GEOGRAPHIES OF THE LOWER SKEENA, 1830-1920

By

Daniel Wright Clayton

B.A., The University of Cambridge, 1986

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF

THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ARTS

in

THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

(Department of Geography)

We accept this thesis as conforming

to the required standard

THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

October 1989

© Daniel Wright Clayton, 1989 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission.

Department of ££o<3 g A f-H/

The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada

Date QcJ-^,^ fx, If?^-

DE-6 (2/88) ABSTRACT

This study generates a number of geographical ideas and methods for analysing north coastal British Columbia, attempting to show how and why historical geography is a valuable mode of inquiry.

During the nineteenth century the human geography of the lower Skeena region was altered by three influential institutions: the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), the Christian

Church, and the government. Three settlements were created, within easy access of one another by water. The HBC established a fur trade post (Fort Simpson), the Anglican

Church created a missionary site (Metlakatla), and government laws and officials regulated a salmon canning town (Port

Essington). All three settlements brought the Coast Tsimshian

into sustained contact with 'whites'; HBC traders, missionaries, and government officers had important impacts on aboriginal economies and societies. These institutions comprised a discursive triad that rotated around commercial monopoly, evangelical-humanitarianism, and property-contract

laws. However, the three settlements did not simply reflect these institutions, but in part they constituted their underpinning discourses.

Port Essington, the most complex of these settlements, was established in 1871 as a trade settlement, but from the

1880s its economy was dominated by the salmon canning

industry. Two canneries were built in the town 1883; another in 1899. From the 1880s until the 1920s, Port Essington was the canning centre of the lower Skeena, and was the chief port and commercial centre in the region. Until the 1890s,

Victoria merchants extended credit to Port Essington's canners and traders. But by 1902, the town's three canneries were owned and run by Vancouver-based companies. Port

Essington's canneries produced for an international salmon market and were implicated in international circuits of financial and industrial capital.

The canneries brought Chinese, Japanese, 'whites', and

Coast Tsimshian to Port Essington, giving the town the largest and most diverse population in the region. Port Essington harboured many forms of cultural expression. From 1893, provincial police constables monitored social relations within and between these cultural groups, and collected taxes.

It is claimed that Port Essington's changing economic, cultural, and political make-up characterise the making of modern British Columbia.

iii TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES vi

LIST OF FIGURES vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT viii

INTRODUCTION . 1

PART I: ON THE MAKING OF PLACES: COMPANY, CHURCH AND GOVERNMENT IN THE LOWER SKEENA REGION DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Introduction 6

Fort Simpson: Company Monopoly on the coast. ... 7

Metlakatla: Christianity and the humanitarian narrative 25

Port Essington: property, commerce, and government 48

End remarks on the Skeena region 66 PART II: PORT ESSINGTON, 1871-1920: A MINIATURE BRITISH COLUMBIA

Introduction 71

1. Robert Cunningham and the Victoria business community 72

2. Port Essington and the salmon canning industry. 89

3. Diagramming a salmon canning town 137

Conclusion 173

CONCLUSION: PORT ESSINGTON AS HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY 175

NOTES AND REFERENCES 180

BIBLIOGRAPHY 220

Appendix 1 228

Appendix 2 233

iv Appendix 3 235

Appendix 4 ...... 243

Appendix 5 253

Appendix 6 256

Map 1 260

Map 2 261

Map 3 262

Map 4 264

v LIST OP TABLES

TABLE 1 • . 80

(a) Total Credits and Debits ($), Cunningham and Hankin Account, July 1871 - Sept. 1874.

(b) Itemised Credits and Debits ($), Cunningham Account, 1878 and 1879.

(c) Itemised Credits and Debits ($), Hankin Account, March - Oct. 1878, March - Nov. 1879.

TABLE 2 83

Proceeds ($) from the exchange and sale of furs and gold dust, Jan. 1872 - Sept. 1874, 1878 and 1879.

vi LIST OF FIGURES

Appendix 1: Port Essington: Population Estimates 1881-1920 228

Appendix 2: Goods with a total value of over $1,000 purchased by Robert Cunningham and Thomas Hankin from merchants in Victoria, Jan. 1, 1872 - Aug. 31, 1874 233

Appendix 3: Summary of Capital and Shares of B.C. Packers Association, 12 Sept., 1904. . 235

Appendix 4: Estimates of the aggregate distribution of British Columbia's salmon pack by number of cases 243

Appendix 5: Total pack of sockeye and other species of salmon by number of cases for the Skeena river, 1900-1920 253

Appendix 6: Canning statistics for the B.A. Cannery Port Essington, 1906-1920 256

Map 1: HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY FORTS: 1825-1850 . . . 260

Map 2: PRE-EMPTIONS AND "INDIAN RESERVES" IN THE LOWER SKEENA REGION, ca. 1900 261

Map 3: LOCATION OF CANNERIES IN THE LOWER SKEENA REGION 262

Map 4: PORT ESSINGTON, ca. 1915 264

vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank Ken Campbell, Becky Elmhirst, Bob Galois, Ed Higginbottom, Richard Mackie, Andrew and Janine Stevenson for helping me with this study. I wish to express profound gratitude to Derek Gregory and Cole Harris, who have taught me the political and practical purpose of a geographical imagination.

viii INTRODUCTION

This two-part study considers the nineteenth and early twentieth century human geography o£ the lower Skeena region - the intricate coastal area from the mouth of the Skeena to the Nass river. It is, concurrently, empirical, methodological and theoretical.

Part I analyses the ideological topographies of the region's three largest nineteenth century settlements - Fort

Simpson, Metlakatla, and Port Essington. It discusses how and why they were established, and the series of cultural discourses associated with them. They were either created or supported by British Columbia's most important nineteenth century institutions: the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), the

Christian church, and the government. They each brought the

Coast Tsimshian (the region's aboriginal population) into daily contact with non-aboriginal groups, and each presented a different face of modernisation.

Part II focuses on Port Essington - the most complex of

the three settlements. It was established in 1871 by the

Irish trader, Robert Cunningham, on a narrow strip of land around a rocky point that had previously been an autumn camping ground for Coast Tsimshian groups. From 1883 it was a

salmon canning town. By 1900 it had the largest and most diverse population in the region. During the summer, Chinese,

Japanese, "white," and aboriginal peoples congregated to work

in the town's three canneries, and during the winter there was

1 a resident "white" and Coast Tsimshian population of over 200.

In part I, Port Essington's institutional complexion is contrasted with that of Fort Simpson and Metlakatla, and in part II the town's changing economic and social make-up is considered in relation to the coastal economy of the lower

Skeena river and British Columbia.

Parts I and II deploy different textual strategies. Part

II is more empirically introspective than part I; part I is written with a more narrative style than part II. Both approaches are, in part, responses to serious methodological problems.

One of the original aims of this study was to describe

Coast Tsimshian reactions to these non-aboriginal groups, and

Chinese and Japanese perceptions of each other, their "white" and aboriginal neighbours, and the North Coast. All Northwest

Coast aboriginal groups had oral cultures and the Coast

Tsimshian left no written nineteenth century accounts. Their contact experiences have always been reconstituted by others: in fur trade journals, missionary texts, and the reports of government officials. These documents discuss aboriginal societies, but cannot be treated at face value. They do not record "facts" so much as a series of cultural codes that themselves have to be interpreted before the Coast Tsimshian can be approached. It is equally difficult to appraise the

Chinese and Japanese cannery workers, who left few written records, and those few in Chinese of Japanese.

2 There is remarkably little information, of any kind, about Port Essington itself. The town had stores, bars, restaurants, churches, schools, and an active set of social and political clubs. Diaries, ledgers, and account books were no doubt kept, but no longer exist. Like many towns in

British Columbia, Port Essington was swept, periodically, by fires. The two largest - in 1899 and 1909 - destroyed nearly the whole town, and most of its written records. There is an abundance of aggregate canning data, but very little that pertains to Port Essington's three canneries. Government record collections yield valuable information about places like Port Essington, but usually contain only the letters received by officials in Victoria, making it exceedingly difficult to work out when, how, or if government policies were implemented. The social world of Port Essington's

"white" business elite can be partially discerned from the town newspapers published intermittently from 1904 to 1909, but it is difficult to ascertain their attitudes towards the

other groups in the town. The Sunf one of Port Essington's newspapers, did not welcome the Japanese, but it is difficult to tell whether this was the personal view of its editor or the general feeling of the "white" population; the town's aboriginals and Chinese were seldom discussed by any newspaper. No people who lived and worked in the town before

World War I are still alive to interview.

Such problems are not confined to Port Essington and the

3 lower Skeena region, but apply to much of nineteenth century

British Columbia. The province's past is known in outline, but most scholarly work remains empirically cautious and circumscribed by the deficiencies in the historical record.

This study should be read with the above problems and those of the lower Skeena region in mind. Little has been written about the region while Port Essington has not been analysed before. Yet town and region were parts of a modernising world, and may be interpreted as such. The methodological arguments in this study, then, attempt to take-stock of some of the ideas in European social and critical theories of modernisation, to develop them from a geographical perspective, and to tease out their implications for the study of the lower Skeena region and, more generally, nineteenth century British Columbia.

Part I does not analyse Coast Tsimshian groups per se, but considers the ways they were constituted as objects of knowledge. It develops a methodology for reconstructing the past by working from within historical documents to delineate the geographies that their composers were part of, and to show how these geographies shaped the ideas that the documents expressed. It attempts to show that Fort Simpson, Metlakatla and Port Essington did not simply reflect the ideas that created them, but played a constitutive role in the way such

ideas were fashioned.

Because Port Essington's internal geography is difficult

4 to reconstruct, part II mostly discusses the sets of relations that revolved around the town. But one of the main points is

to show how the seemingly impenetrable traces of British

Columbia's past can be illuminated from a geographical perspective. Port Essington has been reconstructed at a number of geographical scales. This methodology is used to

show that places like Port Essington were not "marginal" to

"centres" of economic and political power, but were intrinsic

parts of their make-up.

Parts I and II are linked by the theoretical premise that

human activity cannot be studied apart from the series of

geographies that It creates and within which it unfolds, and

the methodological premise that historical geography can be

conceived in a variety of ways. The substantive theme uniting

this study is that Port Essington's different geographies

characterise the making of many aspects of British Columbia's

twentieth century economy and society.

5 PART I

ON THE MAKING OF PLACES: COMPANY, CHURCH, AND GOVERNMENT

IN THE LOWER SKEENA REGION DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Introduction.

In this chapter I seek to describe how the human geography of the lower Skeena region during the nineteenth century was shaped by a series of institutions and their associated discourses.

In 1900, the region's population comprised British

Columbian, Canadian, Chinese, European, Japanese, Tsimshian, and other aboriginal peoples. (1) Most networks of interaction within and between these groups were touched by some combination of the HBC - through its traders and officials; the Christian church - through the dramatis personae of its various denominations; and colonial, and later provincial and dominion governments - through their laws, and law enforcers.

The practices marking these institutions fed into - and in

part constituted - a discursive triad characteristic of

British dominion in the cordillera during the nineteenth

century. The axes of this triad, I will suggest, rotated

around commercial monopoly, evangelical-humanitarianism, and

property and contract laws.

In British Columbia, these institutions and discourses

were composed in - and in part defined by - a series of

geographies. These could be described in a number of

different ways. Here I will focus on just one mode of

6 composition/definition: how the three largest settlements in the lower Skeena region - Fort Simpson, Metlakatla and Port

Essington - represented the Company, church, and state, and the ways in which these settlements were constituted as settings for trade, observation, and moral and political supervision.

At another level is the question of the place, actual or perceived, of different cultural and national groups in the geographies I seek to describe. How did they react to, accommodate or resist the prevailing discourses in the lower

Skeena region? How did they handle alien materials and symbols in their own cultural ways? These matters are exceedingly difficult to reconstruct, and in light of the methodological problems raised in the introduction, all I offer here is a set of speculative remarks, often in the interstices of the argument.

Fort Simpson: Company monopoly on the coast.

Upon its merger with the North-West Company in 1821, the

HBC was granted a trade monopoly west of the Rockies. Yet it was not without competition, especially on the coast.

American (mainly Boston) and Russian merchants had traded with aboriginal groups for sea otter pelts from the late eighteenth century, and as such pelts became expensive and scarce in the early nineteenth they also traded for land-based furs. Coast

Tsimshian groups bartered American and Russian trade goods for

7 furs hunted by interior bands, and brought them down the

Skeena and Nass rivers to American vessels on the coast and trade posts in Russian America (now Alaska). (2)

In an attempt to eliminate this competition, and to monitor the Russian-British border in the north, the HBC established Fort Simpson at the mouth of Portland Canal in

1834 (map 1). George Simpson and John McLoughlin - the HBC's two most senior officials on the Pacific coast - thought the new site would entice aboriginal fur traders away from

American vessels. They also wished to supplement the HBC's route to the coast via the Columbia river by developing a communication line from the fort, up the Nass river, to the

interior. Fort Simpson, and the two other forts established as part of this coastal plan - Fort Langley on the lower

Fraser river (1827) and Fort McLoughlin on Milbank Sound

(1833) - were initially supplied by the HBC schooner Cadboro, acquired in 1827, and after 1835 by its steamship Beaver.

These vessels were also floating trade stations, being dispatched with arms, alcohol and other goods to areas where

American ships had been sighted. (3)

Contemporary critics and latter fur trade scholars claim

that by the nineteenth century most aboriginal groups engaged

in the fur trade across Canada had become dependent on the HBC

trade and its goods. (4) These generalisations perhaps

adequately describe the fur trade east of the Rockies, but the

HBC's trade in New Caledonia - their vaguely defined

8 department west of the Rockies, roughly 51-57 degrees north - and especially their coastal trade, was an exception. During

the 1830s, aboriginal groups trading at Forts Simpson, Langley and McLoughlin were not entirely dependent on HBC trade or goods. American ships continued to affect the HBC's trade as

far south as Fort Langley until the 1840s, gathering furs from

coastal aboriginal groups, and at Fort Simpson the Coast

Tsimshian would not trade with the HBC until satisfied that

its prices were unmatched by the Russians to the north, and

the American vessels operating a few miles away at Kaigani

Harbour. (5) McLoughlin responded to this competition by

raising the price offered by the HBC for furs along the coast.

His policy was only a partial success. When the HBC did

achieve a monopoly trade with the Fort Simpson Tsimshian in

the 1840s, the economic relationship between the two groups

remained reciprocal and fragile.

HBC competition with Russian and American traders was

more significantly altered by changes in provisioning.

Russian traders had always depended on external supply lines

for their subsistence provisions and trade goods. In the

early nineteenth century they exchanged foodstuffs for furs

with independent American traders who thereby gained a

diversified commercial foothold in Russian America at a time

when it was becoming increasingly difficult to make a

profitable trip from the eastern seaboard solely to trade sea

otter pelts. The Americans' competitive edge over their

9 Russian counterparts was enhanced by their use of arras, ammunition and alcohol as trade goods with aboriginal groups.

The Russians seldom traded these items, and with a strong demand for them by Coast Tsimshian, Tlingit and Haida groups,

Russian traders were often ignored. (6)

Russian dependence upon American supplies continued until the HBC reached an agreement with the Russian-American Company in Hamburg in 1839 to provision Russian posts. This treaty effectively ended large-scale independent American fur trading on the coast (although it did not completely disappear) because the Americans were "deprived of the one stable source of business remaining for them on the Northwest Coast." (7)

Trade became partitioned in Russian and British trade and provisioning monopolies.

Russian-British competition for furs continued under these new conditions, but Russian operations were scaled down during the 1840s. With land leased to them by the Russians under the 1839 agreement, the HBC opened two short-lived posts along the Alaskan Panhandle - Forts Durham (1839) and Stikine

(1840) (map 1). But these were never as important as Fort

Simpson which, even during their presence, had become the focus of the HBC's coastal fur trade north of Vancouver

Island. In a letter to HBC officials in London in 1841,

Simpson declared that "Fort Simpson alone, with the Beaver steamer, will answer every necessary and useful purpose in watching and collecting the trade of the whole of that line of coast." (8)

Coast Tsimshian trade at Fort Simpson was incorporated in a traditional cycle of economic activity. (9) Recent archaeological evidence suggests that on contact with

Europeans, there were perhaps 10-12,000 Tsimshian living on and around the Skeena and Nass Rivers in three linguistic and cultural groups: Coast Tsimshian, Gitksan, and Niska. Coast

Tsimshian settlements were scattered along and between the

lower and middle Skeena and Nass. (10) Winter hunting and gathering activities proceeded from winter villages clustered around what is now Prince Rupert harbour. Other sites were used in the summer only, as stations, for the harvesting and drying of salmon (on the Skeena predominantly) and eulachon

(at the mouth of the Nass, always in early spring).

Coastal sites, then, were settled as part of an annual migratory cycle of activity as Coast Tsimshian groups sought

specific resources at different times of the year. The Coast

Tsimshian also traded for furs over long distances. They mainly used such furs to clothe themselves in winter, but they were also used for trade with other coastal aboriginal groups.

(11) HBC officials knew that Fort Simpson was a prime location

for trade. After his tour of the Company's possessions in

1824, Simpson described the lower Nass as "a grand mart" for

furs, and James Douglas - then one of the HBC's chief traders

in the south - gave a more detailed commentary on the

convergence of HBC and Coast Tsimshian interests at this

11 point:

The Chimsyans on their route from Pearl Harbor, Skeena, and other places south of there to Nass River reach the fort early in February, and generally stay there until the beginning of March, when the oolaghans enter the river. After the fishing is over, they return with the fish and oil they have procured, which forms part of the ensuing winter's provisions, about the latter part of May, and make another sojourn at the fort until July, when they disperse, some for the Skeena, others go as far as Gardiner's Canal, where they are constantly employed about the salmon-fisheries during the summer. They likewise hunt and trade with the natives in the interior canals, and procure quantities of herring spawn from the people of Milbank Sound, and do not visit the fort in a body until the following February; so that June and February are the only months when there are large assemblies of Indians at the fort. (12)

The Nass region was in Niska territory, but the Niska shared fishing rights on the Nass river, mainly with the Coast

Tsimshian. The Coast Tsimshian were advantaged by this arrangement. With fishing rights at the mouth of the river, they were the first to receive the eulachon, and the grease extracted from the fish formed a basic part of their winter diet. They also traded eulachon grease for Haida canoes.

In the winter of 1834, nine Coast Tsimshian tribes re• located their winter villages around Fort Simpson. (13) In the summer of 1835, William Fraser Tolmie - a HBC trader and physician - noted the juxtaposition of the HBC fort, Coast

Tsimshian settlement and wilderness at Fort Simpson:

Fort Simpson is situated on a rocky point, on the eastern shore of the [Nass] channel - exposed to all the fury of the N.E. gales so prevalent in winter...[with] high mountains on each side of the channel [which] are rugged and precipitous... The buildings are placed in the centre of a flat of about 2 or 3 acres in extent, which elevated about 40 feet above highwater mark, present a breastwork of bold rocks on the sea... Several lodges of

12 the Nasse tribe are scattered around the fort. An excellent path leads from the landing place to the Fort Gate. Within, everything is nicely arranged - court macadamized - pathways of cedar logs formed & over the central one...a broad awning is spread - houses whitewashed outside. (14)

The nine Coast Tsimshian tribes established a trade monopoly with the HBC, and enforced tribute payments on other aboriginal groups trading at Fort Simpson. When this system was challenged, conflict and sometimes violence ensued between the different aboriginal groups until a negotiated settlement was reached - sometimes with the intervention of HBC traders and their interpreters. (15) These nine tribes also strengthened their fur trading position with interior aboriginal groups. Longer trips were made up the Skeena, and they undercut Gitksan fur trading with Carrier hunters in the

Bulkley and Babine valleys by offering more and cheaper HBC goods. (16)

The re-location of these Coast Tsimshian tribes was accompanied by more frequent potlatching. (17) The potlatch

(or feast system) was the key institutional means of societal reproduction in all northwest coast aboriginal societies. It served publicly to declare and legitimate all changes in social relations - mainly in the form of lineage inheritance and succession, marriage alliances, and wider economic and political relations - through property distributions, gift giving, and feasting. (18) In 1834, the feast system was drawn upon to re-define territorial and social relations between the different Coast Tsimshian lineages now juxtaposed at Fort

13 Simpson. Then it heightened again in 1837 as families and lineages strove to fill vacant status positions within their houses after a third (and perhaps more) of the Coast Tsimshian population at Fort Simpson had died as a result of measles and smallpox epidemics on the North Coast in 1836. (19)

The historian Robin Fisher suggests that the nature of the Coast Tsimshian potlatch changed between 1800 and 1840.

The wealth derived from the fur trade became concentrated in the hands of a few powerful chiefs, such as Legale, and the almost king-like status of these chiefs at Fort Simpson, he argues, attests to the emergence of new forms of social mobility based on wealth as a prime source of social power in

Coast Tsimshian society. (20) Certainly, Fort Simpson's Coast

Tsimshian chiefs were among the wealthiest and most powerful on the northwest coast. The HBC depended on them for its supply of furs and undoubtedly benefited more than its competitors by their extensive trading activities.

Fort traders also relied on their aboriginal suppliers

for foodstuffs. Simpson declared that the HBC's first principle of profit maximisation should be cost minimisation.

He thought that frugality and fort self-sufficiency were the most effective means of minimising the cost of supplying the

HBC's isolated forts. After 1825, HBC officials in the

Columbia and New Caledonia districts diversified their production and trade, and developed new markets. (21) The commodities produced at HBC posts on the coast were, to

14 varying degrees, distributed through three overlapping trade networks: one that sent furs from the coast to London on a nine month cycle; another that exported salmon, lumber, coal, and foodstuffs to the Sandwich Islands and California; and a third in 'country produce', or essential provisions, that were circulated to and from posts up and down the coast. (22)

Of all the HBC posts along the coast, Fort Simpson was the least self-sufficient, and the one most geared to the fur trade network. (23) Simpson's appeal to HBC factors to develop gardens to produce potatoes, fruit, and vegetables was never a practical possibility at Fort Simpson. Built on a rocky coastline with only a thin layer of soil, the Fort's gardens yielded meagre and inconsistent supplies of fresh food; from its inception factors relied heavily on produce traded by aboriginal groups. The regular supply of food was a major concern of all Fort Simpson factors and appears prominently in the Fort Simpson Journals from the 1830s to the 1860s. (24)

The Coast Tsimshian recognised this, but were never great hunters themselves. Probably in an attempt to secure their longer term fur trading prospects at Fort Simpson, the Coast

Tsimshian permitted non-Tsimshian groups to trade foodstuffs with the HBC, although tribute payments were still sought.

