height
appear along the banks of the streams, but in vast stretches
throughout the more northerly portion of the Barren Lands
even this * timber ' is absent.
Around many of the trading stations in the valley of the
Mackenzie potatoes, turnips, carrots, and many of the ordi-
nary garden vegetables are grown successfully, and while it is
hardly likely that wheat can ever be raised profitably, oats,
barley, and hay will undoubtedly prove successful crops.
East of the Mackenzie River agriculture cannot be con-
sidered seriously, though in many places a few garden vege-
tables can doubtless be raised.
ANIMALS
The animal life in the country varies in character from
that of the forests of the timbered zone, known in North
America as the Canadian Zone, in the valley of the Mackenzie
River, through the Hudsonian Zone northward into the
Arctic Zone.
The Canadian Zone extends northward along the valley
of the Mackenzie River to latitude 65°, and towards the south
it extends from the Slave River westward to the north-
eastern boundary of British Columbia. The animals common
in it are moose, woodland caribou, elk or wapiti, wood bison,
beaver, otter, musk-rat, lynx, wolf, black bear, and grizzly
bear.
North and east of the Canadian Zone the Hudsonian Zone
covers the territories northward to the edge of the Barren
Lands, or to a line which extends north-westward from the
mouth of the Churchill River, on the shore of Hudson Bay
in north latitude 59°, to the mouth of the Mackenzie River.
It is a region of small and scattered forest growth. In it
moose are fairly common and it is the wintering ground of
the Barren Ground caribou that spend the summer on the
open plains to the north. Black bears are also moderately
common. Among the smaller animals the black and red
fox, marten, mink, lynx, weasel, red squirrels, and rabbits are
the most abundant.
VOL. XXII U
652 THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES
The Arctic Zone embraces the Barren Lands west of
Hudson Bay, as well as the Arctic islands. It is the home
of the Barren Ground caribou and the musk-ox, the former,
at least those inhabiting the mainland, migrating north-
ward every spring towards the Arctic Ocean, and southward
in the autumn to the edge of the forest. None of the larger
animals of the Hudsonian Zone come out on the Barren
Lands. The other important animals are the white wolf,
the white fox, wolverine, and the Arctic hare. Among the
Arctic islands are found the right whale, the walrus, and
several species of seals.
The larger animals of the country furnish a substantial
portion of the food of the inhabitants, while the smaller ones
and those with heavy coats of fur furnish the rich peltry
which are exported to the outside world in exchange for
clothing and other necessaries and luxuries of life. In 1901
these territories, along with Keewatin and Ungava, produced
fur to the value of $262,921.
FISH
Fish are abundant in all the streams and lakes in the
country. All are good, and most of them are excellent, food.
They are caught in great numbers every year, chiefly in the
autumn, and, either fresh or dried, form the staple food of
the people and their dogs.
Whitefish (Coregonus quadrilateralis, etc.) is the principal
food fish of the north. Sir John Richardson says of it :
Several species of this subgenus (Coregonus) have been
celebrated for the delicacy of their flavour, but none
have been more justly so than the Attihawmeg, which is
an inhabitant of all the interior lakes of America, from
Erie to the Arctic Sea. Several Indian hordes mainly
subsist upon it, and it forms the principal food at many
of the fur posts for eight or nine months of the year, the
supply of other articles of diet being scanty and casual.
Though it is a rich, fat dish, instead of producing satiety
it becomes daily more agreeable to the palate ; and I
know from experience that, though deprived of bread
FISH 653
and vegetables, one may live wholly upon this fish for
months, or even years, without tiring.1
Its average weight is from two to four pounds, but it
often attains a weight of ten pounds, and is said to grow as
large as twenty pounds.
Tullibee (Argyrosomus tullibee) is very similar to the last
species, but the meat is not of as good a flavour.
Great Bear Lake herring (Argyrosomus lucidus) is a small
but excellent food fish. It is found in great numbers in
Great Bear Lake, and ascends the Mackenzie River as far
as Fort Simpson.
Coney (Stenodus mackenzii) ascends the Mackenzie and
Slave Rivers as far as the rapids at Fort Smith, and is con-
stantly found in Great Slave Lake. It attains a weight of
thirty or forty and even sixty pounds.
Salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) is very occasionally caught
in the Mackenzie River.
Lake- trout (Cristivomer namaycush) is abundant in all
the lakes throughout the north country, and in the larger
bodies of water reaches a weight of fifty pounds or more.
Arctic grayling or bluefish (Thymallus signifer) occurs in
clear streams throughout the region from Peace River and
Athabaska Lake northward to the Arctic Ocean and east-
ward to Hudson Bay.
Pike (Esox lucius) is common almost everywhere through-
out the country.
Pickerel (Stizostedion vitreum) is commonly taken every-
where with the whitefish, and is only inferior to it as an
article of diet.
Gold-eye (Hiodon alosoides) is found in the southern
portion of the country, being rarely found in the Mackenzie
waters north of Great Slave Lake.
Smelt (Mallosus villosus) occurs in Hudson Bay and in
the mouths of the rivers emptying into it.
In addition to the above the northern and grey suckers
(Catostomus catostomus and Moxostoma lesueuri), the methye
(Lota maculosa), the stickleback (Pygosteus pungitius), and
several smaller fish are also common.
1 Fauna Boreali- Americana, iii. p. 195
654 THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES
In the Census Report of 1901 the following return is given
of the weight and value of the fish caught in the North- West
Territories, which, however, then covered a much larger area
than they do now.
ib.
Whitefish 3,197,240
Tullibee 94>525
Trout 79,600
Pickerel . . 784*246
Pike 1,175,825
Gold-eye 17,725
Coarse fish and not specified . 326,250
Total . . 5,675,411 139,785
MINERALS
While up to the present time the chief product of the
country has been the furs taken from its wild animals, and
its next most important source of wealth may have been
its agriculture, still there is a very large area entirely out-
side the forest or agricultural zones which must depend on
its mineral wealth if it is going to have any definite value.
As has been shown in speaking of the geology of the district,
very large areas are underlain by granitoid rocks, and with
these are associated some small areas of basic Keewatin
rocks similar to those from which the gold, silver, nickel, and
other minerals in the Province of Ontario are now being
mined, but as yet none of these areas have been prospected
and nothing is known of their possible mineral contents.
The various minerals which are known or may reasonably
be expected to occur may be enumerated as follows :
Gold. — The earliest mining stampede to any part of
Canada was to a little bay in Frobisher Inlet, where in 1576
Sir Martin Frobisher cast anchor beside the bleak shore of
Baffin Land. He brought back with him a stone which was
declared to contain gold, and in the two following years, en-
couraged and outfitted by Queen Elizabeth and some of her
nobles, he returned to the same place and loaded his ships,
PORTAGING PAST SMITH RAPIDS, SLAVE RIVER
MINERALS 655
which in the last expedition were fifteen in number, with
what he supposed to be gold ore. As nothing further is
said about the gold that was extracted from this ore, there
was probably a mistake somewhere.
Dr A. P. Low has also drawn attention to the extent of
the beds of sand and gravel on the north coast of Baffin
Land, and to the possibility of finding gold-bearing placer
deposits in them.
Dr John Rae recorded the occurrence of gold-bearing
veins in Wager Inlet, north-west of the northern portion of
Hudson Bay. Gold also occurs in the sands of the Peace,
McLeod, Liard, and other rivers flowing from the east side
of the Rocky Mountains, having probably been derived from
the wearing down of the Cretaceous sandstones which form
the banks of these rivers. Undoubtedly it will also be found
in many of the quartz veins which cut the Keewatin rocks
occurring here and there throughout the Archaean protaxis.
Silver. — Silver is very rarely detected by ordinary tra-
vellers or prospectors as they pass along the waterways,
or over the portages, throughout the country. It has few
highly coloured salts or ores, and the veins in which it is
found are usually associated with a soft gangue, in hollows
and depressions in the rocky surface, and are consequently
hidden from ordinary observation. Such veins must there-
fore be discovered by digging and trenching with pick and
shovel before their true nature can be determined. The
discovery in this manner of such a large number of silver-
bearing veins in the Cobalt district of Ontario was a revela-
tion to the prospectors of Northern Canada, and leads to
the hope that many other areas of similar rock, when
properly prospected, will yield equally satisfactory results.
