CHAPTER I

SALMON FISHING. THE PACIFIC SALMON. A SIWASH
INDIAN VILLAGE

Towarps the middle of the summer of 1910 I had
wandered as far north as Seattle, on the western coast
of U.S.A., after spending the greater part of a year
travelling through South and Central America. Seattle,
even in those days a city of considerable size and grow-
ing at an extremely rapid rate, is most beautifully
situated on the shores of the Puget Sound, in surround-
ings which unconsciously make one’s thoughts wander
towards Norway.

Less than a day’s run down the Sound by steamer
takes one to beautiful Vancouver Island, in whose
southern part is situated Victoria, the capital of
British Columbia, a small but charming and typically
English residential town, which had a most soothing
effect, on me at any rate, after all the nervous American
“hustle” of Seattle.

I spent the summer fishing, partly out on Vancouver
Island, partly on a river on the mainland, enjoying
the most delightful summer weather in the midst of a
gorgeous and unspoiled scenery. And during that
time there gradually matured an old plan of mine to
undertake an extended shooting expedition to the
interior of Alaska or British Columbia. It seemed
that here was my chance at last.

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