From the late 1830s, potatoes and poultry products were supplied by Haida groups from the Queen Charlotte Islands, southern Tlingit groups supplied deer and other game, and

Coast Tsimshian groups supplied a variety of sea produce,

15 including salmon and herring. (25) Fort Simpson's employees were at first unsure when such provisions would arrive as the regularity of supply often depended on relations between these aboriginal groups. From the 1840s onwards, however, a regular pattern of trade developed with different types of food being brought in different seasons. (26)

HBC procurement strategies were premised on two exchange systems - one local, and the other continental and transatlantic. Foodstuffs and furs were exchanged with aboriginal groups for listed HBC trade items on a barter basis. Little is known about how exchange rates were fixed, but they seem to have been related to different factors in different trade settings. (27) Factors at Fort Simpson claimed that the main variables determining the price of furs fixed by barter at Fort Simpson between the 1830s and the 1860s were the extent of Coast Tsimshian supply and an upper HBC price for furs that HBC traders were instructed not to surpass. (28)

Changes in one, the other, or both variables, they thought, always affected the number of furs offered by the Coast

Tsimshian. Douglas used such reasoning when reporting to

London in 1849 about the fur trade at Fort Simpson:

I am sorry to say that the trade of that Post is less Valuable than usual...This is not supposed to arise from the scarcity of fur bearing animals, which with the exception of Martens are as numerous as ever, but is rather an effect of the reduction made in the price of Beaver, in consequence of its reduced value in England, which has naturally enough produced much dissatisfaction, and deterred the Indians from hunting furs. (29)

16 The status of such Eurocentric assumptions remain unclear, however, for on other occasions HBC traders were frustrated by their limited understanding of the motivations of their suppliers, and ventured only tentative explanations about the abundance or scarcity of furs. (30) Moreover, Coast Tsimshian

'economies' did not represent autonomous spheres of activity but were bound up with wider social and political relations that could as easily have affected their willingness to trade furs. Thus, any attempt to essentialise the nature of barter

- in Eurocentric or other ways - would be misguided.

Trading relations between the HBC and Coast Tsimshian remained fragile, and were constantly monitored by Fort

Simpson traders. (31) Tobacco and blankets were sometimes distributed to the Coast Tsimshian as gifts, in the hope of stabilising an upset trading relationship - often caused by some mutual misunderstanding. During the mid-1830s, the HBC also sold rum to the Coast Tsimshian to lure them from

American vessels, but when inebriated some Coast Tsimshian were violent towards fort traders. In August of 1835, for example, Tolmie noted that

Rum had been sold to the Indians & some of them getting intoxicated were very turbulent...They attempted frequently to burn down the slight barricade raised on the site of the bastions, but were deterred on seeing us ready with firearms to send a volley among the intruders. About a dozen or twenty Indians with muskets were posted on a hill immediately behind whence they could fire with deadly effect into the Fort at any part. Outside the pickets they were numerous & armed with guns, boarding pikes & knives & endeavouring by their savage whoops and yells to intimidate us. (32)

17 In this instance the Coast Tsimshian were demanding more rum, but violence was also sparked by dissatisfaction over the price offered by the HBC for furs, and by the presence of non-

Tsimshian aboriginal groups at Fort Simpson. With the gradual elimination of American competition, however, and by agreement with Russian traders, the HBC stopped selling liquor in 1839.

Fur prices and other tariffs were often standardised for a year or two at a time, but from the late 1830s fluctuated along an inflationary curve. Beaver furs replaced sea otter pelts at the top of Fort Simpson's trade lists after 1834, but by the 1850s they too were becoming more expensive and scarce, and were supplemented by marten and black bear furs, and squirrel skins. (33) Chiefs - from whichever group - were usually admitted into the stockade to trade with HBC officials, the bargaining process, according to the local historian Helen Mellleur, being quite "unlike the active, vociferous bargaining that we associate with marketplaces the world over. It consisted chiefly of supercharged silences."

(34)

On the other hand, the HBC supplied its forts through a centralised double-accounting system. During the first half of the nineteenth century, most of the accounts of the HBC's

Cordilleran posts were scrutinised by officials from the

Northern Department stationed in Lachine and York Factory; and each year all HBC accounts were overseen by high-ranking HBC officials in London who then made suggestions about how to

18 supply forts more efficiently and profitably. Fort Simpson received most of its trade goods - blankets, tobacco, and

later cotton and rice being the most important - from vessels owned or chartered by the Company. Fort Vancouver on the

Columbia river, and after 1846 Fort Victoria, were the main supply depots for trade goods sent from Britain on a yearly

supply ship (although sometimes more frequently). From Forts

Vancouver or Victoria, trade goods, other essential fort

supplies, and foodstuffs produced on the HBC's coastal farms

were sent to Fort Simpson every two or three months, the ships

then returning south with pressed furs and any other export.

Forts Vancouver, Langley, and Victoria were not only

established as fur trading and distribution nodes but also as

self sufficient provisioning posts, and throughout their

existence supplied quantities of salt (transshipped from HBC

vessels bringing it usually as ballast from the Sandwich

Islands and Liverpool), cured meats, and grains to HBC

employees in outlying areas. (35)

HBC employees at Fort Simpson were dependent on both

Company and aboriginal supplies, but a range of commodities

was produced at the Fort. From the 1850s a forge and

munitions works produced ammunition and metal implements, and

during the 1860s large numbers of eulachon were traded, their

oil extracted and barrelled at the Fort, and exported south to

Victoria, Nanaimo and Fort Rupert. (36)

<< >>

19 The establishment o£ coastal trading posts, such as Fort

Simpson, brought aboriginal groups and fur traders together on a more consistent basis than during the era of the maritime

fur trade. Contacts between the two became far less ephemeral. Yet the Company's ambition to achieve a monopoly trade was only partially achieved. With the eclipse of

American and Russian trade along the coast, Fort Simpson

factors forged a volatile monopoly trade with the Coast

Tsimshian. But to the south - and especially on Vancouver

Island - the commercial hegemony gained during the 1840s was

soon challenged. In 1849, independent entrepreneurs were allowed to trade with aboriginal groups and Europeans in the

HBC's "Proprietary Colony." The HBC retained control of the

fur trade, but these "petty traders" - as the Company called

them - competed in the sale of goods to aboriginal groups, and

sponsored much of the new settlement on mainland British

Columbia prompted by the gold rush of 1858. (37)

The coastal fur trade of the HBC was characterised by a

patchwork geography of isolated forts that were grafted onto

pre-existing aboriginal space-economies. Opportunities for

trade were tied to local trading relations between the HBC and

the dominant aboriginal group near each fort. In this

respect, trade at Fort Simpson between the HBC and Coast

Tsimshian was no different than that between the HBC and

Kwagulth at Fort Rupert, and other twinned trading relations

along the coast. The living and trading quarters of HBC employees at posts, including Fort Simpson, were situated inside large stockades and bastions. HBC forts were designed to be self contained, and their internal geography reflected the HBC's trade hierarchy. Factors, chief traders and visiting dignitaries had the largest and best furnished accommodation, and the "men" - fort employees engaged in maintaining the fort, preparing furs for shipment south, and working a fort's small industries - usually lived in spartan barracks. Fort accommodation was scattered among blacksmith's shops, fur presses, and supply stores. Coast Tsimshian and HBC traders met in a large hall inside the fort.

Aboriginal groups used the space around forts very differently. At Fort Simpson, large winter houses were erected in a haphazard arrangement along the foreshore on either side of the fort. Aboriginal monopolies of trade at

HBC forts were jealously guarded, and interruptions in them often entailed warfare and slave-taking between different groups. With their winter houses very close to the fort gates, aboriginal groups could effectively monitor the HBC's trading relations. (38)

The frictions of distance entailed in the HBC's geography of procurement were partly overcome by the deployment of trading vessels such as the Beaver. They carried a variety of trade goods and produce, and acted as floating trade posts up and down the coast. The HBC's more experienced HBC traders,

21 such as William McNiell from Fort Simpson, usually operated this trade network. This said, trade and social interaction between HBC employees and aboriginal groups at coastal forts - including that at Fort Simpson - rarely stretched far beyond the fort. Aboriginal groups, of course, traversed much wider spheres of interaction and exchange.

Fort Simpson and the HBC's other coastal posts were tied to systems of commodity exchange that brought furs to the coast from distant parts of New Caledonia and then sent furs and other goods to overseas markets. The HBC knew little about the former part of this economic system. Aboriginal groups knew little about the geography of the latter, but the anthropologist Michael Harkin suggests that aboriginals associated Europeans with distant places and perceived both in cosmological terms that were strongly temporal rather than spatial. (39) A series of marriage alliances between HBC officials and high-ranking aboriginal women probably nurtured new modes of social interaction; it is not known if or how these emotional and contractual ties benefited the HBC's trade in British Columbia. (40)

In coastal fort journals, aboriginal groups were usually recognised as accomplished traders. Simpson described them as being "tiresome in their bargaining." (42) Factors at Fort

Simpson acknowledged that the furs gathered by the Coast

Tsimshian reflected an ecological and geographical expertise only partially revealed by European modes of discovery and observation. Yet warfare, internecine strife, and drunkenness were perceived as products of "morally deficient" social practices inconsistent with a will to bargain and trade. Such

"deficiencies" were usually reported in fort journals in a post facto way that rarely grappled with the economic and social motives behind particular aboriginal actions, and exudes moral self-righteousness. During the 1840s, for example, slaves were traded or rescued by factors at Fort

Simpson from aggressive aboriginal groups "because" they would otherwise be traded, abused, or killed. And when, in 1858, "a large muster of Tsimshians" appeared at the Front gate demanding that "Haidas [protected by the HBC] be delivered up to them - of course this was refused." (43) There was little understanding of the aboriginal use of slaves as bargaining pawns to settle inter-tribal disagreements, even though the

HBC sometimes harboured Coast Tsimshian enemies as pawns in their own trading games. Nor was there much understanding of the place of violent revenge in traditional Coast Tsimshian life.

In their journals, Fort Simpson factors wrote that they and the HBC's other fort employees were detached from Coast

Tsimshian affairs, and that measured diplomacy and caution was always used to control the fur trade. (44) What their writing likely obscured was that at places like Fort Simpson, HBC employees were surrounded by a series of economic and social relations that they neither properly understood nor were much interested in unless trade was directly affected. Outnumbered and sometimes outgunned by aboriginal groups, and dependent on their will to trade in furs and other goods, HBC factors and traders barricaded themselves inside symmetrically arranged wooden pickets, and dealt with their trading partners through tiny gates.

The HBC's geography of procurement was premised on the

idea of monopoly trade with specific aboriginal groups. These groups were vital economic actors in a trading network that stretched across two oceans; with their assistance, British commercial influence west of the Rockies was considerably extended. The northwest coast represented one of the far

outreaches of British mercantile capitalism.

The re-location of nine Coast Tsimshian tribes around

Fort Simpson, and their acceptance of HBC trade as a new

source of income and prestige, biased their traditional cycle

of resource procurement towards the collection of furs, and

perhaps set the grounds for changes in the feast system. The

introduction of alcohol and European diseases probably had

important impacts on the social structures of all aboriginal

groups. In the main, however, these changes in Coast

Tsimshian economy and society - and similar changes that

occurred among other aboriginal groups -were unanticipated and

only partially perceived by HBC traders. Moreover, HBC

officials never entertained any grand social designs about the

way their trading partners should live: they intended to produce a geography of trade, and little more.

Metlakatla: Christianity and the humanitarian narrative.

During the 1860s and 70s these relations in and around

Fort Simpson were disrupted by a new set of institutional

practices, a more directed form of moral discourse, and a new

geographical configuration.

In the 1860s a number of independently operated schooners

traded rum and later whiskey with aboriginal groups on the

North Coast. The sale of alcohol to aboriginal groups had

been banned by James Douglas, the Colonial Governor, but even

with the occasional presence of navy gunboats the law was

extremely difficult to enforce along an intricate coastline

where it was nearly impossible to monitor the movements of

widely dispersed peoples. The HBC, which had curtailed its

traffic in liquor, was placed at a trading disadvantage. The

exchange of alcohol for furs on independent boats moored at

small bays around Portland Inlet disrupted the HBC's trade

with Coast Tsimshian groups bringing furs from the Nass. From

the late 1850s, some Coast Tsimshian also bypassed Fort

Simpson and took their furs directly to Fort Victoria where

they fetched a higher price and could be exchanged for a wider

variety of goods. (45)

Less concerned with the harm such trade was doing to the

HBC than with the "demoralising" effect that alcohol and

prostitution were having on the 2,300 Tsimshian at Fort

25 Simpson, James Prevost - a religiously-minded Royal Navy commander - appealed to the Church Missionary Society (CMS) - an Anglican missionary society based in London - to dispatch a full-time missionary to serve the Coast Tsimshian. As a result of his appeal, William Duncan arrived at Fort Simpson

in 1857.

Duncan and the many Anglican and Methodist missionaries who followed him to the lower Skeena were representatives of

British (or in some cases, Canadian) evangelical movements

that supported missionaries in Africa, Australia, China and

India. Missionaries were sent to remote places with the

support of private donations, usually from the British middle

class. Mid-Victorian Britain has been described as "the age

of religion," and "for the middle classes," argues the

historian J.F.C. Harrison,

evangelical fervour could find an outlet either in a philanthropy calculated to mitigate, without changing the social basis of the evils of industrial society, or in schemes for radical reform." (46)

British missionary societies solicited the support of

their middle class benefactors by means of monthly compendlums

that published case studies and reports written by their

missionaries around the world. (47) The main purpose of such

writing was to render the lives of distant peoples in a way

that roused readers1 sensibilities, created sympathy and

compassion for the plight of others, and secured donations.

Northwest Coast missionaries were part of a wider modern

enterprise which, in the words of the cultural historian Thomas Laqueur, produced a series of "humanitarian narratives

[that] created 'sympathetic passions'- bridgting] the gulf between facts, compassion, and action - in a wide variety of places and circumstances." (48) Missionary texts were variants of a series of humanitarian narratives that Laqueur considers to be exemplified in novels, legal and medical case histories, and parliamentary inquiries, and that he deems to have operated along lines suggested by Hume. Hume posited that geographically distant social and moral phenomena only become meaningful to the detached imagination if they can be perceived through a series of associations and connections that create an emotional framework for engagement. Laqueur argues that humanitarian narratives developed Hume's notion by creating of "a sense of property in thetir] objects of compassion..." (49) Missionaries on the Northwest Coast evoked this "sense of property" in a number of ways, but always as a means of capturing the "suffering" of others "as if the pain were one's own or that of someone near." (50) Would-be benefactors read about the "suffering" of others in missionary journals, and could assuage their humanitarian" consciences by donating money through its subscription pages.

The missionary's "object of compassion" was the body and soul of the individual "heathen Indian" who was suffering from

"a feeble and quite indefinite polytheism" that had yielded

"delusory forms of belief and behaviour." (51) Added to such heathen delusions, the missionary portrayed the "Indian's" involvement with "white" traders as a hapless encounter that had left them the helpless victims of drink, violence and debauchery. (52) Missionaries argued that disease and bad health were caused by "unsanitary" living conditions, "a poor diet," and the transmission of disease by "whites."

Suffering, however, was viewed as a more general "condition" of aboriginal society. "Grief was universal," declared the

Methodist Thomas Crosby, and this condition was exposed by missionaries through a series of moral and social ascriptions premised on an imperious distinction between "Savagism" and

"Civilisation" assumed by author and donator alike. (53) In missionary narratives, "drunkenness, debauchery, and heathen superstition" were not the products of a chosen way of life or part of an agreeable social system; nor had they simply emerged as a set of contingencies surrounding the meeting of

"whites" and "Indians." Instead, missionaries argued, they had "arisen" because these "unfortunate" individuals "lacked"

European mores of discipline, self-improvement, law, Christian religion and secular reasoning, and had been set bad examples by unruly white traders. (54)

Built into the logic of this exposition of grief was a presupposition of its relief - the ameliorative path from

"Savagism" to "Civilisation." More, since the cause of suffering was only discerned by the reader and his or her missionary, the missionary was then the only person who could guide the "Indian" to avoid grief. In missionary accounts

28 from the Skeena region it is the "fallen Indian" who comes to the missionary "crying out" for guidance for his or her people. Missionaries (nearly all of them male) were conditioned by a moral imperative to act on behalf of their sufferers (and those suffering by association at home), and had an obligation to report home on the "progress" of their relief work.

The "sense of property" developed by missionaries in the

lower Skeena region was manifested in the settlement of their

"moral infants" in "Christian villages" away from centres of trade, where "Indians" could be harboured from the

"temptations of civilisation" and "their progress towards its benefits" could be planned, monitored, and impressed upon others. In 1862, after five difficult years among the Coast

Tsimshian at Fort Simpson, Duncan and 70 of his converts established a settlement under his guardianship at the traditional Tsimshian village site of Metlakatla, 20 miles south of the HBC post; five years later nearly 800 people, with representatives from nearly every Coast Tsimshian tribe

in the Skeena region, were living with him. (55)

Metlakatla was established with a system of "civil laws" and "rules" that forbade the social and moral deficiencies

that Duncan, and other missionaries, thought characterised

Coast Tsimshian life. (56) Duncan claimed that distinctions of

status and privilege between different Coast Tsimshian tribes

were dropped when they entered his "model Christian village."

29 "[Tine customs from which the very foundations of Indian

government come, and [which] lie nearest to the Indians

heart," he announced, "have been given up." (57) Metlakatla

was acclaimed by colonial and provincial officials as "the

Indian success story," and through books such as Nelson's

Metlakatla: Ten Years Work... (1869), and Wellcome's The Story

of Metlakatla (1887), the British and North American reading

public came to know more about Metlakatla and the Coast

Tsimshian than any other aboriginal people and place in

British Columbia.

In its narrative form and institutional features,

however, British humanitarianism never simply produced a

"series of detached, moral sensibilities, for many of its

themes were intimately connected to notions underpinning

nineteenth century capitalism. "The market," as well as the

middle class conscience, argues Laqueur, "happented] to be the

force that induced caring for a wide variety of unfortunates."

(58) For missionaries and their funding public, honest trade

achieved by self-help and hard work were further signs of a

"civilised world." Material prosperity and property ownership

were signs of "progress" towards the benefits of civilisation.

Missionaries in the Skeena region thought the Coast

Tsimshian Were "acquisitive." In their dealings with the HBC

they had also shown themselves to be accomplished traders. In

their "morally infantile state," however, they were not

"predisposed" to enjoy the civilized benefits of material prosperity. Thus, it was the missionary's job to guide these

"unfortunates" until they could run their own businesses without - in the words of the Anglican Bishop, William Ridley

"at the same time sellting] themselves to perdition." (59)

Missionary ideals were steeped in the nineteenth century humanitarian belief that "both economic desires and moral sensibility are perverted by the same social pathologies, the same backwardness in cultural evolution." (60) The

"pathologies" that had created the "orgiastic" potlatch (based on the "wanton" principle of loss, and not gain) had also created the Coast Tsimshian "nomadic" way of life. For the missionary - and later the Indian Agent - these "pathologies" could be overcome by a sedentary life, the development of agriculture, and secular as well as religious education. More than simply directing an evangelical movement, Henry Venn, the

CMS's general secretary from 1840 to 1870, instructed his missionaries to bring the commercial techniques behind the agricultural and industrial revolutions in Europe to aboriginal populations around the world. "Commerce,

Civilisation and Christianity," says the historian Wilbert

Shenk, was "the three-fold slogan for [British] missions in the nineteenth century." (61)

Duncan hoped to develop Industrial and agricultural

"arts" as well as religious-moral sensibilities among the

Coast Tsimshian, but was confounded at Fort Simpson. He wrote

in his journal: "Fort Simpson won't do. There is no land to

31 cultivate without very much expense... There is no room to introduce any measures for their social improvement." (62) He also realised that Fort Simpson was dwindling as the centre of trade on the North Coast. By 1860 many Coast Tsimshian took their furs to Victoria and fewer non-Tsimshian groups came to trade at Fort Simpson. In addition, with mining speculations up the Skeena and around the Queen Charlotte Islands, Duncan expected Fort Simpson to be

deluged with profligate miners, [who] having nothing else to do will spend their time in the grossest immoralities - so that if I don't go, I may have to witness much of my work overthrown, especially among the young." (63)

Duncan's move was not welcomed by HBC officials. They had supported missionary temperance work among the aboriginal groups camped around Victoria during the late 1850s, but were antagonistic towards missionary activity at their outlying posts. Douglas thought that missionaries might disrupt the

HBC's delicate trading relations along the coast, and strongly urged Duncan to stay near Victoria. (64) Venn had previously

told his workers that while "It is impossible for the missionary to ignore or remain aloof from social and political affairs...The missionary must not involve himself in

politics." (65) Duncan, however, thought that Venn's dictum in

this case compromised the CMS's evangelical goals, and wrote

to him:

The more I see of the Company's servants the less confidence do I place in their judgement. I see them actuated by one feeling. They care not a straw for the bodies and souls of the Indians, it is the furs they want... (66)

32 Duncan's work at Metlakatla was based on the conviction that his Tsimshian "children" should shy away from their annual trading trips to "demoralising" Victoria; away, in fact, from all white traders, for the temptations of civilisation are "too fascinating for the Indian in his present morally infantile condition to withstand." (67) Duncan also recognised that in an isolated settlement the influence of his religious work would not be sustained without an autonomous and diversified commercial base. His brethren needed a secure, alternative source of income, and Metlakatla would have to become commercially successful. Otherwise, his

Metlakatlans would return to Fort Simpson where, said Duncan, they would "become more and more demoralized - victims of every low vice, and clogs to civilization and the progress of the colony." (68)

In pursuit of these objectives, Duncan devised and supervised economic and social programmes. He quickly

established a trading store. (69) In 1864 he bought a trading schooner, the Carolina. In 1867 he constructed a sawmill, and

in the following few years established a sash factory, and

coopering, carpentry, and blacksmith shops. A salmon cannery,

built in 1882, packed salmon for four seasons. These economic

projects were launched with CMS funds and loans from the

Colonial Government. Duncan also formed a number of

Metlakatlan companies to sponsor the larger projects. His

sawmill and canning companies were capitalised by the sale of shares to Metlakatlans, some of which were bought with the cash that they had earned working on various projects in the settlement. When they did not have sufficient funds, Duncan lent money at ten per cent interest. In the store, a variety of goods were exchanged for furs, foodstuffs and other commodities at prices that undercut the HBC store at Fort

Simpson and were competitive with prices in Victoria. Many store goods were supplied on credit by Victoria merchants, brought to Metlakatla on the Carolina, and paid for with CMS donations and loans, and the profits from Metlakatla's businesses. Increasingly in the 1860s and 70s, commodities

(including furs) from aboriginal groups on the Nass and the

Queen Charlotte Islands were brought to Metlakatla rather than Fort Simpson. With much Tsimshian fur trading expertise on board, the Carolina made many successful fur collecting trips to the Nass, enhancing Metlakatla's commercial autonomy.