Copper. — The presence of copper is much more easily
recognized than gold or silver, for many of its salts and ores
are highly coloured, bright green being particularly prevalent,
and many of its ores are also associated with hard vein
matter, so that they may be found on salient points or on
distinct elevations of the surface.
Bornite has been recorded by Captain Hall as occurring
in Frobisher Bay, Baffin Land, and copper ore has been spoken
VOL. XXII U2
656 THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES
of by Sir John Ross as occurring at Agnew River. On the
north-west side of Hudson Bay, between Baker Foreland
and Cape Esquimaux, the Keewatin greenstone has a large
quantity of copper pyrites disseminated through it. No
large body of ore was seen in this region by the present
writer, but where the mineral is so freely distributed
throughout the mass of the rock, it is not at all improbable
that large deposits may be found in favourable situations,
especially near contacts with later intrusives.
On Great Slave Lake Dr Robert Bell records the occur-
rence of chalcopyrite, while on Great Bear Lake Dr J. M. Bell
speaks of the occurrence of similar ore, but the most inte-
resting and perhaps the most extensive copper deposits in
Northern Canada are contained in the pre-Cambrian traps
and sandstones in the vicinity of the Coppermine River.
The occurrence of native copper in that country has been
known to the Indians and Eskimos from time immemorial,
and the metal has been commonly used by them in the manu-
facture of knives and other implements. The first journey
by a white man into the northern country was made in
search of this * mine ' of copper. The explorer was Samuel
Hearne, a clerk in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company
at Fort Prince of Wales or Churchill, on the shore of Hudson
Bay. Hearne spent two years, seven months, and twenty-four
days on the expedition — from November 6, 1769, to June 30,
1772 — but only a few hours on the copper-bearing rocks
themselves ; and as he had no knowledge of ore deposits,
he was quite incapable of estimating their value.
The Copper Mountains, near the Coppermine River, were
visited by Sir John Richardson in 1821, and again in 1826,
and there is no record that they have been visited by any
one capable of describing them since that date. Richard-
son's description of them is as follows :
The Copper Mountains consist principally of trap
rocks. The great mass of rock in the mountains seems
to consist of felspar in various conditions ; sometimes in
the form of felspar rock or claystone, but most generally
in the form of dark reddish amygdaloid. The amygda-
loidal masses contained in the amygdaloid are either
MINERALS 657
entirely pistacite (epidote), or pistacite enclosing calc-
spar. Scales of native copper are very generally dis-
seminated through this rock, through a species of trap
tuff which nearly resembles it, and also through a reddish
sandstone on which it appears to rest. The rough and
in general rounded and more elevated parts of the
mountain are composed of the amygdaloid, but between
the eminences there occur many narrow and deep valleys,
which are bounded by perpendicular mural precipices
of greenstone. It is in these valleys, among the loose
soil, that the Indians search for copper. Among the
specimens we picked up in these valleys were plates of
native copper ; masses of pistacite containing native
copper ; of trap rock with associated native copper ;
green malachite, copper glance, or variegated copper
ore, and of greenish grey prehnite in trap with dissemi-
nated native copper ; the copper in some specimens
was crystallized in rhomboidal dodecahedrons. We also
found some large tubular fragments, evidently portions
of a vein consisting of prehnite, associated with cal-
careous spar and native copper. The Indians dig
wherever they observe the prehnite lying on the soil,
experience having taught them that the largest pieces
of copper are found associated with it. We did not
observe the vein in its original repository, nor does it
appear that the Indians have found it, but judging from
the specimens just mentioned, it most probably traverses
felspathose trap. We also picked up some fragments
of a greenish grey coloured rock, apparently sandstone,
with disseminated variegated copper ore and copper
glance ; likewise rhomboidal fragments of white cal-
careous spar, and some rock crystals. The Indians
report that they have found copper in every part of
this range, which they have examined for thirty or forty
miles to the north-west, and that the Esquimaux come
hither to search for that metal. We afterwards found
some ice chisels in the possession of the latter people,
twelve or fourteen inches long, and half an inch in
diameter, formed of pure copper.
