I made a second trip up the Stickeen in August and from the head of
navigation pushed inland for general views over dry grassy hills and
plains on the Cassiar trail.
Soon after leaving Telegraph Creek I met a merry trader who
encouragingly assured me that I was going into the most wonderful
region in the world, that "the scenery up the river was full of the
very wildest freaks of nature, surpassing all other sceneries either
natural or artificial, on paper or in nature. And give yourself no
bothering care about provisions, for wild food grows in prodigious
abundance everywhere. A man was lost four days up there, but he
feasted on vegetables and berries and got back to camp in good
condition. A mess of wild parsnips and pepper, for example, will
actually do you good. And here's my advice - go slow and take the
pleasures and sceneries as you go."
At the confluence of the first North Fork of the Stickeen I found a
band of Toltan or Stick Indians catching their winter supply of
salmon in willow traps, set where the fish are struggling in swift
rapids on their way to the spawning-grounds. A large supply had
already been secured, and of course the Indians were well fed and
merry. They were camping in large booths made of poles set on end in
the ground, with many binding cross-pieces on which tons of salmon
were being dried. The heads were strung on separate poles and the
roes packed in willow baskets, all being well smoked from fires in
the middle of the floor. The largest of the booths near the bank of
the river was about forty feet square. Beds made of spruce and pine
boughs were spread all around the walls, on which some of the Indians
lay asleep; some were braiding ropes, others sitting and lounging,
gossiping and courting, while a little baby was swinging in a
hammock. All seemed to be light-hearted and jolly, with work enough
and wit enough to maintain health and comfort. In the winter they are
said to dwell in substantial huts in the woods, where game,
especially caribou, is abundant. They are pale copper-colored, have
small feet and hands, are not at all negroish in lips or cheeks like
some of the coast tribes, nor so thickset, short-necked, or
heavy-featured in general.
One of the most striking of the geological features of this region
are immense gravel deposits displayed in sections on the walls of the
river gorges. About two miles above the North Fork confluence there
is a bluff of basalt three hundred and fifty feet high, and above
this a bed of gravel four hundred feet thick, while beneath the
basalt there is another bed at least fifty feet thick.
From "Ward's," seventeen miles beyond Telegraph, and about fourteen
hundred feet above sea-level, the trail ascends a gravel ridge to a
pine-and-fir-covered plateau twenty-one hundred feet above the sea.
Thence for three miles the trail leads through a forest of short,
closely planted trees to the second North Fork of the Stickeen, where
a still greater deposit of stratified gravel is displayed, a section
at least six hundred feet thick resting on a red jaspery formation.