The furs traded were pressed and polished at Metlakatla and were shipped to Victoria along with barrels of eulachon oil, salted salmon and eulachon, dried berries, cedar timber and shingles, and Metlakatlan handicrafts. In 1863, the HBC's chief trader at Fort Simpson, Hamilton Moffatt, declared that

"Mr Duncan is doing us a great deal of harm and I fear his opposition more than the schooners'. In fact if he continues the trade much longer I see no alternative but for us to shut up our shop." (70) In 1878 the Anglican Bishop Bompas reckoned that Duncan's trading operations had "swallowed up fully half of the Company's business on this coast." (71)

Duncan's economic project was inextricably linked to a wider social programme. The profits from Metlakatla's store and small industries provided over half of the funds for

Duncan's various settlement schemes. He also considered the store an agent of cultural change. It was stocked with the goods he thought "necessary for the civilized life and tending to elevate the tastes and improve the appearance" of his brethren - European-style clothing, cutlery, and household furniture. (72) Metlakatlans not only worked for Duncan's businesses, but were also involved in their financing so they could grasp the links between hard work, the deferment of gratification, and its eventual material rewards. Although

Duncan accepted government donations to establish and support public projects, he strongly opposed the giving of gifts directly to aboriginals. "The policy of dealing out gifts to individual Indians...is both degrading and demoralizing," he wrote to Department of Indian Affairs officials in Ottawa:

To treat Indians as paupers is to perpetuate their baby• hood and burdensomeness. To treat them as savages, whom we fear and who must be tamed and kept in good order, will perpetuate their barbarism and increase their insolence. (73)

Duncan believed that a "civilised mind" was an educated mind; that law and order were the basis of a "civilised community;" that the unity of the family was the basis of a healthy soul. Yet to his mind - and that of his funding public - these facets of civilisation formed different spheres

35 of society, and were to be demarcated as such in the settlement. (74) Religious and secular education, and law and order were the crux of the public sphere. A school, courtroom, prison, and church, the most prominent constructions in the. settlement, were built at Metlakatla between 1862 and 1870 to house these public functions. The

Coast Tsimshian family formed the core of Metlakatla's private sphere, and the single family dwelling was to be the site of personal prayer and family life. Duncan referred to

Metlakatla as "God's Village," and during the 1870s he planned rows of identical, detached houses, each with a small garden, to reflect his brethren's equality before God. The exteriors of these model homes had doors, glass windows, and sash curtains. Every interior was fitted with tables, furniture, beds, and a clock. Duncan hoped that his followers would live in nuclear families, but conceded that communal living was an important basis of social cohesion and control in Coast

Tsimshian society and tailored his housing plans accordingly.

Large families were split up into small two-storey buildings thirty feet apart, but they were connected by walk-ways that facilitated extended family socialisation.

During the 1880s, photographs of Metlakatla and its Coast

Tsimshian inhabitants were published in Anglican missionary journals to illustrate the "progress" made at the settlement.

The sight of elegant and symmetrically arranged wooden structures backed by wilderness allowed Duncan's letters to be

36 put in stark visual relief. In many ways too, these photographs capture Duncan's concern with order and regularity more vividly than his letters.

Venn instructed his missionaries to learn to speak the language of their aboriginal brethren, translate the Bible whenever possible, teach aboriginal groups to read and write

English as well as their own tongue, and encourage and train aboriginal teachers. Duncan learned Tsimshian and translated some of the Gospels while at Fort Simpson, but Venn's other instructions were not fully carried out. During the 1860s and

1870s much of Duncan's teaching time was spent assisting his converts with English. He employed Tsimshian teaching assistants, but did most of the teaching in secular subjects such as natural history and philosophy himself.

Duncan did, however, attempt to develop Venn's principle of aboriginal "self-reliance rather than dependence" by promoting Coast Tsimshian self-government and autonomy in religious and secular affairs at Metlakatla. (75) "For the promotion of good government and discipline in the settlement," he told British Columbia's superintendent of

Indian Affairs, "I have divided the men, by lots into ten companies...Each company has a chief or headman; [and twenty other men) with something to do for the common weal." (76)

These ten companies were given eighteen directives, the two most important perhaps being to care for their own sick and to discourage company members from taking work outside Metlakatla. Each held weekly meetings for "united counsel and action, for reading the Scriptures...and for making contributions to the Church Fund." (77) Headmen - after 1870 usually Coast Tsimshian chiefs - also made monthly reports to

Duncan on the moral and religious progress of their companies. Women in the community were similarly divided, and their ten companies performed the same function of supervising

Duncan's civil laws and encouraging prayer in the home. From their inception, these companies were also involved in the government of Metlakatla. After 1870, three representatives from each of the male companies sat on the Village Council; two more were dressed in military-style uniforms and made community police constables; and all male and female companies volunteered two teachers. Duncan supervised this company system and all social programmes in Metlakatla.

Douglas appointed Duncan as local magistrate for the lower Skeena. Then, as a local official, Duncan suggested to the Provincial Government in 1872 that it appoint Robert Brown as constable for the Skeena, and base him at Port Essington to report on Cunningham's sales of liquor to aboriginal groups.

But Duncan refused to have provincial police at Metlakatla.

In 1875 he wrote a forceful letter to a Victoria judge defending his use of "Indian constables" to uphold government laws in Metlakatla:

The results may not be as satisfactory at first but such an office is good training for the natives - tends to enlist their sympathies on the side of the law - is less expensive to the Government, and ultimately will afford a

38 better guarantee of the preservation of the peace than if held by white men in their midst. (78)

Duncan's economic programme created a neat, symmetrically landscaped, economically autonomous settlement on the isolated coast of northern British Columbia. In areas of social planning he also fashioned what Crosby termed a system of

"mosaic rule:"

For many years before any Justice of the Peace, Indian Agent, or other officer of the law was sent to that part of the country [the Skeena region], these people were governing themselves under the direction of their missionary...(79)

He allowed a degree of "native autonomy" in the social and political affairs of the settlement, but as the self-disclosed moral and spiritual shepherd of a people he still thought needed protecting, Duncan's authoritarian rule over

Metlakatlans rarely softened. In the eyes of his British middle class supporters he had brought "relief" to a

"demoralised" people, and through the pages of CMS books and journals, they came to know the new habits, aptitudes, and actions of Duncan's Christian followers in considerable detail.

Duncan's system of economic and spiritual isolation remained secure during the 1870s, but was challenged in the

1880s. Duncan became involved in an ecclesiastical squabble with the CMS central committee, and William Ridley -

Archbishop of the newly created Diocese of Caledonia. CMS

instructions became less flexible after Venn had died. Its central committee now insisted that missionaries were

39 primarily evangelists and that aboriginal groups should be taught by ordained priests. Duncan, who had never been ordained, had been unable to keep CMS helpers sent from

England, refused to allow Holy Communion at Metlakatla, and had supported Bishop Cridge's departure from the Anglican church in Victoria after an ecclesiastical dispute with Bishop

Hills. (80) He was also discredited in the Church Missionary

Intelligencer, and accused by Ridley of sexual misconduct.

With the establishment of Port Essington in 1871 and the development of the salmon canning industry on the lower Skeena from 1876, Metlakatla's economic autonomy was also challenged.

Duncan found it increasingly difficult to keep his brethren at

Metlakatla all year round, and when he opposed their summer departures to other canneries Metlakatlan chiefs criticised him.

Duncan became estranged from his church, and from

Dominion officials by speaking against their aboriginal land policy. In 1887 he left the Skeena region with 600 followers to establish "new Metlakatla" in Alaska. By the time he left, more Anglican and Methodist missionaries were established at settlements on and around the Skeena. From the 1880s the style of missionary narratives changed. Their "objects of compassion" now included groups of Chinese, Japanese and

European peoples living and working in the area. Missionary work with these groups was sponsored by the Society for the

Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) and a variety of other

40 Anglican and Methodist missionary societies as well as the

CMS. This work was now coordinated by the church institutions

in British Columbia as well as the central committees of missionary societies in London and Toronto. The "sense of

property" was still manifested in missionary work with aboriginal groups in isolated settings, but missionaries

started to recount individual conversion stories and the

spread of the Christian message through the work of "good

native Christians," rather than the conditions of "progress" among whole groups as Duncan's letters had done. Still, many

of the narrative's formal procedures continued to be invoked:

the exposition of suffering and relief remained much the same

into the twentieth century, and the imperious distinctions

between "heathenism" and "civility" were never softened.

Schools and hospitals initially established and funded by

missionary societies, and under the instruction and

supervision of missionaries, were increasingly overrun by

government funding and government appointed (if religiously-

minded) teachers and doctors. (81) Venn's dictum of "native

agency and self-sufficiency" had also been supplemented by

(the American Methodist) J.R. Mott's more imperial slogan "The

Evangelization of the World in this Generation," and in the

Skeena region Anglican and Methodist missionary movements

pursued a policy of itinerant evangelism. (82) The presence of

both Methodist and Anglican missionaries in the Skeena region

created denominational rivalries, especially in settlements

41 such as Port Essington where, from the 1880s, there was a resident representative of both churches.

<< >>

Nineteenth century British humanitarianism was partly defined by a number of geographies, one of which implicated missionaries' middle class sponsors in Britain in the production of missionary texts abroad. Missionaries established economically autonomous, spatially isolated settlements as settings for moral instruction and supervision.

Metlakatla was one such settlement in a chain that stretched across Africa, North America, and Asia. In missionary texts, these places appear as idealised Utopias of Christian light, hope, and purity, and were contrasted with surrounding places of darkness and sin. (83) The readers of the church Missionary

Intelligencer were told that Metlakatla was an attempt to build "a model Christian village reflecting light and radiating heat to all the spiritually dark and dead masses of humanity around us." (84) Duncan believed the establishment of his community to be a triumph for civilisation, and urged

Bishop Cridge in Victoria to "Place our...model Indian village before the numerous Indian Tribes around here, shewing them the proper road to improvement, wealth and happiness." (85)

Duncan engaged his readers' sensibilities by rendering the

Tsimshian as his "children." They had not known good from evil until he showed them the distinction. With his move, good and evil became located in different places: Metlakatla

42 and Fort Simpson, respectively. To his nineteenth century readers, Duncan not only brought civilised ways to his

"heathen children," but also masterminded their "improvement."

To secure the donations that supported his work for the CMS,

Duncan - and many other British missionaries around the world

- did not just write to rouse compassion but also reported progress. Places like Metlakatla were only imagined by the

British middle class through missionary journals, but evangelical-humanitarianism was in part constituted by the donation system that sponsored missionary settlements.

Missionary settlements were ideological spaces.

In a manifest way, however, places like Metlakatla significantly altered the human geography of their regions.

Metlakatla drew many people away from neighbouring Fort

Simpson, and by capturing much of its trade probably did more to harm HBC operations in northern British Columbia than either American or Russian fur traders had ever done. Duncan was the first independent trader in the Skeena region to draw upon the credit accounting system of Victoria's independent merchants to stock his store with goods. And with this new means of supply many types of goods previously unavailable in the region were sold to aboriginal groups: European clothing and household items, for example.

The empirical status of missionary texts is open to question. It is difficult to judge their explanations of why aboriginal people groups embraced and apparently adhered to the religious and secular doctrines of Christianity.

Aboriginal groups left no written records during this period against which the bold assertions of missionaries might by assessed. The aboriginal voice quoted in missionary texts is the missionary's interpretation of what was heard.

British missionaries in British Columbia, including

Duncan at Metlakatla, were nineteenth century representatives of an enduring form of ideological power: Christianity. The subjects of missionary discourse - aboriginal peoples - were objectified by a set of moral categories, and their points of view were thus dismissed from missionary accounts ex ante.

They were not written of, but written about.

The modes of reasoning employed by missionaries also underlie the way missionary texts have been treated by historians attempting to reconstruct a course of events out of a unitary set of records. The historian Peter Murray, for example, claims that when Duncan arrived on the coast in 1857

"the disintegration of Indian society was well under way," and that missionaries all over British Columbia brought "a new set of values and beliefs to a demoralized race." (86) The Coast

Tsimshian at Fort Simpson, Murray says, lived in "a demoralized, squabbling and often violent community," and he takes the Coast Tsimshian move to Metlakatla, and their apparent acceptance of Duncan, as evidence that aboriginal groups were no longer able to deal with European settlement along the coast in traditional ways and looked to Duncan for

44 sanctuary. (87)

Such arguments reiterate missionary discourses, but cannot be used to explain Coast Tsimshian motives for moving to Metlakatla. Their motives are exceedingly difficult to reconstruct, especially as Duncan's followers probably left

Fort Simpson for a variety of reasons. Some perhaps had become disheartened by inter-lineage squabbling and drunkenness at Fort Simpson. Many who fled with Duncan may have feared that the smallpox epidemic that had taken

Tsimshian lives in Victoria in the summer of 1862 would spread to Fort Simpson with the returning canoe party. HBC traders claimed that others decided to leave after the epidemic reached Fort Simpson in the autumn of 1862 (although many in this group went to Metlakatla to be inoculated against smallpox by Duncan and then returned to Fort Simpson).

Probably most of Duncan's followers had no compunction about abandoning their ties with the HBC if their material needs could be satisfied as easily elsewhere.

At public meetings in Fort Simpson, Duncan had informed the Coast Tsimshian about the type of settlement he wished to create, and the rules they would have to obey if they left with him. Travellers and government officials who visited

Metlakatla suggested that its Coast Tsimshian population were peaceful, law abiding and industrious. Visitors spoke with

Duncan's brethren on many occasions, and reported that most of

them were grateful to Duncan for his work with them. (88) Duncan told the same story to the readers of missionary journals. Still, the status of these remarks is unclear. Had a Christian state of mind emerged among the Metlakatlan

Tsimshian? What were these Metlakatlans grateful for?

The historian Jean Usher argues that Duncan's military- style company system inadvertantly replaced the functions that

had been informally served by the tribal and crest organisation...[and] that the similarity in function...accounts in large measure for the comprehensiveness of his goals and [the Metlakatlan Tsimshian] ready acceptance of his social organisation. (89)

Duncan insisted that his thirteen "Laws of Metlakatla" were strictly adhered to, but in areas of practical social planning, like the company system, this "similarity of function" may not have been coincidental. The CMS was equivocal about the position that aboriginal chiefs, as the traditional source of social power in aboriginal societies, should take in a Christian settlement. Venn advised his missionaries to treat them with respect. But as Usher points out, chiefs could also be used to maintain social control among aboriginal groups "deprived of the rewards of tribal life, such as the sense of cohesion, [and] the network of people who could be depended upon for aid." (90) Moreover,

Duncan thought that they were important examples of his religious and secular teaching. In spite of the proclamation made to his funding public in 1862 that he had established a

Christian settlement with no tribal distinctions, Duncan did allow Fort Simpson chiefs to retain some of their privileges of rank and status at Metlakatla. The chiefs were incorporated by Duncan into the hierarchy of Metlakatlan government, and shared 50 per cent of the annual village tax.

Usher gathered this information from Duncan's personal diaries which present a different picture from the one in his letters published in missionary journals. Duncan, it seems, compromised more than a few of his ideals about the operation of his Christian village. His civil "laws" may have been obeyed, but important elements of the traditional Coast

Tsimshian system of social organisation based on the acknowledgement of rank and status remained intact.

Usher's analysis is more sophisticated than Murray's, but she makes claims about social change in Coast Tsimshian society that are equally difficult to substantiate. Usher concludes that a 'Christian mind' had emerged at Metlakatla, but does so mainly because the original aim of her study was to show that the Coast Tsimshian "were well able to integrate elements of other cultures into their own life...[and that] their wealth and acquisitiveness also predisposed the[m]...to accept the type of society offered at Metlakatla." (91) The purpose of her study is to show how Integration was achieved.

Integration may have been achieved, but the question then arises: 'Why had integration remained unaccomplished at Fort

Simpson?' Because HBC officials at Fort Simpson were apparently not interested in acculturating their trade

partners, Usher assumes that the development of this

47 "predisposition" among the Coast Tsimshian was Duncan's achievement, and this is attributed "to his intimate knowledge

of the Tsimshian language, culture and behaviour, and to his willingness to adapt many of his ideas to the traditional needs and values of the Tsimshian people." (92) In Usher's

text, then, Duncan maintains his self-disclosed position as

the only possible director of change, and turns Coast

Tsimshian "acquisitiveness" to good use in a "Christian

Utopia." Usher traps herself in a hermeneutical circle and writes of Duncan as if reflecting on what he had just written

in a nineteenth century living room in London.

It is impossible to discuss social change among the

Metlakatlan Tsimshian from missionary narratives without at

the same time discussing how missionaries authored their

texts. I have tried to do this by showing how missionary activity in 'remote' places was wrapped up with a British

philanthropic discourse, and how the one produced and

reproduced the other. The geographies that held the two

together were the means by which the cultural face of

modernising Britain reached north coastal British Columbia.

The geographies underpinning missionary texts have also had a

lasting impact on the way this aspect of nineteenth century

British Columbia has been studied.

Port Essington: property, commerce, and government.

Unlike either Fort Simpson or Metlakatla, Port Essington

48 was conceived within the purview of the Provincial Government.

The HBC's legal title to the land around Fort Simpson only became clearly defined in 1861 when the Colonial Government

(without any negotiated treaty with the Tsimshian) set the territorial limit of its "ownership" at 100 acres. (93) The

territorial extent of Metlakatla's "reserved Indian land" under the stewardship of Duncan and the CMS remained obscure

until fixed by Dominion reserve commissioners in the 1870s.

(94) Port Essington, on the other hand, was pre-empted by

Robert Cunningham, and his application for ownership of the

townsite was immediately regulated by the Provincial Land

Ordinance Act of 1870. (95)

Colonial and then provincial governments claimed legal

title to all unsold land in British Columbia (except a 40 mile

strip of land along the tracks of the Canadian Pacific Railway

(CPR) granted to the Dominion Government as a condition of

Confederation). Ownership of Government land was conveyed to

individuals by Crown Grants upon the satisfaction of a series

of clauses. These clauses varied between 1860 and 1913, but

after the Land Act of 1870, included the following. Land

already surveyed by the Colonial Government could be

purchased, and legal title transferred by a Deed of

Conveyance. Unsurveyed lands could be claimed by pre-emption

- claiming, settling, and improving ungranted land before

buying it. Pre-emptions had to be recorded by letter with the

Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works in Victoria, and pre-

t 49 emption letters had to contain a written description and map of the claim. Pre-emptions could only be made by British male subjects and "aliens" who had taken the Oath of Allegiance.

West of the Cascades, pre-emptions were restricted to 160 acres, and no two claims could be held simultaneously. Then, with proof from a third party that the claimed land had been

improved by $2.50 per acre and that it had been continuously settled by the pre-emptor for two years, a Certificate of

Improvement was issued and title to the land could change hands. (Individuals with new claims on already pre-empted land were also subject to the above procedures.) However, before ownership rights were conveyed, pre-emptors had to have their claim surveyed by a Government official and pay the

Government a dollar per acre in up to four installments. Even then, the Government retained rights to repossess parts of any conveyed land for public purposes - to build roads, gaols, schools and other government offices. (96)

Robert Cunningham pre-empted Port Essington in September of 1871, was issued with a Certificate of Improvement in July of 1873, had the land surveyed in July of 1890, and received a

Crown Grant shortly after. (97)

Pre-emption laws - and other similar procedures for staking mineral and resource claims - were instrumental: attached to the settlement process because of political expediency and not because the Colonial Government believed that the nature of property ownership was of intrinsic

50 significance to the type the settler society that might have

been created in British Columbia. The 1860 Pre-emption Act

was introduced to yield revenue for the Government and to

regulate competition for land along the lower and central

Fraser as traders and settlers sought land in the hope of

supplying the gold rush. On the eve of the Fraser river gold

rush, all Crown land had to be surveyed before it could be

bought, and surveying parties from the Royal Engineers were

dispatched to the region so it might immediately be opened up

for settlement. Government surveys were also an important

source of information about the agricultural potential of the

land, and its resources. During this period, however,

government surveys never kept pace with the demand for land,

and to prevent squatting and unlawful occupance Governor

Douglas was compelled to allow the pre-emption of unsurveyed

land for agricultural purposes for a subsequent price of ten

shillings per acre. Government supervision of land and

resource surveying was also loosened after 1875, when pre-

emptors could hire their own surveyors. (98)

The Colonial Government created separate land policies

for aboriginal groups. From 1858, non-HBC settlers and

aboriginal groups were segregated by a series of legal

sanctions - first around Victoria, and then along the Fraser.

(99) The Colonial Government granted aboriginal groups land

reserves for their sole management and settlement, in the

1860s 10 acres per family, although this amount would vary.

51 Settlers could not pre-empt any part of the reserves, and aboriginal groups were also denied the right to pre-empt reserve or any other land. The Government claimed legal title to all reserved land. If any part of a reserve was abandoned

it immediately reverted to the Government. Aboriginal groups were also forbidden to sell reserve land - although their land holding rights were undefined by the Colonial Office. After

Confederation, aboriginal affairs were administered by

Dominion rather than Provincial officials, and reserves were

laid out more systematically than hitherto had been the case.

Aboriginal reserves were also grouped into "agencies," and

"Indian agents" were appointed to administer and supervise

the property laws devised by Douglas and Bulwar Lytton, the

Colonial Secretary. (100)

Colonial officials claimed that the reserve system was

the best way of preventing the aboriginal groups camped around

Victoria from being "arrayed in vindicative warfare against

the white settlement." (101) Colonial and later Dominion

officials legitimated such policies on social and moral

grounds similar to those expounded by British missionaries.

Aboriginal groups were, by decree, wards of the Government.

In creating reserves under wardship, both Duncan and Douglas

thought they were "protecting" aboriginal groups from covetous

white traders. Duncan also supported the Government's denial

of an aboriginal group's legal title to their land. In a

letter to the Colonial Office in 1860, he told the British

52 Government that Douglas's policy was the most "just" and

"humane" way of "dealing" with aboriginal groups

as they are yet so ignorant and improvident that they cannot safely be trusted with the management or control of landed estate, which if fully conveyed to them, would soon pass into other hands. (102)

This two-tiered system of legal sanctions introduced new modes of demarcation and domination between settlers and aboriginal groups. The missionaries' conception of moral and social deficiency had become institutionalised. Places were now characterised by their position within a legal apparatus that favoured some groups while constraining others. This legal apparatus was also refined, redefined, and reproduced through the landscapes of enablement and constraint that it created and supported throughout British Columbia.

Skeena river settlements were slowly brought within this governmental apparatus. British Columbia's "Superintendent of

Indian Affairs," I.W. Powell, did not visit the north coast until 1879. Most reserves on the Skeena and Nass were not created until the mid-1880s, and the "Northwest Coast Indian

Agency" under the supervision of Charles Todd was not created until 1888. (103) When Cunningham and Henry Soar (a saddlemaker and ex-Royal Engineer from New Westminster) pre• empted adjacent lots on the north arm of the Skeena early in

1870, there was still confusion about whether or not the land had been reserved for the Coast Tsimshian. The Chief

Commissioner of Lands and Works gave Soar permission to settle the land, but only on the condition that it was immediately

53 surveyed and that it "be found not to include any portion of any land held at an Indian settlement previous to this] date

[of pre-emption]." (104) Edgar Dewdney surveyed Soar's pre• emption in September of 1871 while on a surveying trip up the

Skeena for the Department of Lands and Works. (105) But he missed Cunningham's settlement, and it was not surveyed until a Government surveying party led by A.L. Poudrier returned to the Skeena in 1890. (106)

By 1900, however, the settlement pattern of the Skeena region was fully representative of both of these land policies. There were 40-60 pre-empted and Crown granted lots around the mouth of the Skeena River - it is difficult to know precisely how many. (107) Many pre-emptions were clustered around salmon canning sites such as Port Essington (map 2).

Other lots were not settled but used as fishing stations.

Some lots on the islands circumscribing the Skeena river were

used as bases for mining speculation. Only a few of them were

used for farming.

Most Tsimshian reserves were clustered along the banks of

the middle Skeena and lower Nass, and their tributary rivers.

