8 SPORT IN BRITISH COLUMBIA

Investigations which have been made by means of
marked fish seem to prove that instinct leads the fish
back to that very creek where once it came into
existence.

There are three principal points along that long
coast line which seem to attract those “‘silver hordes.”’
They are the Columbia River to the south, the Juan
de Fuca Straits, and Puget Sound further in, into
which a great many rivers flow, and finally a stretch
of coast-line lying to the north of the three hundred
miles long Vancouver Island.

I have seen the Yukon River mentioned as the
northern limit of the migrations of the Pacific salmon,
but whether this is so or not I cannot say. The
reports of the explorers Roald Amundsen, and Knut
Rasmussen, at any rate, mention salmon as being found
all along the Arctic coast beyond the Behring Straits.

As mentioned above, the salmon during its mig-
rations up the rivers penetrates very far inland. In
the Yukon River, which is the longest of the salmon
rivers, it reaches a distance of some two thousand
miles from the sea, but in the Frazer River it reaches
only about seven hundred and fifty miles, owing to the
very strong current. In the Columbia River the salmon
penetrate for about thirteen hundred miles, and actually
rise three thousand feet above sea level during their
travels.

Considering all the strenuous activities developed
by mankind in his endeavours to capture the salmon
on its way and to put it into tin cans, it is simply a
marvel that any of them are left to propagate the
species. At the mouths of the rivers, or just above
them, the salmon are met by great quantities of nets of