Commercial fishing is a vital factor in the growth
and prosperity of the Province. From north to south,
the Province measures approximately seven hund-
red miles, and is equal in area to the States of Wash-
ton, Oregon and California combined; its sea frontage
however, is so freely indented with long, sinuous
inlets that: actual measurement would reveal some
seven thousand miles of coastline. Between the
mainland and the Pacific proper, lie innumerable
islands—the peaks and plateaus of a submerged
mountain chain—which form a breakwater against
the direct onslaught of the ocean and give thousands
of miles of safe and sheltered waterways, fringed
with vast feeding-grounds and harbouring myriads of
salmon, halibut, cod, and visited regularly by great
shoals of herring and pilchard. Almost half of Can-
ada's total production of fish is taken from the west-
ern seaboard.

Whaling and sealing have furnished dramatic in-
cidents in the past. Jack London's ‘Sea Wolf" is
allegedly based on the exploits of a noted Victorian
sealing master in the days when Victoria was
the headquarters of the Pacific fleets operating in
the Pacific “north of 53°" to the Aleutian Islands.

The salmon canning industry has grown to an
enormous extent, some 9,500 boats and 11,000 fisher-

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