There were few reserves around the mouth of the Skeena (map

2). (108) As elsewhere, these Tsimshian reserves and pre•

empted or Crown granted settlements came under the juridical auspices of different Government bodies. The former were the

responsibility of "Indian Agent" Todd and a number of special

constables; the laws regulating the latter were overseen by provincially appointed magistrates, J.P.s, and police constables. (109)

The anthropologist James McDonald argues that these land policies supported forms of settlement that fundamentally altered the traditional economy and society of the Coast

Tsimshian groups living along the lower and middle Skeena.

(110) The emergence of the salmon canning industry at the mouth of the Skeena from 1876 onwards, he argues, transformed

Coast Tsimshian space-economies into a mere sector of appropriation in a much larger exchange economy. Salmon canners either owned or controlled the best fishing and timber sites in the region, and Coast Tsimshian labour and technology was diverted from "traditional production" (the cycle of hunting, fishing, and gathering) into a "modern economy" of wage labour and material consumption. (Ill) Coast Tsimshian groups were increasingly drawn from the Nass, Fort Simpson, and Metlakatla, to work on fishing and canning contracts in the Skeena canneries.

These bold claims may be defended in schematic ways.

However, the timing, nature, and sequence of change in Coast

Tsimshian economy and society remain far from clear. Salmon canners not only employed Tsimshian fishermen, but until the

1890s also depended on them for their supply of fish (with the employment of Chinese cannery workers, Tsimshian women performing processing tasks on the cannery floors were perhaps relied upon to a lesser degree). All cannery employees were

55 paid money wages, and canners often instigated a truck system by paying wages once every few weeks so that their workers would have to subsist on goods sold in cannery stores at inflated prices. (112) Tsimshian fishing sites on the middle

Skeena were jeopardised as large numbers of fish were trapped by net at the mouth of the river. Yet McDonald's notion of

"appropriation" implies submission, and is probably too strong a term. From the inception of canning operations on the

Skeena, Tsimshian groups contested the alienation and

impoverishment of their fishing grounds, and Interfered with cannery operations. In 1878, the manager of the Windsor cannery, W.H. Dempster, had to pay a Kitkatla chief $100 for the right to fish in a small stream in Petrel Channel (near

Kitkatla village) without interference, and the fishermen were then prevented from fishing if their catch exceeded what the

Kltakatla thought a fair return. In 1879, Dempster, J.W.

McKay (manager of Inverness cannery) and Henry Croasdaile

(from a Nass cannery) wrote to the Attorney General:

We are too weak to hold our own [against the Tsimshian] and unless we are protected we will be obliged to abandon our enterprizes [sic] as under present disabilities they are not remunerative. (113)

The wages offered by canners were rarely accepted without complaint, and strikes often threatened a cannery's seasonal profits. In addition, Tsimshian men and women were only employed by the canneries during the summer months and there was nothing to stop them from collecting and drying fish for

their winter consumption. When the summer salmon runs were

56 poor, opportunistic groups would travel south to work the hop fields around Puget Sound. (114)

British Columbian reserve commissioners were the most niggardly allocators of aboriginal land in Canada, but it is unlikely that the Coast Tsimshian subsistence base had immediately been reduced to the point that they were dependent on a pure money economy. Instead, a two-tiered settlement pattern probably produced a dialectic of constraint and opportunity. Coast Tsimshian groups devised ever more elaborate and extensive - if commodified - wealth creation strategies, and from the 1880s used them selectively to redress the effect of Government aboriginal land policies.

The system of Tsimshian property rights traditionally defined by the principle of usufruct was undoubtedly distorted by the reserve system, and with the banning of the potlatch in 1884 the Provincial Government made a direct assault on the institutional means for the survival of traditional aboriginal economies. Still, the Coast Tsimshian probably remained the most opulent aboriginal group along the coast, and were quick to seize the economic opportunities associated with fishing, canning and freighting around the lower Skeena.

By 1890, Port Essington was the most important node in this non-HBC commercial economy, and the most enduring forms of settler-Coast Tsimshian interaction focussed there. During the 1870s many members of the Kitsumkalum and Kitselas bands from the middle Skeena moved their winter bases to Port

57 Essington. Many more came down river for the summer months.

In the early 1870s they operated Cunningham's freighting and

trading canoes along the Skeena, and from 1883 until the mid-

18903 formed the backbone of his cannery work force.

Salmon canners employed fishers and cannery workers on

labour contracts. Contractual relations stretched far beyond

these modes of economic interaction, however. They were

deeply embedded in the system of property rights depicted

above. Cunningham forged a contractual relationship with the

Kitselas and Kitsumkalum. With the help of his Kitselas

assistant James Robinson, he signed a fideicommissum with the

Kitselas in 1880 for three acres on the westward facing shore

of the settlement. The lot of land was handed over to the

Kitselas for $1 for "their own use for building purposes,"

although under the terms of the agreement the Kitsumkalum were

also permitted to settle there. (115) In November 1881, the

census enumerator recorded 113 Kitsumkalum and Kitselas people

living in Port Essington; Cunningham's "private reserve" had

become a winter village as well as a residence for summer

workers. (116)

Land contracts in Port Essington were not restricted to

those with the Kitsumkalum and Kitselas. Churches and

entrepreneurs had to go through Cunningham to either lease or

buy land in Port Essington. Methodist missionaries began

working among the Tsimshian at Port Essington in 1876, and the

CMS and SPG appointed a full-time Anglican preacher to work

58 among the town's Tsimshian, European, and Chinese groups in

1884. (117) Cunningham granted both missionary organisations small parcels of land upon which to build churches by deed of gift involving a nominal legal transaction of $1. (118)

Under the system of property rights associated with the pre-emption laws, Cunningham was in a strong position to shape

the commercial development of Port Essington. The 1881 census

listed only seven "whites" in the town, five of whom were members of the Cunningham family. However, during 1880s

Cunningham promoted settlement and business in his town by

leasing and selling property, and by 1991 Port Essington's

sedentary population was made up of 22 Chinese and 5 Japanese,

133 Coast Tsimshian, and 38 "white" settlers (appendix 1).

(119) The Chinese and Japanese in Port Essington worked in

Cunningham's cannery and the British American Packing

Company's "Boston" cannery - built in 1883, the land being

sold to its American operators in 1891 when Cunningham had

been Crown granted the Port Essington townsite. (120) The 38

European, American and Canadian settlers included cannery

foremen, clerks, accountants and fishermen, but also a number

of independent merchants - coopers, blacksmiths, boat

builders, store and hotel proprietors, and a handful of

farmers.

Cunningham died in 1905, but by 1912 his company - R.

Cunningham & Son, Ltd., now run by his son George - had

developed a large real estate business worth nearly $50,000.

59 (121) Robert Cunningham owned a bar, hotel and restaurant, and

supported the town's commercial growth by encouraging the establishment of other businesses, shops and hotels. By 1900

Port Essington was not only an important salmon canning town, but also the chief provisioning and distribution centre for

Coast Tsimshian settlements and canneries along the lower

Skeena. Its sedentary population never rose much above 500,

but around the turn of the century during the height of the summer salmon runs the town swelled to over 5,000 people - the

largest population of any settlement along the mainland coast

of British Columbia north of Vancouver.

Contractual relations in the town were not always

harmonious. In 1886 Cunningham denounced his agreement with

the Kitselas and tried to regain the "private reserve" land

(it is not known why). Both the Kitselas and Kitsumkalum

appealed to Indian Agent Todd to fight Cunningham's claim on

their behalf, but as their land was never a Dominion

Government reserve Todd could do little; the matter passed to

Provincial courts. With community funds, the Port Essington

Kitselas employed a lawyer to fight their case against

Cunningham in the Supreme Court in Victoria. Cunningham lost

the case and the land was retained. The details of the decision no longer exist, but the three acre lot was probably

returned to the two bands under a ruling that specified a

breach of contract, even though the Kitselas's claim to legal

title of the land was denied. (122)

60 Then, in 1902, the Anglican church was drawn into a legal and political battle between Cunningham and his main commercial competitor in Port Essington, Peter Herman. Herman had purchased lots or land from Cunningham on the Port

Essington water front in 1898 to build a salmon cannery. As

Herman expanded his cannery work force in the following few years, he required more land to construct housing for his

Tsimshian, Chinese, and Japanese employees. Cunningham refused to sell or lease any more land, and Herman appealed to the Anglican church, which occupied the adjacent lot, to either lease or sell their now unoccupied land to him. Port

Essington's Anglican priest, Benjamin Appleyard, sympathised with Herman and supported the intended transaction, writing to his Bishop that he felt

a strong predisposition in favour of Herman, ...[who], guided by interested motives, employed married people as much as possible...[which] led to an improvement in the social and religious life of Essington, [in comparison with Cunningham, who]...employed men who were likely to spend their earnings in drink. (123)

Upon Appleyard's advice, the Bishop leased the land to Herman for $125 per annum, but the indenture was blocked by

Cunningham who argued that the lease was legally disputable.

The lands in question had been leased to a commercial rival, and by 1900 were among the most valuable in the town.

(124) Cunningham fought his case against the church on the grounds that under his deed of gift the land had been given

"for the use of the Church of England for ever, and for no other purpose whatsoever." (125) And the Diocese fought the injunction on the basis of the first half of this clause: namely, that if the church had been given the land "for ever" then it could no longer be Cunningham's.

The church won the battle, leased the land to Herman, and the theretofore approximate boundaries of their property were

finally fixed by a Government approved survey. The incident reflected unfavourably on the Anglican church, and shortly after Appleyard resigned and returned to England. Once back

in England, Appleyard expressed his resentment at Cunningham's overbearing status in the settlement, writing to his Bishop that

Cunningham owned all the property at Essington and all who lived at the place were more or less under his influence. Herein was the chief difficulty as far as I was concerned: men feared him and his will was law ...land] the life Cunningham led and the things he encouraged were, and I still believe are, the greatest difficulties in the spiritual advancement of the Church people at Essington. (126)

Property and labour contract disagreements did not automatically go through the Supreme Court in Victoria. The

spread of settlement in post-Confederation British Columbia was coterminous with the expansion of the Provincial juridical apparatus. Individuals and groups could have their complaints heard and adjudicated by stipendiary magistrates and J.P.s., employed by the Provincial Government for between two and twelve months a year. Stipendiary magistrates in the Skeena region resided at either Metlakatla or Fort Simpson, but from

the late 1880s made trips to Port Essington at least three

times a month. By 1906, Skeena river settlers could draw upon

62 a County Court system, based in the new town of Prince Rupert.

Officials of canning and lumber companies - and between 1908 and 1914, the contractors of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway - were brought to County Court by groups of (especially)

Chinese and Japanese workers for non-payment of wages; in nine cases out of ten the court's decision favoured the workers rather than the employer. (127)

These examples of conflict between Cunningham and the

Kitselas, Cunningham and the Anglican church, and of the resolution of worker wage grievances, indicate that in late nineteenth century settlements such as Port Essington, alliances and disagreements between different individuals, groups, and institutions were increasingly mediated by the

legal apparatus of the government. (128) Disagreements between the HBC and Tsimshian in Fort Simpson had been resolved by on- the-spot negotiation and conciliation. Conflict at Metlakatla was always resolved through Duncan's system of civil rules and

laws. But in Port Essington - and many other new settlements

in British Columbia - people increasingly drew upon the nascent resources of the juridical process to resolve difficulties, and it was by their actions and suits that the

Provincial and Dominion governments came to define more clearly its range of contract and property laws. As soon as people entered Port Essington and numerous other pre-empted

settlements, they became bound up in a world of contracts and

legal sanctions: these new settler communities were being

63 produced and reproduced by an increasingly sharply defined system of legal-contractual obligations. << >>

Earlier geographies of trade and religion were redefined

in this late nineteenth century institutional configuration.

The historian Clarence Bolt argues that the Fort Simpson

Tsimshian - now living in single family dwellings in a town that in its morphological structure bore many resemblances to

Port Essington - allied with Crosby rather than the HBC in the hope that he might influence the Dominion reserve commissioners in their favour. (129) When Todd arrived in the

Skeena region to take charge of the Northwest Coast Agency he declared that he was

very well received and welcomed by both Indians and white settlers, with the exception of the Fort Simpson Indians and such of the Nass River Indians as are under the teaching and influence of Messrs. Crosby and Green. (130)

"One of the main reasons why the [Fort Simpson Tsimshian] had

converted [to Christianity]," argues Bolt, "was their hope

that by forsaking their past they would acquire full Canadian

citizenship along with its material, political and social

rights." (131) Crosby was, however, largely powerless in

government circles, and when this became recognised by his

Tsimshian followers his actions on their behalf were deemed

pejorative, and his form of "mosaic rule" weakened.

Duncan also tried to defend Tsimshian lands from the

encroachment of settlement, for Tsimshian procurement grounds

64 formed the commercial basis of his community's economic autonomy. But during the 1880s he could do little to influence the two architects of Provincial and Dominion aboriginal land policies, Joseph Trutch and Dr. John Helmcken.

He also found it increasingly difficult to prevent his converts from working and trading in the "contemptible" salmon canneries around the Skeena, and the Chiefs on his

Village Council tried to short circuit Duncan's authoritative structures by themselves making direct appeals to the new

"white Chiefs" from the reserve commission.

In Port Essington, the missionary ideal of increasing and guiding aboriginal autonomy was never effected. Port

Essington's first full time Methodist missionary, W.H. Pierce, led a Kitselas council of elders in the town, and formulated a systems of by-laws similar to those fashioned at Fort Simpson by Crosby, for the self-government of the Kitselas private reserve. (132) This system probably worked for a short period during the late 1870s, but became weaker as the settlement grew. Anglican as well as Methodist missionaries could do little to prevent their brethren from working in the two canneries on the Sabbath, or from leaving the settlement whenever they pleased. Port Essington was established as a secular community, where social, political and economic relations were implicated in much wider structures of power, and in much more extensive modes of exchange. Coast

Tsimshian, European, Chinese, and Japanese groups all - in

65 varying numbers - attended church on a Sunday and sometimes in the week, but for most of the time the majority of them were either engaged in business pursuits or worked as wage

labourers on contracts. Church life was one form of

socialisation among others.

Government representatives - in the form of constables, and magistrates - were usually welcomed by Port Essington's entrepreneurial community. In fact, a few of them became salaried officials who carried on their duties in conjunction with their business pursuits. It is difficult to measure the effectiveness of law enforcement in Port Essington, but the means of law enforcement were certainly close to hand, and so

eliminated the need to report incidents and file complaints

via the time consuming mail system along the coast. In

contrast, the Anglican and Methodist churches, which had few

means at their disposal with which to uphold their own

precepts about what constituted a "lawful" or "peaceful"

community, would either bemoan the lack of effective means to

enforce the law at Port Essington, or charge resident

officials and the government with inefficiency. (133)

End remarks on the Skeena region.

After these descriptions of three very different

settlements some might argue that the notion of a lower Skeena

region is arbitrary. Company, church and government in

British Columbia have usually been studied separately, and the

66 settlements that each either created or supported in the

Skeena region might simply be taken as North Coast examples of widespread ideas and practices. What, however, 'makes' the

Skeena a 'region', and not several exemplars, is that in their differing ways, through different means, and for different purposes, different institutions brought non-aboriginal traders, church people, and settlers into contact with the

Coast Tsimshian. Fort Simpson, Metlakatla, and Port Essington were also within easy access of one another by water. The

Skeena region was a Coast Tsimshian invention, not mine. It was re-invented at least three times during the nineteenth century, and this study aims to reverse the centrifugal momentum of those re-inventions.

I have attempted to show how seemingly isolated and disconnected parts of the world - such as the North Coast of

British Columbia - are implicated in a series of social processes, ideologies, and organisational networks that tie them to other regions and other parts of the world. Regions, as much as societies, are not bounded totalities. Nor do they develop freely with a momentum and character entirely their own. They are made up of multiple historical geographies. I have attempted to delineate only three of those geographies here, by documenting how and why Company, church and government constituted Coast Tsimshian groups as objects and subjects of knowledge and power. More problematically, I have attempted to sketch in some of the forms of interaction,

67 alliance, and opposition that these constructions entailed.

Fort Simpson, Metlakatla, and Port Essington have been contrasted more than compared to illustrate how different the historical geographies of one region can be. To show how, in the words of Michel Foucault, "we live inside a set of relations that delineates sites which are irreducible to one another and absolutely not superimposable on one another."

(134) The discourses by which these settlements have been characterised could never be "superimposable" because they can only ever be seen - and, more importantly, be distinguished - through the geographies that they create. Discourses and

institutions are not only represented in. space, but are also constituted through the geographies that they conceive.

The discourse of commercial monopoly was not simply distinguished by a set of trading practices and associated vocabulary, but was also produced by a geography of procurement. There was a HBC discourse of commercial monopoly without Fort Simpson; but without the many HBC posts of which

Fort Simpson was a part, there was not. Missionaries such as

Duncan were not simply products of a British Imperial age, for their accounts of distant places and the people who inhabited them defined some of the ideas by which that "age" can be and has been distinguished, and the forms of knowledge and power that it generated. There was a discourse of evangelical- humanitarianism without Metlakatla; but without the many other missionary settlements like Metlakatla around the world, there

68 was not. Property and contract laws are two of the distinguishing features of modern, secular societies. In

British Columbia they became elaborated by colonial, provincial, and dominion governments in conjunction with the spread of settlement, competition for land, and the

introduction of new modes of employment. To say that these governments 'needed' laws to regulate the spread of settlement has some dangerous theoretical and political implications.

Functionalist modes of reasoning conceal the relations of domination upon which the logic of their arguments rest.

However, the settler geographies through which these policies became clarified were also used by government officials to justify the placement of aboriginal groups on reserves.

Government discourses on aboriginal peoples in British

Columbia were not just the creation of politicians in Ottawa and Victoria; they were also constituted by a series of spatial practices. The principle of aboriginal reserves was created before Robert Cunningham pre-empted Port Essington and salmon canners took the salmon running up the Skeena away from

Coast Tsimshian groups; but Skeena river reserves were not created until the Skeena region had first been settled by people like Cunningham.

All knowledge has visible and articulable elements. The former might be called geographies; the latter discourses.

They suspend each other in language, and in relation to this study, in historical documents. All language is shot through

69 with relations of power. All power relations are conceived in

space. The relationships between power and knowledge cannot do without their geographies.

70 PART II

PORT ESSINGTON, 1871-1920: A MINIATURE BRITISH COLUMBIA.

Introduction.

On a tour of the lower Skeena River settlements during the summer of 1907, the district's M.P., William Sloan, described Port Essington as "a miniature British Columbia."

(1) Indeed, Cunningham's settlement bore many of the characteristics of British Columbia's fin de siecle economy and society. It was an important commercial centre, distribution point and salmon canning site in a British

Columbian space-economy that was no longer dominated by the collection and distribution of furs through HBC forts, but now hinged on the extraction and processing of primary resources -

mainly fish, lumber, and minerals. Changes in the economic structure of the town between 1871 and 1920 also attest to the emergence of Vancouver as the main centre of commercial and financial organisation in the province. The salmon canneries that dominated Port Essington from the 1880s brought together peoples of widely differing national cultural backgrounds.

Many of the cultural cleavages and tensions in British

Columbia's late twentieth century multicultural society have their roots in places like Port Essington.

This chapter is divided into three main sections. The first deals with the establishment of Port Essington, its pre- salmon canning space-economy, and the HBC's interest in the lower Skeena. The second discusses the reorganisation of the

71 lower Skeena space-economy around the salmon canning industry, roughly between 1880 and 1920, and highlights some of the regional, international and local relations that revolved around the three canneries in Port Essington. The third considers the forms of economic and social life that were hedged around Port Essington's canneries, and how provincial police constables monitored the social and seasonal life of the town.

1. Robert Cunningham and the Victoria business community.

"Ho! For the Skeena."

This was the headline in the British Colonist for

February 21, 1871, as the HBC ship Otter sailed for the Skeena region with trade supplies, and gold mining prospectors bound for the interior. Early in 1869, Fort Simpson fur traders heard of a major gold strike by a Norwegian prospector in the

Omineca region (northwest of the Cariboo), and others discoveries in the same area soon followed. Most of those bound for the Omineca from the south travelled via the Fraser river, but many came up the coast to the Skeena, navigable when the ice melted In spring. (2)

Cunningham was then employed by the,HBC, and requested his superiors at Fort Victoria to establish a HBC store at the mouth of the Skeena to equip the prospectors. (3) His suggestion was dismissed, and after being refused a pay rise - but also with his own commercial ideas now in mind - he left

72 the HBC in November of 1870. (4) He had previously written to the Colonial Office to pre-empt land on the north Skeena passage (now Inverness Passage), but his application was withheld until the government had obtained "more exact

information as to the locality." (5) Meanwhile, Henry Soar was permitted to establish a settlement on the same site under a

Military Grant from the Government, and employed W.H.

Woodcock, a prospector from California, to run a store. Many

of the prospectors who came up the coast in the winter of 1870 stayed at "Woodcock's Landing" instead of Fort Simpson, and

Woodcock sold most of his stock. (6)

Cunningham pursued his pre-emption claim in partnership with Thomas Hankin (another former HBC employee), and was

permitted to occupy a site adjacent to "Woodcock's Landing" in

December of 1870. (7) Cunningham and Hankin brought goods from

Victoria on the Otter, bought four canoes from the Coast

Tsimshian, and established an outfitting store on the site.

In the winter of 1870-1 they supplied 20 or so prospectors

with mining equipment and clothes, and in April took them up

the Skeena in their canoes. (8) The canoes carried two tons of

freight each and were operated by Tsimshian guides who charged

$1 a day plus food for their services. (9) Much like Fort

Simpson - although on a much smaller scale - Cunningham and

Hankin's "Skeenamouth" site depended on the supply of fresh

food from Coast Tsimshian groups. During the winter, some

Coast Tsimshian (how many is not known) congregated around the

73 store hoping to gain employment as canoe operators, but many more came offering fresh deer at $1-$1.50, and halibut at 75 cents each. (10).