In 1902 David Hanbury travelled from Chesterfield Inlet
to Great Bear Lake, passing on the way along the shore of
the Arctic Ocean and up the Coppermine River, though he
did not visit the Copper Mountains. He describes the rocks
658 THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES
of Bathurst Inlet and the neighbouring parts of the Arctic
coast as follows :
On the i6th [June 1902] we reached Barry Island,
which one of my Eskimo has described as the best place
for copper. He now said copper was more plentiful on
an island six or eight miles north of Fowler Bay. How-
ever, two pieces of native copper were found in the
evening.
The main rock of the island is a fine-grained basalt.
It is in this rock that the native copper occurs. The
copper is plentiful, for the quantity we obtained was
found after but a brief search, and on a neighbouring
island, Kun nu-Yuk, a mass of copper had just been
found so large that a man could hardly lift it. There,
also, copper is often found in the tide-way. The whole
of the lower levels on Barry Island are covered with
debris from the basalt, and when the rock has been dis-
tinguished by weathering, copper has fallen out, so that
flakes of the metal may be found along the sea shore.
Seven days later he says : ' We passed a small basaltic
island, on which two pieces of copper ore were picked up.
It seems as if copper is to be found wherever this basalt
occurs.'
On June 25 he camped on Lewis Island. He says :
This Island is formed of the same partly decomposed
basalt as Barry Island. Although we did not find so
much copper here, the green marks on the rocks were
more numerous, but we did not spend an hour alto-
gether in the search. One of our Eskimo knew of a
large mass of copper on the south-west shore of the
island, which he stated to be as much as five feet in
length, and three inches thick. It protruded from the
rocks under the water, it was said, but there was too
much ice for us to find the copper. A piece of quartz
with copper ore and native copper was picked up on the
sea shore.
On the 27th we rested at the north-west point of
Lewis Island, where we again found the copper-bearing
basalt, and accordingly we commenced a search that
resulted in our collecting about two pounds weight of
copper. The metal appeared to be very persistent in
MINERALS 659
its occurrence in the partly decomposed basalt, of which
the islands we passed that day consisted. The flakes
of copper seemed to be always vertical when in their
rock matrix.
In writing of his journey up the Coppermine River he
says : ' While tracking, Sandy was nearly tripped up by a
chunk of native copper on the shore. It weighed about
twelve pounds.'
During the present writer's exploration of the Dubawnt
River in 1903, the copper-bearing rocks, similar to those of
the Coppermine, were met with about the middle of the west
shore of Dubawnt Lake, whence they were found to extend
north-north-eastward for 125 miles to the Forks of the
Dubawnt River, and from there were traced eastward for
175 miles to the outlet of Baker Lake. In 1900 James W.
Tyrrell traced the same rocks westward up the Thelon River
for about 125 miles.
While native copper was nowhere found in the rock
formations on the Dubawnt River, the possibility of its
occurrence throughout a very extensive tract of that northern
country is indicated by this great extension of the copper-
bearing series.
Lead. — Galena is recorded on the Arctic coast and on
Great Slave Lake and Athabaska Lake.
Iron. — Iron ores are everywhere found associated with
the Keewatin greenstones, and they have already been re-
corded from Athabaska Lake and Backs River.
Cobalt. — Cobalt bloom is known to occur on both Great
Slave and Great Bear Lakes associated with greenstone and
calcite.
Coal. — Coal occurs in large quantity associated with
Cretaceous rocks in the south-western part of the territories.
It is also found in great abundance in the Carboniferous sand-
stones in many of the Arctic islands. These latter rocks cover
all the western islands of the Parry group and extend north-
westerly into the north-west part of Ellesmere Land. Sir
Edward Parry first discovered coal in the cliffs at Winter
Harbour on Melville Island, and used it for fuel on his
ships. The Franklin search-parties later found outcrops of
66o THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES
coal in other places along the southern and eastern shores of
that island and in the cliffs of Bathurst Island.
These outcrops of coal indicate that the seams seen in the
southern cliffs will be found extending inland over the greater
portion of the islands, where they are covered by several
hundred feet of newer rocks.
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at the Edinburgh University Press
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