that in the small years of the
following cycle (1902, 1903 and
1904), in spite of the increased
amount of gear employed, the
pack was cut in half, while the
spawning-beds at the same time
were but sparsely seeded.
“The inevitable and and dis
astrous trend of events should
have been evident to the dull
est. But the parties in interest
refused to hold their hands and
proceeded with the slaughter
of the spawning remnant.”
Turning now to the decline
in the runs of the big years. The
records are equally clear. As
already stated, the sockeye runs
in the big years 1897, 1901, 1905,
1909 and 1913 produced an aver
age pack of 1,777,585 cases, and
it should be noted that the
catches on both sides of the line
in 1901 and 1905 exceeded the
the canning capacity and sev
eral millions of fish were wasted.
Up to and including 1913 the
packs in the big year show no
evidence of an overdrain on the
spawning runs. The B. C. Fish
eries report for 1913, shows that
the escapement that year was
as great, if not greater than in
the preceding big year, 1909—
the brood year of the 1913 run.
But that report also shows that
the escapement in 1913 met
with disaster and that compara
tively few sockeye reached the
spawning beds that year, with
the result that four years later
—1917—the pack fell to 559;732
cases, or close to 77 per cent
less than in 1913.
The escapement in 1913 did
not reach the spawning beds lor
the reason that the river's chan
nel above Yale—known as Hell’s
Gate Canyon—wT a s virtually
closed to the passage of fish by
a great rock slide. Millions of
fish that had escaped capture
and reached the obstruction in
Kell’s Gate Canyon were unable
to pass over it, notwithstanding
that strenuous efforts were
made to enable them to do so.
After frantic and continuous
CHARLES BENJAMIN
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efforts to evorcome the obstruc
tion the fish became exhausted
and were swept downstream,
where they died without spawn
ing. The Report of the B. C.
Fisheries Department for 1913
deals exhaustively in both text
and illustration with the dis
aster to the escapement in 1913.
That report shows that the
number of sockeye that reached
the spawning beds above Hell’s
Gate Canyon in 1913 was less
than an eighth of the number
that reached the beds in 1909.
This is made manifest by brief
reference to the spawning beds
reports for 1909 and 1913. In
1909 four million adult sockeye
were counted as they entered
Quesnel Lake, one of the great
lakes in the Fraser basin above
Hell's Gate. In 1913 a similar
count records that only 500,000
entered that lake. The spawn
ing report of the B. C. Fisheries
Department for 1913 concludes
with the following words: “The
foregoing statements warrant
the conclusion that the number
of sockeye that spawned in the
Fraser watershed this year was
not sufficient to make the run
four years hence even approxi
mate the runs of either 1905,
1909 or 1913.” The accuracy of
that forecast and the disastrous
effects of the 1913 blockade
were made manifest on the fish
ing grounds in 1917. Notwith
standing that far more fisher
men and more fishing gear were
employed and a much higher
price paid for the fish on both
sides of the line in 1917, the to
tal catch produced a pack of
but 559,732 cases, as against 2,
392,895 cases in 1913.
From then on conditions be
came even worse. Had the six
millions of individual sockeye
that went to make up the pack
in 1917 been permitted to reach
the spawning beds in that year,
some of the loss occasioned by
the 1913 blockade could have