Writing to his Chief Commissioner in the summer of 1871,

the Department of Land and Works' surveyor on the Skeena,

Edgar Dewdney, enthused about developing the Skeena route to

the interior. "Should the Omineca District turn out as rich and extensive as it promises," he wrote,

private enterprise will no doubt stock the line with steamers, [and] both emigration and supplies must inevitably follow that line, the land travel on the Skeena route, to the same point on the Fraser River Route, being 60 miles against 464. (11)

Earlier that year, the Department of Lands and Works had

awarded Cunningham and Hankin the contract (and Woodcock the

construction work) to cut Dewdney's 60 mile trail between

Hazelton and Babine Lake. (12) If excited by the new Skeena

route, Dewdney was more equivocal about Cunningham and

Hankin's immediate prospects for trade, informing his

employers that "Many merchants [meaning Cunningham, Hankin,

and Woodcock] are waiting to see what chances there will be of

forwarding goods by this route before sending their orders

below for their winter stocks..." (13) A number of ships

brought prospectors north again in the summer of 1871, but

they anchored at the confluence of the Skeena and Ecstall

river on the southern banks of the Skeena's mouth - at a rocky

point named by Captain Vancouver "Port Essington" - taking

trade away from Cunningham's and Woodcock's stores. (14)

74 Cunningham and two associates - captain Lewis of the Otter, and Mr. Bacon - were prompted to undertake a survey of the

lower Skeena River in search of a more accessible settlement,

and they soon decided on Port Essington. (15)

Under the circumstances, a move to Port Essington could

only improve Cunningham's trading prospects, and in July of

1871 he pre-empted a 160 acre lot around the point and moved

his store. Dewdney did not think much of the decision. "I am

unable to see that [Port Essington] had any advantage over the

other [place]," he reported, "as it is exposed to south west

gales and report says closed by ice in the winter." (16) The

Canadian Pacific Railway's surveyor in northern British

Columbia, Charles Horetzky, described Port Essington as "a

miserable swamp, backed by precipitous mountains, and having a

shoal and poor harbour..." (17)

Whatever the merits of Dewdney and Horetzky's case,

Cunningham was now away from the commercial influence of

"Woodcock's Landing," and developed a freight and provisioning

trade connecting his new settlement with the newly-constructed

Cunningham and Hankin store in Hazelton. Lumber had been

landed at Port Essington in June, and large stocks of trade

supplies (including mining equipment) were brought from

Victoria on the Otter soon after. (18) Cunningham's Kitselas

assistant, James Robinson, erected a store on the new site,

and with Tsimshian crews ready and willing to operate his

canoes Cunningham advertised his new "facilities" in

75 Victoria. On three trips between September and November of

1871, the Otter brought 330 gold prospectors to Port Essington while only 160 disembarked at "Woodcock's Landing," and of the

81 people travelling north the following April, 60 stayed at

Port Essington - now with a restaurant and bar. (19)

To compete with Cunningham, the HBC renewed its interest

in the Skeena after a three year quiescence in the area. Fort

Simpson's Chief Trader, William Manson, had established a post at Hagwilget (Hazelton), and one on the Nass, in September of

1866. The HBC hoped to intercept furs being brought down the two rivers by Coast Tsimshian traders to the whiskey traders on the coast, and to supply the HBC's interior posts from

Hazelton. (20) Cunningham managed the Nass post, and Hankin the one at Hazelton. (21) Both posts proved unprofitable and

Cunningham and Hankin were recalled to Fort Simpson early in

1869. (22) Yet almost immediately upon Cunningham's pre•

emption of Port Essington, James Grahame - the Chief Factor of

the HBC's Western Department with headquarters at Victoria - acquired land from his ex-employee to establish a trade post.

He explained why in a report to William Armit in Montreal in

September of 1871:

From Bella Bella we proceeded on to the mouth of the Skeena River, where there is a large assemblage of Indians who have this season received quite an amount of money from parties employing them to navigate that River. These Indians properly belong to Fort Simpson but the influx of white men, reaching to the mines, has drawn them to the Skeena River, and two rival towns are laid out there around which the Indians congregate [Port Essington and "Woodcock's Landing"], and the trading places that have been opened have been making large

76 sales to them for money, and also receiving what furs they have. I found Port Essington the most eligible of the two places for business, and obtaining from the parties who pre-empted the land there, a written engagement to confirm to the Company, as soon as the Government granted a title to the land, three conservative lots of 60 x 120 feet each, in consideration of our opening a store there. I made arrangements to put up a small stock of goods, which I fully expect will be turned to good account, and save for us a portion of the business that has left Fort Simpson. (23)

Grahame hoped that the new HBC store under Matthew Feak would successfully compete with Cunningham, and earn them an easy profit, for "The business that has so far sprung up there," he claimed,

is created, not by the fact that valuable gold fields have been discovered at Omineca, but because report has taken so many men there in hopes of finding gold, that the wants of these men alone make business. (24)

In the longer term, and "provided the mines turn out to be rich," Grahame tentatively regarded Port Essington as a base from which to re-establish a HBC trade network up the Skeena and a supply route to the interior. He estimated that while supplying the Omineca via the Fraser cost the Company 40 cents per pound, the route via the Skeena would only cost them 17 cents, and strongly urged Armit to put "at least one" steamer on the lower Skeena to connect with the Otter. (25)

The Omineca gold rush waned in the mid-1870s, and

Grahame's recommendations were not acted upon. Woodcock's store closed in 1873 and the land changed hands. (26) By the late 1870s, the stream of prospectors that had stayed at Port

Essington was reduced to a trickle of miners passing through

77 the town on their way back to Victoria. (27) In 1877, Chief

Factor Charles withdrew Feak, and transferred the HBC's

remaining goods to Fort Simpson. (28) During the 1870s, the

HBC did supply its northern interior posts via the Skeena.

But in 1872 a hostile Kitselas group blocked the passage of

HBC traders and goods through the middle Skeena, and by the

time goods were advanced by this route again, in 1875, HBC

officials in Victoria estimated that their established Fraser

river route via Yale was the least expensive. (29) The HBC did make some money at Port Essington by charging Cunningham

inflated freight rates for bringing his goods from Victoria on

the Otter. But its small store probably could not compete

with Cunningham's diverse array of goods, and many of the furs

brought down the Skeena were being taken past Port Essington

directly to Victoria. (30)

Credit lines to the north.

On a tour of the lower Skeena in the summer of 1874, the

Anglican missionary, Robert Tomlinson, described Port

Essington as "one of those mushroom towns started at the time

of the gold excitement some three years ago, and now almost

deserted except for a few traders." (31) Although Cunningham

was granted a Certificate of Improvement in 1873, very little

of the site was cleared in the 1870s and the "few traders"

referred to by Tomlinson were nearly all Cunningham's family.

Trade in Cunningham's Port Essington store declined during the

78 1870s (see below), but Cunningham continued to trade and built a sawmill at the south end of the town in the late 1870s. (32)

With Feak's departure, Cunningham was the main European,trader on the lower Skeena, and Port Essington became the chief entrepot for non-HBC merchandise travelling from the coast to

Hazelton and the interior. Cunningham's trade was underpinned by a set of economic relations similar to the ones drawn upon by Duncan at Metlakatla, but quite different from those supporting the HBC's coastal trade.

During the 1850s the HBC's trade monopoly on Vancouver

Island had become fragile. Independent entrepreneurs and companies based in Victoria (and some in New Westminster) received goods from the west coast of North America and HBC supply ships from Great Britain, and competed with the Company to provision aboriginal groups and settlers. The spread of settlement into the interior and up the coast during the 1860s and 1870s was facilitated by an expanding network of commission accounts and non-HBC suppliers. Farmsteaders, ranchers and settlers relied on the credit offered by commission merchants in Victoria to start businesses, buy supplies, and invest in machinery and buildings. (33)

Cunningham and Hankin received goods on credit from over 30 merchants, dealers, and commission agents in Victoria (for a select citation, see appendix 2). Their partnership ended around 1876, but throughout the 1870s they both held a bank- cum-credit account with one of Victoria's largest merchants,

79 R.P. Rithet. (34)

TABLE 1

(a) Total Credits and Debits ($), Cunningham and Hankin Account, July 1871 - Sept. 1874. (35)

Credits Debits 1871 (July - Dec.) 380 1,456 1872 17,087 17,863 1873 19,660 21,207 1874 11,279 13,015

(b) Itemised Credits and Debits ($), Cunningham Account, 1878 and 1879. (36)

Credits Debits 1878 5,809 7,675 1879 8,363 8,416

(c) Itemised Credits and Debits ($), Hankin Account, March - Oct. 1878, March - Nov. 1879. (37)

Credits Debits 1878 1,271 1,609 1879 810 2,457

It can be seen from Table 1 that Cunningham and Hankin's debits always outstripped their bank deposits (credits).

Their trade at "Skeenamouth," Port Essington, and Hazelton

relied on the monetary credit offered by Rithet and other

Victoria merchants. The itemised entries in Rithet's "Cash

Books" illustrate how this credit system worked. The goods

taken on credit by Cunningham and Hankin were paid for either

by cash (from their account(s) with Rithet) or, more usually,

by personal cheques and money orders. With an unreliable

postal service, and no telegraph or sub-banking system

connecting Victoria and the Skeena, they had to make trips to

80 Victoria every 2-3 months to renew merchandising orders, deposit the extent of their Port Essington and Hazelton earnings in their account(s), and pay off parts of their credit bills.

Cunningham and Hankin nearly always paid off credit bills

in blocks of 10-15 separate amounts, 4 or 5 times a year.

This cycle of block payments might suggest that they were

bound by agreements with groups of creditors to pay back a

certain percentage of their debt at fixed times of the year.

It is not known whether any agreements were ever signed, but

on a close inspection of the "Cash Books" this seems unlikely.

Although cash and cheque payments were made on a regular

basis, Cunningham and Hankin only made them if they had been

preceded by a covering deposit two or three days before. The

"Cash Books" do not reveal how much Cunningham and Hankin owed

to their 30 or so suppliers at any one time, but it appears

that while Rithet allowed them to run a $l,000-plus overall

account debt (and in the late 1870s larger individual debts),

he insisted that deposits and payments were made in tandem.

Their merchandising creditors, however, seemed more flexible.

The balance for 1878-9 indicates that Cunningham could almost

cover his debts on a yearly basis; by 1879 Hankin probably

could not and relied on the leniency of his creditors. (38)

This credit system afforded Cunningham and Hankin some

leeway in overcoming the commercial risks involved with the

isolated, seasonal, and sometimes unpredictable cycles of

81 trade on the Skeena. With assured credit in Victoria,

Cunningham could guarantee a regular supply of commodities in his Port Essington store, and could make the most of trading opportunities on the Skeena whenever they appeared.

The termination of Cunningham and Hankin's credit accounts would have made little overall difference to the profit margins of their Victoria suppliers. Nevertheless, the economic success of these merchants depended on people like

Cunningham in the strings of new settlements throughout

British Columbia. There have been few studies of how, or if, these credit lines changed the nature of commercial capitalism in British Columbia, but Cunningham and Hankin's dealings in

Victoria certainly attest to its changing geography.

Schematically, this seemed to happen. As the number of commission merchants and dealers in Victoria increased proportionally more quickly than the settler population of

Vancouver Island, there was a tendency for individual profit rates to fall (assuming that settler incomes stayed the same).

To forestall this tendency - and thereby to reproduce their independent circuits of commodity exchange - Victoria merchants sought new clients on the mainland. Mainland trade was dispersed and sometimes seasonal, however, and merchants could only sustain their new markets by widening and deepening circuits of credit and indebtedness. Whatever the reasons why Victoria's merchants extended lines of credit, what might be conceived as a fortunate series of business ties

82 built up by Cunningham, perhaps through personal connections, were part of the reproduction of a much wider system of capital accumulation. Port Essington was produced and sustained by these nascent circuits of non-HBC commodity exchange spinning away from Victoria in an ever widening arch as much as by an entrepreneur who re-oriented economic activity on the lower Skeena river.

While the goods Cunningham received on credit in Victoria were always paid for with money, at Port Essington he exchanged many goods for gold dust, and at the end of the

TABLE 2

Proceeds ($) from the exchange and sale of furs and gold dust (including minerals), Jan. 1872 - Sept. 1874 (Cunningham and Hankin), 1878 and 1879 (Cunningham). (39)

(a) Gold Dust (b) Furs 1872: 121 1872: 100 }marten skins 81 1872-4: 9,000 ? (40) 1,227 2. 069 1879: 419 }From L & J- 3.498 (total) 75 }-Boscowitz 1873: 1,008 340 }seal furs 2.903 283 }From HBC 3.911 (total) 1,766 }From Boscowitz 1874: 1,280 2.883 (total) 116 /silver 1.396 (total)

1878: 368 126 9 }quartz 229 1,300 178 2.210 (total) 1879: 88 115 }silver 203 (total)

83 decade, for furs. If Tables 1 and 2 are compared, it can be

i seen that during the 1870s few commodities were bought at Port

Essington with cash. In 1872 and 1873, over 20 per cent of

Cunningham and Hankin's total receipts came from the proceeds of gold dust sold to the Bank of British Columbia in Victoria.

(41) And in 1879, nearly 35 per cent of Cunningham's total receipts came from the sale of furs that had either been exchanged for commodities or bought with cash (as Grahame

suggests) in his Port Essington store. For any recorded year during the 1870s, cash made up less than 10 per cent of

Cunningham's total deposits in his account with Rithet. Of course, he may have simply kept the cash proceeds of his sales

in Port Essington and used them to buy other commodities. It seems as likely that Cunningham operated a two-tiered trade,

paying for goods brought from Victoria with dollars, and assessing the price of these goods in his store in ounces of gold and numbers of pelts. As neither Cunningham nor Hankin owned any sizeable gold claim in the interior, most of their gold dust came from travelling prospectors and miners heading south with their earnings. The details of Cunningham's fur transactions are unclear, but it is probable that the Coast

Tsimshian trading or living at Port Essington still bartered

furs for European goods.

The figures in Table 2(a) show that receipts from gold dust fell between 1874 and 1878 as the gold rush faded, but do

not reveal either how much gold and how many furs were

84 accumulated separately by Cunningham and Hankin, or how

Cunningham and Hankin experienced this decline in their separate locations. Table 1 and Rithet's "Cash Books" give a better impression. After their partnership ended,

Cunningham's Port Essington store clearly outshone Hankin's

Hazelton operations in terms of trading receipts. The dates of deposit in Hankin's independent account in 1878-9 (roughly,

March-September) suggest that trade around his Hazelton shop was always far more seasonal than in Cunningham's river mouth location. In December and January few ships could reach Port

Essington because of ice flows on the river, but Hazelton was cut off from the coast for over 5 months a year. It is likely, therefore, that even from the inception of their partnership, Cunningham was doing more trade - from miners and otherwise - than Hankin. Hypothetically at least, it can be argued that between 1872 and 1879 trade in Hazelton declined by 70 per cent while that in Port Essington declined by only 50 per cent. (42) Because Hazelton was more isolated than Port Essington, Hankin was hit harder than Cunningham by the decline in trade in the 1870s. This interpretation may also be supported by analysing the composition of trade in the

"Cash Books." By the late 1870s, gold dust constituted less than 20 per cent of Cunningham's total earnings. He now had a sawmill, and dealt in a wide variety of commodities, including

Tsimshian artefacts as well as furs. (43) Hankin, on the other hand, had not diversified his trade - whether this had been

85 possible or not - and his 1878 gold dust sales of $1,146 constituted over 90 per cent of his total earnings. (44)

Rithet's figures end in 1879, but the economic fortunes of Cunningham and Hankin moved even further apart during the

1880s. Hankin lost trade around Hazelton as more entrepreneurs (including the HBC), established new stores there. (45) Cunningham's store, on the other hand, continued

to dominate the commerce of Port Essington, and with the construction of two salmon canneries in the town in 1883 and the development of a shipping business, Cunningham's earnings grew considerably.

<< >>

Knowing Cunningham's trade network, the space-economy of

the lower Skeena between 1834 and 1880 can be more sharply defined.

Patterns of trade were characterised by three space- economies. The first - and the least understood - revolved around the subsistence and trade practices of north coastal aboriginal groups. The Coast Tsimshian traded furs at Fort

Simpson, Port Essington, and Metlakatla. They, along with

other aboriginal groups, also traded foodstuffs at these

places, and from the late 1860s operated canoes taking goods and people up the Skeena. (46) At the same time, the Coast

Tsimshian traded with Europeans and other aboriginal groups along the mainland coast as far south as Washington, and

therefore were not wholly dependent on trade in these northern

86 settlements. (47)

The second revolved around the fur trade of the HBC. The

Company operated three interconnected exchange and marketing networks along the British Columbia coast, but of all its coastal posts, Fort Simpson was the one most geared to the export of furs to London. The furs collected by the Coast

Tsimshian were nearly always exchanged at the fort site and were bartered for HBC trade goods. Trade goods were brought from Britain to the southern British Columbian coast and then shipped north along with produce from the HBC's coastal farms.

Fort Simpson's trade was supervised by Chief Factors at Fort

Vancouver and then at Fort Victoria. Its fur exports were given a monetary value by HBC officials in Eastern Canada and

London. The Coast Tsimshian collected furs over half of northern British Columbia and brought them to Fort Simpson.

The HBC accrued an average yearly profit of 300 pounds from

Fort Simpson; an amount equal to the yearly dividend payments made to the HBC's larger shareholders in London. (48)

The third was associated with Cunningham and Duncan, and operated independently of the HBC. As with the fur trade at

Fort Simpson, the goods exchanged at Port Essington and

Metlakatla usually originated beyond the coastal area

(especially at Port Essington). As independent operators, the wealth they created was not siphoned off to foreign shareholders but was used to improve their means of trade, and to up-grade the facilities of their new settlements. Duncan

87 was probably the first European trader in the region to use money as a form of payment. Cunningham, Hankin, and Woodcock, who employed far fewer Coast Tsimshian than Duncan at this time, also began to use money as a medium of exchange. Yet money was only one form of exchange among others on the lower

Skeena, and Cunningham (at least) exchanged many goods for gold and furs. This local trade network was underpinned by a series of exchange relations with independent merchants. The majority of trade goods exchanged in Cunningham's store, and many of those sold in Metlakatla, were received on credit from

Victoria. Traders at Fort Simpson also ran a store, but

Cunningham and Duncan took much of their trade. With large and diverse stocks of European goods, Duncan could meet the material needs and wants of the Metlakatlan Tsimshian, and

Cunningham was well located to trade with aboriginal groups and passing miners. His creditors usually demanded cash payments and so he had to sell his gold dust to banks in

Victoria and his furs to dealers.

From the late 1870s a fourth space-economy, associated with salmon canning, emerged on the lower Skeena. It bore some of the characteristics of the HBC's operations, being to a degree exploitative, and premised on the procurement of a staple product. In others ways it broadened Cunningham and

Duncan's economic strategy: most salmon canneries were established with funds from Victoria and, later, from outside the province, and they ushered in a thoroughly modern economy

88 of wage labour and money contracts.

2. Port Essington and the salmon canning industry.

British Columbia's early salmon canning industry is very partially understood. (50) Little is known about some of its most important features - the ways canneries were financed and managed, and the nature of their markets. Particular canneries, such as those at Port Essington, cannot be analysed apart from some of the general features of the industry. Yet the written record of the canning industry at Port Essington is sparse. There is an abundance of aggregate data on salmon canning, but very little on individual canneries, and even less about the people they employed. Still, some comment is possible; here I wish to focus on three sets of geographical

(rather than purely industrial) relations that seem most pertinent to the changing economic structure of Port Essington and the lower Skeena between about 1880 and 1920.

Victoria. Vancouver, and the economic management of

Port Essington.

Between 1876 and 1883, six salmon canneries were constructed on the lower Skeena river (map 3). Cunningham and

Duncan opened two of them - at Port Essington (1883) and

Metlakatla (1882) - and the other four were owned and managed by individuals or small companies. (50) Like Cunningham earlier in the decade, independent salmon canners on the

89 Skeena - such as George Dempster at Aberdeen - and those on

the Fraser, relied on the credit offered by commission agents and merchants, in Victoria. Due to the variable and short duration of summer salmon runs (between 2 and 12 weeks, depending on the river and the year), salmon canning

operations were acutely seasonal. The season usually started

in mid-June and was usually over by the end of August.

Canners such as Dempster needed funds for the capital and

labour costs of the ensuing season's pack before it had been

produced. A cannery needed to mend its nets, make the salmon

cans before the season started, Install new or repair old

canning equipment, and pay a contract fee for its Chinese

workers before they were brought north. Canners gauged their

plant's supply and pack costs well before the summer season,

and with the security usually of a chattel mortgage commission

agents advanced the necessary capital. But agents could only

recover their loans when their client's seasonal pack had been

sold, and so usually sought control of the marketing to assure

themselves of payment. They either owned or chartered the

ships that brought the canned salmon from the fishing grounds

to Steveston and Victoria, marketed and sold the canner's

product, and for their time and investment charged commission

rates on all their funding and distribution services. This

process of shipment and eventual sale would sometimes take

eighteenth months, by which time the canner had had another

series of seasonal costs to meet. Thus, the cycle of credit and indebtedness was often perpetuated. (51)

Of course the nature of commission merchants' involvement in the salmon canning industry varied. Some - such as Rithet;

Turner, Beeton and Co.; and Findlay, Durham and Brodie - took an active part in the business, forming companies, directing and controlling a number of canneries, and instigating cycles of indebtedness, but others offered the appropriate credit while staying largely aloof from particular canning operations. In comparison with resource extraction industries such as hard rock mining, it cost little to start a cannery, and in the formative years of the canning industry in British

Columbia (roughly 1870-1901) many entrepreneurs - whether under the strict financial control of Victoria or not - crowded around (especially) the mouth of the Fraser river to realise the quick profits that could accrue from the extension of small loans. (52) Victoria merchants were perhaps less flexible with independent salmon canners than in their dealings with traders such as Cunningham. A cannery's viability was determined by many factors, but commission merchants played an important role. Their decision to extend credit was usually based on assessments of the present condition of the salmon market and the probable size of the ensuing season's run. When prices were low, funds would be withheld (or advanced at higher rates of interest), and loans recalled. When the market was strong, funds would be advanced to most of those wishing to take the risk. (53)

91 The price of British Columbian canned salmon fluctuated during the 1880s, and in the lowest years (1885 and 1886) the

Aberdeen and Balmoral Canneries, which both depended on credit from Victoria merchants, were closed. But not all of the

Skeena canneries were dominated by Victoria agents. As the geographer William Ross argues:

While outside capital was essential to most canneries the availability of capital within the [Skeena] region meant that some small canneries were established. These canneries were not the only source of income for their operators. Consequently, during this period when the markets for canned salmon were poor these canneries continued to operate. (54)

The canneries owned by companies (Turner, Beeton and Co.'s,

Inverness) remained open, as did Cunningham's cannery and the

British America (B.A.) Cannery at Port Essington, which was controlled by interests in the United States (U.S.). (55)

This volatile structure of financing and indebtedness was partially stabilised between 1889 and 1891, and then more

fully in 1902, as many of the independent canneries were absorbed by four limited liability companies. In 1889, the

Victoria based (through Findlay, Durham and Brodie), but

British backed, B.C. Canning Company purchased five canneries

(including the Aberdeen Cannery on the Skeena), and in 1890

R.P. Rithet formed the Victoria Canning Company with mainly

Victoria capital and bought four canneries (including the

Standard Cannery on the Skeena). These companies were small

in comparison with the two largest limited liability

companies, both run from outside of Victoria and both promoted

92 with money from outside of the province: the Anglo-British

Columbia Packing Company, formed in 1891, and the British

Columbia Packers Association, forged in 1902. (56) The former was created with predominantly English capital, the latter with funds from eastern Canada and the eastern U.S. With head offices in Vancouver rather than Victoria, both companies attest to the emergence of Vancouver as the principal trading, distribution, and business centre in the province. Both companies operated a cannery in Port Essington. (57)

In September of 1890, Henry Bell-Irving, of Scottish origin, as were many British Columbia salmon canners, secured options on a number of canneries in British Columbia, and with

English capital raised through his uncle, John Bell-Irving, promoted the London registered ABC Packing Company. (58) Henry

Bell-Irving and R. Paterson (who ran an import-export business together in Vancouver) became the Company's managers and selling agents in British Columbia, and in 1895 Bell-Irving•s own company became the sole carrier of these responsibilities.

(59) By April of 1891, Bell-Irving had bought nine salmon canneries (seven on the Fraser and two on the Skeena), absorbing nearly all U.S. interests in the British Columbia

salmon canning industry; in its first season of operations his

Company controlled nearly one quarter of the province's pack.

(60) Bell-Irving required some $465,000 to buy, insure, and

operate the nine canneries (with $15,000 of working capital each). (61) The money was raised through the sale of 100,000

93 pounds of preference stock with a dividend premium of 8 per cent per year, and 100,000 pounds of ordinary stock with these shareholders being entitled to all of the Company's surplus

net profits. (62) Most of these preference shareholders, and many of the ordinary stockholders, were English, but the

previous owners of Bell-Irving1s nine canneries took 8.5 per

cent of the first stock issue, the shares being paid for by cash and/or by transfer of ownership of their canneries. It

is not known how many shares Bell-Irving initially held in the

Company, but by 1911 the Bell-Irving family controlled almost

20 per cent of the ordinary stock, and over 6 per cent of the

preference stock. (63)

The Company had 3 directors in London and a local

advisory board in Vancouver headed by Bell-Irving. Every year

the Vancouver board reported to its English directors and

shareholders on the Company's fortunes in British Columbia.

(64) Shareholders could vote on Company policy at annual

general meetings, but under a system of "By-Laws" it seems

that Bell-Irving was granted full control of the Company's

decision making processes, and its salmon canning production

and distribution cycle in British Columbia. (65) He also

handled the Company's insurance policies on fixed and mobile

capital, received a 2.5 per cent commission on all Company

purchases, and kept 5 per cent of all monies received from

pack sales. (66)

The accounts of the ABC Packing Company's nine canneries

94 were supervised in Vancouver by Bell-Irving. Each cannery kept 26 separate inventories of their stocks of goods and salmon, and their supply needs. They were scrutinised in the

Vancouver office in conjunction with the Company's aggregate financing, provisioning, marketing, and sales accounts, and summarised in thirteen "Subsidiary Books." (67) This centralised accounting system helped Bell-Irving estimate the pack costs and profitability of his canneries, and it was supported by a wider system of economic surveillance. From

Vancouver, Bell-Irving went north and south along the Pacific coast every year, recording the capital structure and the state of technology in his and others' canneries and noting the invention and diffusion of new equipment. He visited

Great Britain (via the eastern U.S.) on average once every two years to discuss Company policies with the London board and to assess the state of the international salmon market. In

British Columbia, however, most of his information was gathered by his cannery managers and agents stationed on the main coastal rivers, and forwarded by telegraph - and from

1894, by telephone - to Vancouver.

In 1891 Bell-Irving bought the B.A. Cannery at Port

Essington from The British America Packing Company for approximately $40,000, and in 1894 ownership of the nine acre site was transferred to the ABC Packing Company. (68) After the sale, the Cannery's American operators, Ben Young and Gus

Holmes, became two of Bell-Irving's most important informants

95 n and consultants. They supervised his two canneries on the

Skeena (the North Pacific as well as the B.A. Cannery), and were two of the principal mediators of Port Essington's

burgeoning ties with Vancouver. Bell-Irving's "Notebooks"

suggest that Young was of special importance. Until about

1910 he was Bell-Irving's chief correspondent for the British

Columbia coast, helped Bell-Irving finalise all fishing and

labour contracts, and when the canning season was under way made weekly reports to the Vancouver office on how much was

being packed at canneries on different parts of the coast.

Bell-Irving's new management techniques were one of the

main reasons for the Company's success, and by 1925 over

$2,000,000 in dividends had been paid out to shareholders

(about four times their initial subscribed capital). (69) The

Company built new canneries in Puget Sound and Alaska in the

1890s, and with the other two limited liability companies did

much to diminish problems of overproduction and overcapacity

in the British Columbia industry.

Port Essington's ties with this Vancouver-based salmon

canning economy were entrenched in 1902 with the formation of

B.C. Packers. During the 1890s many small and financially

weak canning firms remained on the Fraser and Skeena. Canning

was still organised around manual, single line plants, and

with low operating costs individual entrepreneurs - now

borrowing money from banks as well as commission merchants -

were still attracted to the industry. (70) With large bank

96 loans, nearly 50 canners prepared to pack salmon on the Fraser

in 1901. The salmon run was good, but profits were

negligible. Canners packed nearly a million cases of salmon, but the international salmon market was flooded and over

180,000 cases remained unsold at docks in Vancouver (appendix

4(a)). (71) In the winter of 1901 bankruptcies on the Fraser were widespread, and two businessmen from California and

Toronto, Henry Doyle and Amelius Jarvis, proposed to

rationalise the industry once more.

B.C. Packers was formed under the general management of

Doyle with a nominal capital of $4,000,000 in $100 shares

(15,000 preference and 25,000 ordinary shares), and $2.5

million in debenture bonds to acquire plants and provide

working capital. (72) The money was syndicated through

Jarvis's investment banking and brokerage firm in Toronto, and

by 1904 over 60 per cent of the 27,000 or so shares taken up

were held by investors - many of them bankers and brokers - in

eastern Canada and the eastern U.S. (appendix 3(a)).

Doyle sought control of as many canneries as possible,

and then hoped to rationalise canning operations by reducing

the number of working canneries and creating a number of

multi-line plants. Like Bell-Irving, Doyle's proposed

amalgamation involved the distribution of shares to canners

agreeing to join the Association (see appendix 3(b)) (73) As

the historical geographer Edward Higginbottom notes:

Each cannery purchased would be paid for on a one-third cash, two-thirds stock basis, with all supplies and

97 material on hand being paid for in cash. In this manner each canner would have sufficient cash to pay off debts, and, as stockholders of the new company, would have its best interests in mind. (74)

With this cash-stock arrangement, B.C. Packers acquired 44 of

the 73 canneries operating in 1902, including 29 of the 49

canneries operating on the Fraser. Under their

rationalisation plan, nearly half of those canneries acquired

in 1901-2 - most of them small, unprofitable operations on the

Fraser - had been closed by the end of 1905, but in its first

two seasons of operation, B.C. Packers still controlled over

40 per cent of British Columbia's total pack. (75) By 1904,

almost 25 per cent of the B.C. Packers stock had been assigned

by agreement or share issues to British Columbia salmon

canners, and apart from the 1,525 shares held by the Victoria

Canning Company, the majority of them were controlled by

canners based in either Vancouver or New Westminster (see

appendix 3(a) summary of distribution).

B.C. Packers acquired the Balmoral, Standard and

Cunningham Canneries on the Skeena, but none of them was

closed. All three were obtained on the basis of the cash-

stock agreement, and Cunningham was issued with 375 shares.

(76) It is not clear why Cunningham was attracted to the

merger deal, but in light of the ABC Packing Company's success

at Port Essington and North Pacific, he probably thought that

it would enhance the profits derived from his canning

business. In addition, a fire at Port Essington in November

of 1899 had destroyed 23 of his cannery buildings, and so the

98 merger with B.C. Packers probably presented an opportunity to redevelop his site without having to borrow heavily. (77)

After the merger, Doyle put forward a set of guidelines

for managing the conglomerate that were similar to Bell-

Irving's. With a more complicated set of "By laws" and little experience of how to run a large salmon canning concern, however, Doyle apparently did not achieve the same degree of control over decision making that Bell-Irving had done.

The B.C. Packers "By-laws" established a hierarchical

system of economic power. (78) Doyle relied on "practical experienced men" to operate the Association's canneries. (79)

Many of his cannery managers ran the canneries they had

previously owned, but on a number of occasions the existing management was replaced. On his inspection of Cunningham's

cannery, for instance, Doyle noted that "The old hands left by

Cunningham [McTavish] are too much in a groove for the

Association's good, and I would recommend replacing them

another season with more active and up to date men." (80) Some

of the more experienced salmon canners - such as Alex Ewen -

were elected to the board of directors, and could voice the

opinions of their canning colleagues through the board's

quarterly report to the shareholders. All of the

Association's salmon canners, however, were under the

decision-making authority of the four chief members of the

board: the President (or general manager) and Vice President,

and in their absence, the Secretary and Treasurer. Canners

99 could raise motions and vote to change Association policy at the quarterly meeting held in Vancouver and the annual general meeting for all shareholders held in Jersey City every

January. But, under the conditions of incorporation, their suggestions could be blocked by the board at the local level.

The board was elected by the shareholders at the annual meeting, and under the conditions of incorporation was granted power to borrow or raise money, buy or sell canning interests, and control the distribution and marketing of the pack. It could also form its own management committees, and make, amend, or repeal Association "By-laws" without the assent or vote of the shareholders. Yet in an overriding clause, the shareholders could hold a "special meeting" to vote on any board decision and repeal it with a two-thirds majority, all board decisions being judged in terms of the undefined

"interests of the Association."

It is difficult to weigh the de facto economic power of the Association's board of directors and salmon canners, but it seems that the Association's eastern shareholders and board members had considerably more control over the economic fortunes of B.C. Packers than the ABC Packing Company's

English shareholders had over Bell-Irving's operations. With

John Bell-Irving as chairman of its London board and the largest shareholder, the ABC Packing Company was very much a family business. But many of B.C. Packers' large shareholders, and two members of the board, were from the

100 banking world. Company files reveal that between 1904 and

1912 few shares changed hands, but in this volatile industry, where profits could vary widely, attitudes to investment and management strategies could be quickly reversed. Many of the

Association's shareholders living in eastern Canada and the

U.S. had little interest in the running of salmon canneries.

The majority of them had never been to British Columbia. All they hoped for was a steady return on investment, and if faculties on the board of directors advised them that this

income was being jeopardised by managers and agents in the west, then they would think twice before endorsing new

investment and management policies.

Reflecting on his relationship with his board and shareholders, Doyle argued that while

the management of the Association should function through its board of directors without interference from the eastern bond holders or shareholders [as written down in the Certificate of Incorporation], [elvery one of these solemn obligations - both eastern and western - were violated and ignored from the very commencement. (81)

He continued, that "through the connivance of our bankers/directors, positions which had been promised shareholders were given non stock-holders...while shareholders entitled to employment were completely ignored." In 1904

Doyle resigned from his post as general manager. (82)

The precise management relations tying the Cunningham and

B.A. Canneries to these two companies and their shareholders are impossible to reconstruct from canning records. It is,

however, clear that by 1902 Port Essington was implicated in

101 an international system of industrial finance, and that wherever decision-making power lay, the space-economy of the

lower Skeena was increasingly orchestrated through Vancouver rather than Victoria. The lower Skeena experienced less reorganisation than the Fraser as a result of the mergers - because the two new companies had fewer and more dispersed canneries in the north, and the returns to canneries on the

Skeena had been more stable than those on the Fraser. When reorganisation on the Skeena did come, between about 1905 and

1923, it had more to do with restricting the number of boats

fishing out of each cannery than with rationalising the number and capacity of operating canneries. (83)

Victoria's influence in Port Essington was not entirely

displaced. In 1898 Herman acquired land from Cunningham along

the Port Essington foreshore to construct a one-line cannery,

and was backed by the Simon Leiser Company of Victoria.

Herman's cannery was smaller and less profitable (in terms of

cost per case) than the other two Port Essington canneries,

and Doyle described it as "an apology for a cannery...hampered

by its lack of space and the precarious financial condition of

its proprietors." (84) Between 1899 and 1903 Herman packed

salmon under a variety of company names, and in 1900 and 1901

"custom" packed for other companies. However, the Simon

Leiser Company withdrew its financial support in 1904, and

Herman's cannery was taken over by Doyle and R.V. Winch's

Vancouver-based, and bank financed, Skeena River Commercial

102 Company. (85)

By 1905, the operations of Port Essington's canneries had been overhauled by the sophisticated management structures of three Vancouver-based companies, and were being supported with funds largely from beyond the province. (86) They characterise the eclipse of Victoria as the chief financial centre in the province and the decline of the local brokerage and commission system of credit in British Columbia as the principal mode of coordinating economic activity.

Port Essington and the international salmon market.

Between 1870 and 1900, salmon canning was British

Columbia's fastest growing export industry. (87) The largest export market was in Great Britain, but unlike the expensive fur staple that was destined for the shoulders of the wealthy, canned salmon was consumed mainly by middle and working class people. (88) According to canners' estimates, an average of 69 per cent of British Columbia's total pack was exported to

Great Britain between 1886 and 1905. An average of 17 per cent was sent to eastern Canada, 4 per cent to Australia and

New Zealand, and in any one of these years less than 5 per cent was disposed of through local sales (appendix 4(a) summary calculations).

Commission merchants along the Pacific coast acted as buying agents for foreign distributing houses, and after 1890 agents of the large limited liability companies made personal

103 trips to marketing centres such as Liverpool and Montreal to secure purchasing orders from retail and wholesale dealers.

Until about 1900, orders for the ensuing season's pack were taken from different canning companies in January after foreign dealers had done their annual stock taking. Advanced sales assisted canners in financing their pre-season costs, and were usually a condition of receiving loans from commission agents. (89) By the 1890s canned salmon was marketed in six different cuts - 1 lb and 1/2 lb flats, tails, and ovals - and contract prices were fixed by a bidding process that weighed up the estimated consumer demand for salmon and the probable extent of supply based on information provided by company agents. (90) Most of the salmon produced by the large companies was marketed under their different brand names, but some of the cans marketed for individual operators by agents in Victoria and Vancouver carried a general "British Columbia Salmon" label. (91)

From August to December, the cans were transported on ships either owned or commissioned by canning companies from canning storerooms to large transhipment points: first in

Victoria and Steveston, and then predominantly after 1890 to the CPR wharf in Vancouver. From there, the majority of the salmon destined for Great Britain and Australasia was taken on commissioned steamers that carried 25-50,000 cases at a time and sailed either directly to London, Liverpool, Melbourne and

Auckland, or via San Francisco in California and Valparaiso in

104 Chile. (92) The majority of salmon destined for eastern Canada

(and a small percentage of that exported to Great Britain) was transported by rail. (93) The trip to Great Britain took between 4 and 20 weeks, depending on whether the salmon was transhipped from rail containers in the Maritimes or taken around Cape Horn. Canned salmon was consumed in Great

Britain mainly between June and September. (94)

Great Britain imported nearly all of its canned salmon from the west coast of North America, and in the twentieth century the cycle of its imports reflected the peaks and troughs in Pacific salmon production. (95) Until 1902, British

Board of Trade officials tabulated imports of canned salmon with every other fish product (other species; pickled, smoked, fresh, etc.). But between 1902 and 1914, British Columbia canned salmon constituted between 30 and 50 per cent of

Britain's canned salmon imports (appendix 3(c) and Doyle's figures in 3(a) summary(2.)). This British market was by far the most lucrative one for British Columbia's salmon canners.

It is not known whether canned salmon fetched more in

Liverpool and London than elsewhere, but for every year between 1891 and 1914 Bell-Irving reported a profit on his

British sales while (in many of those years) accruing loses on his sales elsewhere. (96) Still, Bell-Irving argued that

Britain had a consumption ceiling that was difficult to surpass. He estimated that Britains would consume an average of about a million cases of salmon per year, but with keen

105 competition from producers in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington,

British dealers would usually purchase no more than half a million cases per year from British Columbia. (97) It is difficult to determine the accuracy of Bell-Irving's estimate.

In some years Great Britain imported considerably more than a million cases. In others, considerably less. The extent of

British imports depended on many factors, the two most important perhaps being the extent of supplies from the

Pacific, and the price salmon fetched in Liverpool and London.

With much smaller markets - and probably lower consumption ceilings - in eastern Canada and Australasia, years of high production were often accompanied by larger numbers of cases left "on hand," or unsold (appendix 3(a)). The greatest perturbation in the cycle of British Columbia's salmon exports to Great Britain came between 1902 and 1904, and stemmed from

British Columbia's record production of salmon in 1901. Great

Britain took 770,000 or 850,000 cases of British Columbia's

1901 pack (depending on whether the estimates in appendix 3(a) or (c) are used), but purchased over a million cases (over half of its 1902 salmon imports) from the U.S (appendix 3(c)).

With peak production figures and a lower sale price because of increased competition, British wholesale dealers rushed to secure larger than usual orders, but they had probably overstepped the consumption ceiling of the British market and in 1904 were still trying to clear their unsold 1902 stock.

(98) Salmon was still taken in large quantities from British

106 Columbia after 1901. For the few years after 1901, however, dealers started to purchase salmon "on the spot" (whenever a need arose) rather than through fixed purchasing contracts made before the canning season, and British Columbia canners were forced to carry higher stocks at Vancouver docks. (99)

The state of the international salmon market was probably as great an influence on the number of canneries in British

Columbia as was the mode of their financing. In 1892, Bell-

Irving cut the aggregate capacity of his Fraser canneries by

50 per cent, and that of his Skeena canneries by 25 per cent.

When interviewed by Dominion fisheries officials, he said he had done this because "we cannot get enough boats to supply all tour] canneries," but when recorded in his "Notebooks" the decision seemingly had more to do with his estimate of

Britain's consumption ceiling. (100) The bankruptcy of many of the small canneries sold to B.C. Packers in 1902 was caused by their inability to sell much of their 1901 packs.

Bell-Irving's "Notebooks" suggest that canning companies had diverse export strategies. Findlay, Durham and Brodie,

Turner, Beeton and Co., and R.P. Ward, sold most of their pack to dealers in Liverpool and London, and the packs of other individual canners were often tied to specific dealers in

Great Britain, Australasia, and eastern Canada. The distribution of the ABC Packing Company's canned salmon between 1891 and 1905 was representative of the averages presented in appendix 3, although in the 1890s they held a

107 larger percentage share of the eastern Canadian market

(between 12 and 18 per cent). (101)

Packs from the ABC Packing Company's canneries - and presumably those within B.C. Packers - were targeted to different markets in different years. Before 1891, the B.A.

Cannery exported salmon to eastern Canada, Australia, England and the East Indies. (102) In 1894, however, the entire pack of the B.A. and North Pacific Canneries was exported to eastern Canada and Australia, while over 90 per cent of the salmon produced by Bell-Irving's Fraser River canneries was exported to Great Britain. (103) It is difficult to trace the exact movements of different brand names from different canneries to different markets because companies usually kept only aggregate export records, and the brand name entries in

Bell-Irving's "Notebooks" mostly end in 1894. But from the

little information that there is, it seems that until 1900

Bell-Irving's Fraser canneries were geared to export sockeye salmon mostly to Great Britain - and to two large salmon dealers in particular: Simpson, Roberts and Co. in Liverpool and Henry Peabody and Co. in London - while the salmon from his Skeena canneries was distributed much more widely. (104)

Until a second canning line was introduced in 1904, the

B.A. Cannery produced 1 lb tails, and during the 1890s exported to London, Liverpool, Melbourne and Kingston Ontario, predominantly. (105) Salmon from all of the Port Essington canneries was shipped south on the Barbara Boscovltz and the

108 Canadian Pacific Navigation Company (CPN) ships Princess

Louise and the Danube. The salmon destined for Great Britain and eastern Canada was taken to Vancouver, and most destined for Australia was taken to Victoria until 1893 and to

Vancouver thereafter. (106) Until about 1905, most of the B.A.

Cannery's British orders were taken on two of the largest salmon steamers, the Titania and the Clan Robertson, and those for Ontario were taken on either the CPR or by rail through the northern U.S. (107) There are no figures documenting where either Cunningham's or Herman's packs were sent to during the

1890s, but as company plants in the 1900s it is very likely that their packs were part of a set of much larger export strategies that roughly conform to the overall patterns in appendix 3.

Although canning companies kept few export figures for individual canneries, it is clear that canning settlements such as Port Essington were not just orchestrated by commission agents in Victoria and then by company agents in

Vancouver, but were also vital production centres in an export industry that was global in scope. Port Essington was no longer an isolated trading settlement but now a canning town with an industrial rhythm. It was implicated in (and after the telegraph and telephones reached the area in the early

1900s, wired into) a world economy based on the shipment of commodities. Its canning economy was created by industrial and financial (rather than commercial) capital, and was a cog

109 in a worldwide geography of staple exports that contributed to

the space-economies of countries such as Great Britain. To capture some the multifarious geographies that made up

nineteenth century capitalism one might start by articulating

•the local1 with 'the global'.

Port Essington and the Skeena river canning industry.

The international salmon market did not determine the

precise location of canneries. To operate efficiently, a

cannery had to meet particular physical and biological

requirements. Because fresh salmon is highly perishable

(there were no cold storage facilities until the late 1890s),

the site had to be close to a salmon-bearing river or estuary.

It had to have a gently sloping foreshore - canneries were

built out into the river or estuary on wooden pilings so that

the salmon could be handed from fishing boats to the cannery

floor as quickly as possible. Canning sites had to have a

harbour deep enough to allow large steamers to dock nearby.

And a cannery had to have an adequate supply of fresh water

for domestic use and for cleaning the salmon before canning.

(108)

Few - if any - cannery sites met all of these criteria,

and in his 1902 report for B.C. Packers Doyle noted that good

canning sites on the Skeena were scarce. The coastline was

rocky with little foreshore. Fresh water was scarce, and

fishing on the Skeena was confined to the river's narrow

110 channels. (109) Port Essington was one of the best sites along the coast. It is located opposite Carthew Point where the

Skeena narrows as it flows between two large mud flats and the salmon could be easily caught in large numbers and quickly delivered to the canneries for processing. The Cunningham,

B.A., and Herman Canneries jutted out into the Skeena estuary on wooden pilings. With a tidal foreshore over 50ft long, fishing boats could easily moor at their side when the tide was high. But with violent eddy currents, ice flows between

December and February, and extensive snag-covered mud-flats exposed at low tide, Horetzy commented correctly that Port

Essington had a poor harbour. (110) Yet this was less inconvenient than he estimated; between March and November the river could be successfully negotiated to Port Essington with nautical charts and guides. The Port Essington canneries were supplied with fresh water from Cunningham lake and a large creek behind the settlement by a series of overhead flumes.

(111) In the ABC Packing Company's "Prospectus," Bell-Irving told his English shareholders that the B.A. Cannery was

"favourably located on the south shore" of the Skeena, and

Doyle considered the Cunningham Cannery to be well located, although he thought the cannery buildings were old and too small. (112)

Port Essington's canneries processed salmon caught with shallow nets in the rising tide around Carthew Point, and needed plants large enough to handle great numbers of fish

111 quickly. Those plants further downstream that received salmon caught from deeper parts of the estuary outside the Skeena's mouth - such as the Claxton and Standard Canneries - did not need as large a capacity because the fish did not bunch as much and could be delivered to the cannery in more even numbers during the day (see map 3). (113) Aggregate fish deliveries to those canneries operating boats inside the mouth of the Skeena would often be higher than to those canneries receiving fish from the "outside" fishing grounds, and for this reason canneries tended to locate inside the mouth of the

Skeena. With greater fluctuations in the daily delivery of fish and a canning work force that had already been paid for, however, those canners relying on "Inside" fishing also had to carry the economic burden of cannery equipment and labour that was idle for sometimes many hours of the canning day. To overcome this problem, canneries often fished both sections of the river mouth.

Until round-bottom boats were introduced in 1897, however, fishing was mainly confined to the side channels around the river mouth. "Outside" fishing always became less profitable than "inside" fishing after the first few weeks of the season, and for this reason fishing stretched up the

Skeena rather than out into the ocean. (114) After 1897, fishermen "advanced further out to meet the incoming fish" and the area fished greatly increased. (115) With these more sea• worthy boats, more fish were delivered to those canneries

112 located just outside the river mouth, and by 1914 cannery distribution on the Skeena had been significantly altered - now appearing as "a triangle with vertices at Inverness and

Claxton canneries and the apex at Port Essington" (see map 3).

(116)

The nature of the fishing grounds was an important consideration when the limited liability companies sought to buy or build canneries on the Skeena. On his tour of the coast in the summer of 1891, Bell-Irving was keen to learn about the daily fish returns to the Skeena canneries, and

Doyle assessed the daily return of salmon to the Herman

Cannery between 1901 and 1904 in minute detail before buying the cannery. (117) After 1900, the ABC Packing Company fished both areas of the river. The boats attached to North Pacific

Cannery fished mainly the "outside" waters, and those attached to the B.A. Cannery fished the grounds close to Port

Essington. In 1909, B.C. Packers acquired the Dominion

Cannery to receive fish from "outside" waters while the boats attached to its Balmoral Cannery fished a five mile radius around Port Essington. (118)

By 1910 the Skeena had 12 operating canneries, and with increased competition for sockeye salmon on the river, canning companies started to target and can more spring, chum, cohoe, humpback or pink, and steelhead salmon (appendix 5(a)). It is difficult to determine whether those canneries inside the river mouth started to pack more of these species because

113 competing canneries located outside the river were catching most of the sockeye. Provincial Government canning figures for this period show that canneries fishing "outside" waters, such as Claxton (established 1898), Carlisle (1895) and

Oceanic (1903), often produced the largest sockeye packs, but they produced large packs of the other species too. There seems to have been a general move to packing more species of salmon, a shift probably related to several interconnected factors: the market demand for other species, the price they fetched relative to sockeye, the price offered to fishermen for the different species, and the number of boats fishing out of each cannery. Certainly, pack records of Port Essington's

B.A. and Skeena River Commercial Canneries reflect this production shift; by 1915 both were packing far fewer cases of sockeye than of other species (appendix 5(b)).

The different species of salmon did not run at the same time. At the Skeena River Commercial cannery between 1908 and

1918, most of the sockeye was delivered between the end of

June and the end of August, most of the red and pink spring between the start of July and the middle of August, most of the cohoe and humpback salmon between the middle of July to the start of September, most of the white spring in July, and most Steelhead salmon in August. (119) Such detailed information is not available for the other Port Essington canneries, but as their boats fished in the same waters - mainly in the town's vicinity -it is likely that their timing

114 of fish deliveries was similar.

The number of fish required to pack a 48 lb case varied too. At the B.A. Cannery between 1906 and 1920, it took an average of 12.5 sockeye to pack a case of 1 lb cans, about

17.5 humpback salmon per case, between 4 and 6 spring or chum salmon, and about 9.5 cohoe. Slightly more of each of each species was required to pack a case of 1/2 lb cans. (120) In one line canneries, such as Cunningham's and the Skeena River

Commercial, canning lines were probably not managed differently because of the greater variety of fish being delivered. Daily and weekly production still alternated between the output of 1 lb and 1/2 lb cans of the different species. After 1904, the B.A. Cannery had two canning lines.

Both lines were probably geared to process 1 lb and 1/2 lb cans, but in some seasons one line processed tails and the other flats. (121) Until 1910, the production of 1 lb cans at the B.A. Cannery far outstripped that of 1/2 lb cans; only sockeye was packed in 1/2 lb cans. Thereafter, the other species started to be packed as 1/2 lb flats and production of the different sized cans was more even. (122)

In 1904 the Port Essington canneries put up nearly 30 per cent of the region's total pack, and produced about the same share in 1920, although the number of canneries operating in the region had increased from 12 to 15. (123) This perhaps suggests that Port Essington's canneries were not harmed by the changing geography of canning on the Skeena. One of the

115 main reasons why Port Essington's canneries remained viable was that the town had a large labour supply.

Until the early 1890s, Skeena river canners were nearly

wholly dependent upon aboriginal fishermen. Most of these

fishermen were Coast Tsimshian. Only a handful of European,

British Columbian and Canadian fishermen worked for the Skeena

canneries. Some of these crews were settlers in the region,

but most came on steamers from Victoria and Vancouver just for

the summer. Port Essington and Metlakatla had the largest

Coast Tsimshian populations south of Fort Simpson, and

probably the greatest number of aboriginal fishermen and

cannery employees. At this time, the other canneries on the

Skeena drew their Coast Tsimshian employees from a larger

coastal area (roughly from Alaska to Kitimat). (124)

According to the 1881 census, there were over 100 Coast

Tsimshian resident in Port Essington, and about the same in

1891 (appendix 1). But after the construction of the two

canneries in Port Essington in 1883, the town's Coast

Tsimshian population swelled considerably during the summer.

Boas reckoned that in the summer of 1888 there were over 600

Tsimshian fishing for and working in Port Essington's two

canneries, and Henderson's Directory for 1890 claims that

during the summer Port Essington's population was over a

thousand (appendix 1). For the Kitselas and Kitsumkalum at

Port Essington, salmon fishing continued to be part of their

traditional cycle of seasonal migratory labour. Many of them,

116 however, soon adopted the techniques of the modern salmon fishery, and fished for the Port Essington canneries, either full time (during the fishing season) or in conjunction with their subsistence activities. (125) Coast Tsimshian groups traditionally caught the less oily species of salmon (chum and spring) to be dried and smoked for their winter food, and the historian Duncan Stacey argues that the commercial fishery did not interfere with this traditional activity until canners diversified their commercial salmon fishing after 1900. (126)

Tugs towed fishing boats to and from the fishing grounds and until the 1920s only gill nets were used to catch the salmon on the river. Fishermen delivered their catch either directly to the cannery or to scows (barges) based at fishing stations along the river, which were towed to the cannery by tug boats when full. (127) Fishing was done in twos; the first fishing boats (powered by sail and/or oar) on the Skeena were adaptations of the long boats used by the HBC. (128) The local historian Walter Wicks claims that in early June cannery tugs were sent to the scattered villages of the Skeena region to tow Coast Tsimshian boats and their families to canning sites, and that up river groups travelled down the Skeena in their cottonwood canoes. (129) It is difficult to tell whether these boats were then used in the early commercial fishery on the

Skeena. Certainly, some were used to freight people and goods up the Skeena, even after steamers were put on the river in the 1890s, but the 1917 Report of the Special Fishery

117 CommissIon states that until the 1920s nearly all the boats and fishing nets on the Skeena were owned by the canneries.

(130) Commercial fishing boats and nets became more sophisticated with time, and the Report argues that canners needed to buy and rent them because most fishermen could not afford to buy their own. For those fishing for only part of the season, renting made more sense than buying gear that would be idle for most of the year.

Canners supplied or rented fishing boats and gear for a month or season as a way of attaching fishermen to particular canneries and assuring themselves of a fish supply. Fishermen were renumerated in different ways that were usually connected to cannery rental schemes. Stacey argues that until the twentieth century Skeena canners operated a "shares" system of renting. (131) In this system, fishermen were quoted a price per fish at the start of the season, returned all of their fish to a specific cannery, and were paid for their tally of fish at the end of the season, with the cannery taking a share of the total earnings (usually a third) as a rental fee. The

"shares" system introduced a measure of control in a competitive industry where the supply of the raw material was largely uncontrollable.

There are no records to indicate how extensive this share system was on the Skeena, but other wage and rental systems were certainly used, the mixture of schemes employed at any one time probably depending on the nature of the local labour

118 supply. In 1917, the Dominion fishery commissioner Stanford

Evans argued that

When canneries were first established in the north, and for many years afterwards, there was no population along the northern coast, with the exception of the Indians...It was necessary for the canners to engage, where they could, such labour as they required to supplement the local Indian labour, and take men north with them at the opening of each season at an agreed rate of monthly wages or partly at an agreed rate of monthly wages and partly at an agreed price per fish caught, and provide boats and nets for their use. (132)

He does not say how many aboriginal fishing crews were employed, crews that in the twentieth century were certainly engaged on wage contracts. It also is difficult to tell how many boats fished on the Skeena in the 1880s, but when Bell-

Irving visited the Skeena in 1891 he reported that the

Cunningham Cannery was fishing 31 "Indian boats" and the B.A.

Cannery 34. (133) In 1894 the B.A. Cannery fished 30 "Indian" and 5 "white" boats. (134) There is no other concrete information about the size of Port Essington's fishing fleet until after 1900. Increases in the number of canneries on the

Skeena during the 1890s, however, entailed an increase in the aggregate number of boats fishing. Bell-Irving estimated that by 1899 there were 458 boats fishing for the Skeena's 10 canneries and the numbers continued to increase for a few years after. (135)

From the early 1890s, Japanese fishermen were brought to the Skeena from Vancouver and Victoria. Many of Port

Essington's Japanese fishermen returned south after the canning season to work in the sawmills and logging camps

119 around Vancouver. It is also likely that many of the Japanese employees of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway (GTP) combined construction work on the northern banks of the Skeena with commercial fishing. Some of these fishermen were hired through Japanese merchants in Vancouver and Victoria. Their passage north was usually paid for by the cannery, and on the river their work was supervised for the canning company by

Japanese "fishing bosses." (136) Most of these crews fished with cannery boats and gear; payment schemes varied from year to year. The B.A. 'Cannery had no Japanese crews in 1894

(although the North Pacific did), but after 1910 they made up by far the largest percentage of its fishermen (appendix 6).

After 1906, the B.A. Cannery's Japanese fishermen were usually employed under the share system, but in some years were also engaged in contract work (appendix 6). Under a fishing contract, a cannery either provided boats and gear free of charge or rented them out. In return, fishermen agreed to sell their catch to the cannery. The price offered by canners for the different species of salmon varied. (137)

Spring salmon always fetched the most; humpback salmon the least; and sockeye usually more than cohoe (eg, appendix 6).

For all of these species, contract prices were always higher than those offered to share fishermen, and in the years they were offered they were probably taken.

It is doubtful that the canneries were short of fishing labour, as Evans suggests, during the first few years that

120 Japanese fishermen were brought north. Ross argues that with only single lines and manual processing around 1890, the packing capacity of all Skeena canneries was limited to about

600 cases per day, and that 20 boats were sufficient to keep a cannery working at full capacity during the peak of the run.

(138) The B.A. Cannery and probably most others on the Skeena at this time had far more than 20 boats each, and the number continued to increase in the 1890s, for two reasons not mentioned by Evans.

First, most canners preferred Japanese to aboriginal fishermen, "because they work steady and in all weather and on average deliver twice as many sockeyes as the whites and nearly three times as many as the Indians." (139) By 1900 the

Japanese began to dominate the fishing work force on the

Skeena. Doyle notes that for the 1916 and 1917 seasons at the

Skeena River Commercial Cannery Japanese crews delivered an average of 40 per cent more sockeye per boat than aboriginal crews and twice that of the Cannery's 4 "white" boats. (140)

Bell-Irving harboured racist views about the Japanese. In

1902 he told Dominion immigration commissioners that they were

"not very reliable" fishermen, but in the same breath admitted that they "favourably compare with the whites, because they work hard when the fish are scarce." (141) In 1912 B.C.

Packers were paying "white" and Japanese fishermen a monthly wage of S45, and the ABC Packing Company were paying $60.

(142)

121 Second, fishing contracts were by no means restricted to the Japanese. They were perhaps of greater importance for attracting aboriginal crews. Such crews were often the least productive but even if the cannery had enough boats to supply the cannery, they were still employed because most aboriginal fishermen brought their wives and families with them, and aboriginal women constituted over half of the cannery work force. "The desirability of a particular Indian," claimed

British Columbia's Fisheries Commissioner, "is measured by the number of women his household will produce for the canneries as fish cleaners and can fillers." (143) For this reason, aboriginal contracts were likely used in conjunction with the shares system from the 1880s, and they probably became even more widespread after 1900. In 1910 a provincial fishery inspector reported that

[Llabour conditions [on the Skeena] have basically changed. The constructions of the Grand Trunk Railroad has created a demand for labour that has seriously affected the canners. The Indians finding a demand for their services nearer home will not come down to the canneries - and that means a loss of not only fishermen but of their wives whose services in cleaning and packing are even more essential than the fishermen, for the latter can be replaced by Japanese. (144)

Port Essington's canneries were probably affected less by these changing labour conditions than other canneries because the town had a large resident Kitselas and Kitsumkalum population. This is perhaps one reason why their proportion of the total Skeena river pack increased slightly between 1902 and 1920. But the town's resident aboriginal population by no

122 means large enough to fill cannery floors and after 1906 the

B.A. Cannery still offered fishing contracts to aboriginal crews from beyond the town in the hope that they would bring

their wives with them (appendix 6).

After 1900, these rental and wage schemes were affected

by Dominion and Provincial government attempts to regulate the

Skeena salmon fishery. From 1882, government officials had

tried to monitor the number of fishermen on each river by making canners apply for licenses for each of their attached

fishermen. (145) Superimposed on the licensing system was an

increasing concern by canners as well as governments about the depletion of salmon stocks caused by over fishing. As

competition for the limited salmon resource increased, the

productivity of individual boats dropped, and the Skeena

canners agreed to restrict the number of boats fishing. Under

these "boat rating" schemes (first by mutual agreement in 1903

and 1904), a company's fishing fleet was dependent upon the

number of canneries it owned. The total number of boats

allowed in 1904 was fixed at 750, the B.A. and Cunningham

Canneries being alloted 90 and 70 boats, respectively, and the

Skeena River Commercial Company 38. (146) There was another

mutual agreement in 1908, but the number of licenses issued

often exceeded allowed totals, and the schemes broke down. In

1910, canners asked the Dominion Government to intervene. A

"Boat Rating Commission" was established to investigate

fishing on the Skeena, and in the 1911 season the numbers of

123 boats attached to the Skeena canneries was fixed at 850 - including 89 for the B.A. Cannery, 60 for the Cunningham

Cannery, and 55 for the Skeena River Commercial Company. (147)

However many boats were permitted, Skeena canners always sought to keep the price paid for fish as low as possible.

Fish prices on the Skeena were always considerably lower than those paid by canners on the Fraser (in 1900 a half), and were often contested by fishermen. At the start of the 1894 season there was a fishing strike at Standard and Claxton against a reduction (from 9 to 8 cents) in the amount canners offered fishermen for sockeye. Before the strike spread, all of the

Skeena canners met at Port Essington, decided to hold firm on their offer, and agreed on a $50 reward for anyone reporting a canner buying fish for more than 9 cents. With this collective agreement, the strike soon ended. (148) Another strike in 1896 over a further reduction in the sockeye price to 7 cents was apparently resolved before the canners implemented a collective strategy. (149) There was a similar strike in 1897, but the largest, and perhaps most serious strike, came in 1904. At the start of the 1904 season fishermen were offered 7 cents per sockeye, but aboriginal and

(the few) "white" crews working for the Skeena canneries refused to work for any less than 10 cents (Japanese crews nearly always accepted the price offered). (150) Skeena canners and fishermen met at Port Essington in June to discuss the situation. The fishermen claimed that 7 cents was not

124 enough to make a "living wage," and if the canners did not raise their price they would be forced to leave to fish on the

Fraser or take other employment. Canners claimed that 7 cents was all they could afford on account of the high cost of supplying and repairing fishing gear given the peculiar destructiveness of the Skeena waters, and heavy company losses in the previous two seasons. (151) The fishermen did not accept this explanation. "More serious than anything,",

reported the Skeena District Newsr was that canners "had sold

(the 1904] season's pack in advance at prices based upon the price of fish [8c] heretofore paid to fishermen," and could therefore be seen to be profiting by their lower offer. (152)

The fishermen formed a strike committee chaired by Port

Essington's Kitselas chief, Alfred Wedildahld, and moved to tie up as many cannery boats as possible. More importantly, the aboriginal women working in the Skeena canneries supported their fishing husbands and refused to work in the canneries

(how many is not certain). The canners seemed powerless to prevent an enormous loss of production, the Skeena District

News reporting "It is a thing pretty well known on the Skeena that there is no dearth of actual fishermen, the trouble, it appears, being in getting labour to fill the cans." (153) The

Skeena canners could perhaps have survived the 1904 season without aboriginal boats, but with over half of their cannery work force on strike, they were forced to compromise. By the start of July canners and fishermen had settled on 8.5 cents

125 per sockeye and the aboriginal women returned to the canner ies.

The cost of fish, boats and nets was less than half of a cannery's operating costs. Cannery supplies and labour were

the other great expense. From the start of canning operations

on the Skeena, aboriginal women and children worked on the

cannery floor along side Chinese men (most of them unmarried)

brought north from Vancouver and Victoria for the canning

season. According to the 1881 census, the Aberdeen Cannery

had a Chinese cannery crew of 31, and the Inverness Cannery a

crew of 42. (154) Mr. Huang Tsun Hsien - the Consul-General

for China - told the 1885 Roval Commission on Chinese

Immigration that there were 330 "fishery hands" employed on

the Skeena (an average of 55 Chinese workers at each of the 6

canneries). (155) It is difficult to determine the total size

of the cannery work force in any of Port Essington's canneries

until the early 1900s, but in 1891 the census enumerator

recorded .a Chinese crew of 22 working in the Cunningham

Cannery (see appendix 1).

The total size of cannery crews varied, usually according

to the number of cannery lines, the expected size of the

salmon run, and the level of mechanisation. The relative size

of Chinese and aboriginal crews were usually determined by

relative employment costs and the size of the local labour

force. In 1902 Bell-Irving told Dominion immigration

commissioners that he employed fewer Chinese and far more aboriginal women on the Skeena than on the Fraser, and said he had "about seventy-five Chinamen in each [Skeena] cannery...and seventy-five Indians, male and female." (156)

Skeena canners employed "whites" as managers, accountants, storekeepers, engineers, machinery overseers and floor supervisors. They were always the smallest group of employees: Bell-Irving employed an average of 15 "whites" at his two Skeena canneries. (157)

In canneries with an equal number of aboriginal and

Chinese employees - Aberdeen Cannery in 1891, and the B.A.

Cannery in 1901, for example - there was usually a set division of labour. Aboriginal women and children made and mended nets before the start of the season, and during the canning season cleaned the fish, carried them to filling tables with the empty cans, and filled the cans. Chinese crews made the cans before the season, unloaded the fish from the boats, butchered them, soldered the filled cans and cooked them, labelled them once they were cool, and packed the cans in boxes. (158) The tasks performed by these different cultural groups sometimes varied, especially if there were many more of one group than of the other.

Cannery workers were nearly always employed and paid on contract, and most contracts were similarly structured.

Dominion immigration commissioners give the following description of the relationship between Chinese workers and their contractors:

127 The contracts are made with boss Chinamen who hire their own help in their own way...The contractor makes an advance to of from $30 to $40 to each Chinaman at the opening of the season to induce him to come. The contractor furnishes the provisions, where chiefly his profits are made. At the end of each month what he has is made up and charged pro rata to the men in his employ. At the end of the season, if the run is short, the contractor may lose money on his contract which, however, is partly covered by his profits on the provisions. If the provisions furnished to the Chinaman and the advances made to them exceed the amount of their wages at the end of the season the loss falls on the contractor and not on his employer. (159)

The contract relationship between canning companies and contractors was often more intricate. For example, all B.C.

Packers's Chinese contracts in the early twentieth century had the following details. Cannery managers paid a portion of the contract to the contractor when the can-making had been completed, a further portion on the number of cases packed up to a specified total, and the balance on the cannery's total production one month after all of the season's pack had been shipped from the cannery. Contractors, who were responsible for paying their workers out of their contract fee however they chose, had to ensure that their workers performed the jobs described in the contract as efficiently as possible, and that they pack a specified number of cases per day when the cannery was fully operational. If the canner had any complaint about a member of the crew it was the contractor's responsibility to find a replacement, and if more than a specified number of cases (often 3) per thousand were found to be faulty in any way the contractor had to reimburse the canner the market value of the same number of cases properly

128 packed. (160)

This contract system, argued Dominion immigration commissioners, relieved canners from finding and provisioning labour, and allowed them to estimate the cost of an important part of their labour force before the season started.

Specifications and prices varied over the years, and varied between companies, but Bell-Irving reported that around 1900 most of his Chinese employees earned $35-40 per month. (161)

Chinese contractors paid their workers different amounts, usually depending on the skill required to do a particular job. At the B.A. Cannery from 1906 onwards, Chinese butchers and canners of 1/2 lb flats always earned far more than those processing 1 lb tails and flats (appendix 6). If a particular

Chinese contractor had been tried and was trusted, a canner might employ him each year. Bell-Irving employed Mak Noey at the B.A. Cannery, and Dan Nook Tory at the North Pacific, for most years during the 1890s. (162) Otherwise, canners would seek the best (usually meaning the cheapest) tender offered.

It is not known whether Chinese contractors competed with one another in the tender of contracts.

Aboriginal women were usually paid piece rates on the number of fish washed and the number of cans filled per day.

At Bell-Irving1s Skeena canneries in 1891, fillers were paid 6 cents per case, and wipers 11 cents per hour. By 1907, wipers were being paid 20 cents per hour, but a fillers' wage had only increased to 8 cents per case. (163) Around 1900, wipers

129 and fillers earned $1-1.25 a day. (164) Little is known about

how the cannery employed aboriginal women, but Bell-Irving claims they were employed and paid by Chinese contractors.

Bell-Irving records that "seventeen per cent [of his total

pack costs for 1897] represents the amount paid to the Chinese

labour contractor, and...5 per cent of the 17 per cent

represents the payment by the Chinese to their Indian

employees." (165) When Franz Boas visited Port Essington in

1888, however, he noted that Cunningham not only employed and

paid his own aboriginal cannery workers, but paid them with

personalised stamps "so that the capital needed for trading is

diminished and at the same time the Indians are forced to buy

in one store." (166) While Chinese workers were exclusively

engaged by contractors, it seems likely that aboriginal women

were sometimes employed directly by the cannery.

The B.A. and Skeena River Commercial Canneries both had

general stores too, and Bell-Irving and Doyle recorded profits

of $2-6,000 a season (25-50 per cent on the goods exchanged)

and store turnovers of $20-30,000. (167) They may, of course,

have had provisioning arrangements with Chinese contractors,

and used a stamp system like Cunningham's to force cannery

workers and fishermen to buy goods on credit at inflated

prices. Such matters remain unclear, but it is certain that

both canners and contractors could make quite large sums by

these provisioning relations. Port Essington was far larger

than all of the other Skeena canning settlements and had a

130 variety of shops, restaurants and bars. With the money they did have (and how and whenever it was paid), cannery employees at Port Essington probably had a greater range of goods to choose from than workers in other Skeena canneries.

'•White1' workers were always hired directly by the cannery, and were usually paid more than the other groups of workers. In the 1890s, the manager of the B.A. Cannery was paid $120 per month. By 1918, the 14 "white" employees at the

Skeena River Commercial Cannery were either paid per month - net menders receiving the lowest salary of $65, and engineers the highest of $110 - or at the end of the canning season - netmen receiving $1,000 a season with board included, and cannery foremen and the manager $1,200 plus per season with board. (168)

The production process in all Skeena canneries remained basically the same until the 1900s. In his diary, Boas described the work process at the Cunningham Cannery for June

1888:

Work starts in the cannery at 7 A.M. Two hundred Indians are used for processing the salmon, and Chinese solder the cans. It is quite interesting to watch the processing of the salmon. At the first table women cut them open; at the next table heads and tails are removed. Then they are drawn and thrown into a bath where they are washed. They are then put into a machine which cuts them into seven parts and throws them into a trough from which they are distributed to be stuffed into cans. The lids are placed on top at another table and then they are placed in a soldering machine which fastens the lids. They are then placed on a large iron frame. The soldering is not checked in any way. The entire frame is then placed into boiling water for twenty minutes-and then cooled. Finally the cans are packed into boxes. (169) The machine that cut the fish was a gang knife, and was operated by a hand lever. On manual canning lines, the pace of production was determined by the speed at which butchering, filling, and soldering could be performed. To increase production, canners had either to add more lines (and therefore more workers), or introduce machinery that speeded the completion of a task. A piece of machinery that speeded one part of the production process was, however, useless unless the other parts were speeded at the same time. (170)

Soldering machines (and later steam retorts - large pressure cookers) were often installed along with implements such as gang knives so that than increase in the pace of butchering did not create bottlenecks elsewhere. These were nearly the only mechanical implements in a production process that remained essentially manual in all Skeena canneries until after 1910. (171)

Other pieces of machinery were introduced into the Port

Essington canneries between 1890 and 1910, but they were mostly aids to manual cutting and filling, and some of them were tried and discarded. The B.A. Cannery installed a revolving knife for the 1895 season, but when Bell-Irving visited the Cannery in June he found it "smashing up slices for ovals," and "Stopped it at once and returned to cutting by hand." By 1900 the B.A. Cannery had fish topping and wiping machines, machines for crimping the tops onto cans, and more sophisticated soldering machines than the one mentioned by

132 Boas. (172) In his "Notebooks," Bell-Irving discussed the merits of using new pieces of machinery when they appeared on the market, but there was usually a gap of a few years before any of them were introduced into any of his canneries.

In 1899 the B.A. Cannery had a Chinese crew of 57, and it employed about the same number until after 1912 (appendix 6).

(173) Machinery that displaced many workers was not introduced into canneries until about this time. By 1907, E.A. Smith's automatic butchering machines - or so-called "Iron Chinks" - had been tried and approved by canners in the U.S. They took up very little space, produced consistently high quality cuts of salmon, were estimated to save about half a fish per case over manual butchering, and could process as much fish in a ten hour day as 18 Chinese butchers. (174) After 1900, skilled

Chinese labour became more expensive on the Fraser, and canneries began installing the new butchering machines (the precise timing and extent of installation is difficult to estimate). (175) There is little suggestion that skilled

Chinese labour had become any more expensive at the B.A.

Cannery. Chinese contract prices remained roughly the same between 1895 and 1912. (176) Doyle suggests that canners in the north began to use "Iron Chinks" after they had started to pack later runs of humpback and chum salmon because they did the work "that it is Impossible to get [Chinese] labor to do on account of the terrible [autumn] weather in the North."

(177) Bell-Irving implies that the B.A. Cannery at Port

133 Essington had an automatic butchering machine in 1912, but it

certainly had one by 1915 when his number of Chinese employees dropped by over 10 (see appendix 6). (178) By 1923, all of

Port Essington's canneries had the new butchering machines.

(179)

Sanitary cans speeded the other end of the canning line.

They required the installation of expensive machinery -

exhaust boxes and double seamers - but removed the need for

machines that topped the filled cans, and Chinese can

solderers. Exhaust boxes eliminated the need for a first cook

in the retort, and reduced time of the second cook from two

hours to about 30 minutes. This soldering and cooking system

also reduced the number of "do-over" or leaky cans produced.

(180) Bell-Irving and the B.C. Canning Company introduced

sanitary cans on the Fraser for the 1913 season. Doyle used

them at his Mill Bay Cannery on the Nass in the same year, and

at the end of the season estimated that they had saved him

$11,000 -"more than enough," notes Higginbottom, "to cover the

cost of installing all the new equipment." (181) Bell-Irving

used sanitary rather than soldered cans at the B.A. Cannery

for the first time in 1915. The average number of "do-over"

cases were subsequently reduced from an average of over 200

per season to under 15. (182) By 1923, all three of Port

Essington's canneries were using exhaust boxes, double

seamers, and sanitary cans; there is no information about how

many Chinese workers were displaced as a result. (183) The pace of technological change in the Skeena canneries was generally slower than in those on the Fraser. (184) Apart from the rising cost of Chinese labour on the Fraser, the adoption of gasoline powered boats after 1907 increased the speed at which fish could be delivered to the canneries and further encouraged Fraser canners to speed up their canning lines. Salmon runs through the season were more even on the

Skeena (than on the Fraser), and partly manual cannery lines could handle all of the fish delivered in a day. Canners in the north owned far more boats than those on the Fraser, and were less prepared to encourage the use of motor powered boats because of the capital needed to build and maintain them.

(185) Gasoline engines were not introduced into northern

fishing fleets until the 1920s.

When greater numbers of Japanese fishermen appeared in

fishing fleets in the 1890s, more aboriginal fishermen were retained by Skeena canners than by those on the Fraser because their families came with them to work in the canneries.

Because aboriginal women accepted lower wages than other groups, manual lines were cheaper to run in the north than on the Fraser where more Chinese workers were employed.

Mechanisation increased the pace of production, but, as

Higginbottom notes, mechanised lines required more fish to be profitable. (186) With smaller sockeye runs on the Skeena than on the Fraser, automatic butchering machines and the sanitary can process only became profitable when the total number of fish being returned to the canneries had been increased and the canning season lengthened by the targeting of the other species of salmon after 1900. With lower fish and labour costs on the Skeena than the Fraser, Bell-Irving1s manual canning lines remained profitable for longer. Between 1891 and 1902, his average cost per case on the Fraser was $4.3 while that for his 2 Skeena canneries was only $3.55. (187)

According to Bell-Irving's "Notebooks," the B.A. Cannery at

Port Essington was in many years his Company's most profitable in British Columbia.

<< >>

Some salmon can labels from this period depict native

North Americans spearing fish from canoes as they drift into a brilliant sunset, and others bagpipe players charming spring and sockeye salmon from glittering streams. Consumers of canned salmon all over the world probably had little idea that the fish was caught in nets in a large, cold, turbulent, murky river. (188) Probably only a few realised that salmon was processed by the industrial methods developed in European factories: assembly lines, and a division of labour characterised by the hourly and daily repetition of tasks aided by machinery.

Salmon canning brought new types of work and payment to the Skeena. Port Essington's seasonal, fishing and canning work force were wrapped up in a series of modern economic relations and struggles. By 1900, Coast Tsimshian were no

136 longer bartering with furs but receiving money wages and sometimes striking for increases in wages and fish prices.

Money - however it was paid - had become the dominant medium of exchange. Clothes were more often bought than made. Homes and boats were not so often built as rented. With a permanent

Coast Tsimshian population of over 100 and a summer aboriginal population over a thousand, Port Essington was the nexus of many of these changes.

The canneries also brought together peoples of widely differing national cultures. "Each cannery," wrote the

Methodist missionary B.C. Freeman, "has a little community by itself, cosmopolitan in the extreme with its quota of Indians,

Chinese, Japanese, and whites from almost every country in

Europe and America." (189) Although Port Essington does not fit his caricature of cannery life, by 1900 its population was the largest and most diverse in the region.

3. Diagramming a salmon canning town.

The expansion of salmon canning on the lower Skeena in the early 1880s coincided with development of shipping businesses along the mainland coast and in Port Essington.

Canneries were more than the sum of their boats, buildings, and machinery. They relied on the supply of plant materials before and through the season, needed to provide their Chinese and Japanese workers' passage north and back again, and had to send their pack south for export. Before the GTP was finished in 1914, all canneries were accessible only by water and Port

Essington was the chief break of bulk point on the lower

Skeena.

Until the mid-1870s most goods were shipped around the

Skeena region on the HBC's Otter. By the 1880s Robert and

George Cunningham had developed their own freighting business.

Their twin-masted schooner, Skeena, was built in Port

Essington in 1883 and used to take supplies, lumber,

equipment, and passengers to Skeena canneries. (190) The

Skeena sank in 1888 and was replaced in 1889 by the steam tug

Muriel, which was used to supply canneries for a year and then

used exclusively between Port Essington and Cunningham's other

cannery at Lowe Inlet. (191) In 1891, the Chieftain resumed

general supply services between Port Essington and the Skeena

canneries, although it was mainly used to supply Cunningham's

businesses in Port Essington and his dogfish oil refinery at

Refuge Bay on Porcher Island. (192) It also made regular trips

to the Nass and Lowe Inlet. About a quarter of the time it

was commissioned to tow and carry lumber, box lumber, and

other supplies to the Skeena canneries, and especially

Rithet's Standard Cannery. Much of this lumber was from

Cunningham's sawmill, but It carried orders from other

sawmills as well. Its peak months of operation were always at

the start and end of the canning season. From 1892 to 1899,

Peter Herman also operated a steamship, the Minnie, which

carried on many of these general services when the Chieftain

138 was busy, and was sometimes commissioned by Cunningham. (193)

During the 1890s, Port Essington was a regular port of call for more than 10 other steamships carrying freight, passengers and mail on scheduled trips up and down the coast.

The Barbara Boscovitz, and the CPN steamships Danube and

Princess Louise were the most regular, coming every fortnight.

(194) On their way to Port Essington, these ships delivered supplies to Rivers Inlet and Lowe Inlet. They sometimes stopped at individual canneries on the Skeena, but their cargo of tin plate, lead, lacquer, salt and machinery for the canneries and other destinations up the Skeena was usually unloaded at Port Essington and delivered on smaller ships.

Ships could reach Port Essington's cannery wharves only at high tide. Those arriving when the tide was out had to anchor well offshore and unload into boats and scows. Sometimes they unloaded only a small part of their freight, and delivered the rest on their return. From Port Essington they proceeded up the coast as far as southern Alaska and west to the Queen

Charlotte Islands, and when they returned to Port Essington took passengers, freight, mail and salmon exports south. The volume of traffic fell off between December when the last shipments of salmon had been taken south, and February, when canners started to prepare for the following season. Ice flows on the lower reaches of the Skeena in December and

January sometimes made passage to Port Essington impossible.

Even in the 1890s, however, there were enough permanent

139 settlers scattered along the mainland coast to warrant scheduled trips up the coast all year. (195)

The Chieftain and the Muriel operated around the Skeena, but in 1892 Cunningham entered the coastal shipping business in partnership with George Dempster of Aberdeen and two

Victoria merchants. They bought the steamship Cariboo & Fly.

(196) Until beached at Port Essington in 1895 it was mainly used to take salmon exports and passengers to Victoria and to return with supplies for Cunningham's store and businesses.

Rithet remained Cunningham's financial agent and consultant until 1902. He was the sales agent for Cunningham's Lowe

Inlet Cannery (and maybe his Port Essington cannery - although there is no record of this), and provided him with a $60,000 mortgage to buy the Chieftain. (197) Port Essington's exclusive shipping ties with Victoria were maintained until

1897 when the Vancouver-based Union Steamship Company (USSC) put the steamship Coguitlam on the north coastal run. The

USSC expanded its northern fleet shortly after 1900 with the introduction of the Capilano and the far more frequent visitor to Port Essington, the Camosum. (198)

Water transport did not end at Port Essington. During the 1880s the HBC paid Coast Tsimshian groups to operate about

40 canoes up the Skeena. In 1891, however, it undercut its

Coast Tsimshian employees by introducing a sternwheeler, the

Caledonia, to run between Port Essington and Hazelton. (199) A second Caledonia replaced it in 1898, and in 1902 the HBC

140 added the Mount Royal to its Skeena fleet. (200) It is unlikely, however, that the HBC's steamers entirely displaced the canoes until the twentieth century. Cunningham opened a branch store in Hazelton from 1889 and during the 1890s used freight canoes to bring furs down river. (201) He also owned land in and around the settlement (in 1904, 400 acres), and later moved into the Skeena shipping business to compete with the HBC for passengers and freight. (202) In 1900 he put the

Monte Cristo on the Skeena, and in 1901 the Hazelton. (203) In the early 1900s there was a great deal of land speculation in

Hazelton in anticipation of the GTP, and Cunningham was reputed to be selling lots for $300. (204) The HBC and its ex- employee competed on the Skeena until Cunningham pulled his ships off the river in 1904 after accepting an offer of $7,500 from the HBC to keep his ships tied up for 3 years. The HBC also agreed to transport all of his freight between Port

Essington and Hazelton free of charge. When the agreement expired in 1907 the HBC bought the Hazelton to replace its wrecked Mount Royal. The GTP also ran a number of tugs on the river from 1908, but all steamship services on the Skeena ended in 1912 when the GTP started passenger train services down the north bank of the river. (205) Skeena river fares were proportional to the distance travelled. By 1909, the trip to Hazelton coast $17. (206) Yet the river was navigable for no more than 5 months a year, the treacherous waters at

Kitselas Canyon (midway to Hazelton) wrecked many ships, and it is doubtful that any of the above parties made much profit from their Skeena steamship services.

The names of the ships passing in and out of Port

Essington changed over the years. Most were operated for less than 15 years before being replaced. The volume of traffic also increased between 1890 and 1915. This interconnected local and coastal shipping network focussing on Port Essington was an important precondition for the pursuit of salmon canning in the north. By the time the ABC Packing Company moved into the Skeena it was largely in place, although Bell-

Irving introduced his own steam tug, Winifred, in 1891 to service his two Skeena canneries. It was also inextricably linked to the commercial development of Port Essington.

Until 1900, Port Essington's permanent settlers were mainly employed by the town's three canneries - as fishermen, foremen, steamship engineers and captains, and boat builders.

(207) In 1900 there were 5 general stores (including the three run by the canneries), Cunningham's hotel, a carpenter, brewer, copper, and watchmaker. In the next few years the town grew considerably. In August, 1907, the editor of the

Port Essington newspaper, The Sunr reported the attractions and amenities of Port Essington in the hope of attracting new investment to the town. "The possibilities are illimitable," he wrote;

The present population is 3,500, with a live bank, 2 hotels, 1 up-to-date restaurant, 1 good school, 2 doctors, no lawyers, several cigar stores, 1 butcher shop and provision house, 1 tin shop, seven large general

142 stores, three churches, the headquarters for the fisheries for the district, Indian Department headquarters, 4 large and 2 lesser canneries. The pay roll, inclusive of canneries and sawmills tributary to Essington, during the summer, is between $15,000 and $20,000 a day. Essington is the transhipping point for the great interior plateau, and during the now started G.T.P. work on the upper reaches will be the best city on the north coast. (208)

Around 1900 a fourth wharf was built between the Cunningham and Herman Canneries. It was used to load and unload general supplies for Port Essington's business community and for a few years housed L. Morrow and George Frizzell's butcher shop and abattoir. After 1900, wholesale dealers from Vancouver made regular trips to the town to take merchandising orders and to see if it was profitable to open branch stores of their

Vancouver businesses in the town. (209) Goods were still exchanged in a variety of ways. Cash was the dominant medium of exchange, and with the expansion of banking in the province

(and the opening of a branch of the Royal Bank in Port

Essington in 1907) many started to use cheques. Around the same time that Port Essington store owners started to complain about returned bank cheques, however, The Sun Informed its

"Indian subscribers" that it would no longer take beaver skins as payment for subscriptions. (210)

It is difficult to assess how much of this development depended on Port Essington's canneries. As I argued above,

Port Essington canners instigated cycles of indebtedness by paying wages at irregular intervals or at the end of the season and issuing credit vouchers exchangeable only in their

143 general stores. How much was spent in the town's other stores is unclear. The newspapers suggest that business boomed during the summer months, and was most brisk at the end of the canning season when the cannery workers had been paid. On

August 22, 1904, the Skeena District News reported that the fishing season had closed and "The streets are gay at present with the bright garments of the Indian ladies who are busy shopping." There was also a general week of drinking in Port

Essington's two hotel bars when the season finished, and the town's police constables usually made more arrests for drunkenness at this time than during the previous six months.

(211)

Yet hotel proprietors and clothing stores could not survive on the late summer trade alone. There were over 200 settlers in the town after 1900, most of whom either ran their own businesses or were wage and salary earners. Port

Essington residents were always encouraged to stay in the town when they had money to spend. A millinery and dress shop was established by Mrs. Frizzell in 1909 so that "Essington's ladies," according to the advertisement, "can have the advantages of city shopping without the attendant delay and expense of going to Vancouver." (212) Moreover, because Port

Essington was the commercial centre for the lower Skeena, and had the greatest variety of goods in the region, settlers and workers from other settlements visited the town to shop - often on the weekend when the canneries were closed. If Port

144 Essington's initial business development depended on the canneries it soon was a more general reflection of the town's status as the main port in the region. The steamer connection between Port Essington and Hazelton generated another important source of income. The editor of The Port

Essington Loyalist (hereafter, Loyalist) advertised Port

Essington as

a place where more actual business is transacted than at any other point between Vancouver and Sitka. Her river trade during the open season furnishes business for the large fleet of steamers plying between this port and Hazelton. This is but the natural result of her location, and from which she has earned the title of "Gateway to Skeena Trade." (213)

Much of this business was from passengers on their way to

Hazelton and the interior. Many of the prospective settlers bound for the Bulkley Valley during this period were brought to Port Essington and stayed in the Essington and Caledonia

Hotels for a few days before a steamer arrived to take them to

Hazelton. These hotels were fully furnished, with "grill rooms," licensed bars over 40 feet long, and 175 rooms between them. (214) Mining prospectors heading for the Klondike around the turn of the century also stayed at Port Essington. They were all encouraged to buy before they left. The town's business community placed a collective advertisement in the

Skeena District New3 on March 11, 1904, before the steamers started to run for the season:

We may remind prospectors, land seekers, timber cruisers, etc, that they will find it more profitable to delay buying their supplies and general outfit till they reach Port Essington. Here they will find several large

145 general stores carrying large stocks of goods embracing everything necessary for a sojourn through this country and at prices lower than could be obtained, with freight added, from the coast cities.

Four different newspapers were published in Port

Essington between 1904 and 1909. Each lasted less than a year, but were the only ones in north coastal British Columbia before Prince Rupert's Evening Empire and The Queen Charlotte

News. They attest to Port Essington's status as the commercial hub of the lower Skeena and provided vehicles for the local booster ism that was widespread in British Columbia at this time. Until about 1900, Cunningham had been the main promoter of settlement and business in the town. When he died in 1905, Port Essington had a diversified commercial base, and the town's business people started to promote their own interests. In 1908, 30 town business people chartered a merchants' association and a board of trade. (215) Canners, lumber merchants, and store owners from around the lower

Skeena region always met in Port Essington for private business meetings. But the newspapers were the commercial mouthpiece of the town. The Loyalist was dedicated to

"Essington and its business community." They were all published on Saturdays when the most people from around the lower Skeena were likely to be in the town. They circulated around the lower Skeena, and many travellers and visiting merchants probably read them too, and some may have taken them back to Victoria and Vancouver.

Much of this local promotion focused on the prospective

146 benefits of the GTP. In 1904 there were high hopes that the railway would terminate at Port Essington. GTP officials considered Port Simpson as an alternative, but it was ruled out as the U.S. had just been awarded islands at the entrance to Portland Canal and the government deemed the area to be strategically unsafe. (216) Many new businesses were started in anticipation of GTP surveyors, contractors, and labourers working in and around the town. In 1905, GTP officials decided to take the railway along the north side of the Skeena and build a new terminus town - Prince Rupert. Even so, on a tour of the Skeena in 1907 Senator Cox - head of the Bank of

Commerce - assured the town's business community that Port

Essington would not lose out altogether, since "The heaviest work on the entire line would draw its basic supplies from the town, and this alone should make it an active place." (217)

And two months later, the editor of The Sun told his readers not to think of the decision as "the end-all to Essington and everything on the southern shore." He continued:

This would be capital reasoning providing the old order of things were to obtain in the North. But they will not...with this work (on the north shore! Initiated, the face and future of the potential river and coast district undergoes the identical change wrought by the CPR in the Fraser river valley 20 years ago. There will be more population; there will be more industries and more manufactories to find employment for those who will come. Essington, instead of being a summer village, where fishermen journey to for three months out of the twelve, will take on the permanent industrial aspect to which she is entitled by virtue of her admirable situation. (218)

Economic optimism dominated British Columbia at this time, and

Port Essington's business community was no exception.

147 "Nowhere on the western hemisphere," declared the Loyalist,

"are opportunities so ripe for men with small capital to

attain a position of independence, if not affluence, as they

are right here in this immediate section." (219) In the same

mood, Sloan described Port Essington as "a miniature British

Columbia."

In the following few years, most of these hopes were

dashed. When work began on the Skeena leg of the GTP in 1907

contractors drew on Port Essington for their supplies, and

their workers often stayed in the town on their way to and

from the construction camps up river. But there was always

far more interest in Prince Rupert. Port Essington retained

many of its stores, but most new businesses started in the

region after 1910 were in Prince Rupert, and some of Port

Essington's business people, such as Morrow and Frizzell

opened branch stores there. (220) When a third of Port

Essington's commercial establishments were destroyed by fire

in 1909, many of them were not rebuilt (map 4b).

Homes and clubs, bunkhouses and gambling dens.

In all canning districts, canners needed to house their

seasonal workers. On nearly all canning sites, different

groups of workers were residentially segregated. Aboriginal

families were generally placed in huts, crews of Chinese men

* in larger bunkhouses that housed up to 50, Japanese workers in

bunkhouses or single huts (if they had families with them),

and "white" fishermen and workers in one-room cabins slightly

148 larger than the huts. They were never housed together.

Details of layouts very much depended on local topography.

Most Skeena canneries were backed by steep mountains, and cannery housing was stretched along the river bank, with "a

Chinahouse at each extremity of their village." (221)

Fishermen and cannery workers at Port Essington were housed in the same way, but the huts, bunkhouses, and cabins were part of a more complex settlement pattern (map 4b).

Cunningham's aboriginal employees lived in a row of huts adjacent to his cannery, or in another behind his hotel. His

Chinese and Japanese workers lived in bunkhouses. All other cannery housing was in the north end of the town. Aboriginal workers were housed in rows of huts immediately behind the

B.A. and Skeena River Commercial Canneries. Their Chinese workers also lived in bunkhouses. The Skeena River Commercial

Cannery housed it Japanese workers in bunkhouses. A few of the B.A. Cannery's Japanese fishermen had their families with them, and they, too, were put up in bunkhouses or huts (in

1904 the first Japanese child was born in Port Essington).

(222)

Most of Port Essington's businesses were huddled around

Dufferln Street from Cunningham's Hall to the Caledonia hotel.

Many business people lived above their stores. "Port

Essington," noted Appleyard,

stands upon the edge of a few low foothills, which extend over a space of about half a square mile...The streets are narrow because the level ground must be used with great economy. As I walk down the centre of the only

149 street we can boast with buildings on both sides, I can hit every door as I pass with a walking stick; in fact, the street proper is composed of a few rough planks... forming a walk about a yard wide. This is used for all purposes. (223)

A few of the wealthier merchants, and Port Essington's cannery managers, lived in large two-storey houses surrounded by white

fences on "the beginnings of streets strugglling] up the

foothills." (224) They were afforded a good view of the Skeena and were high enough to avoid the reek of fish and offal from

the canneries. Port Essington's other "white" residents were

scattered. And there were about 30 Kitsumkalum and Kitselas

houses on Cunningham's reserve in the south east part of the

town (see map 4b and 4c).

This townscape embodied a series of cultural

distinctions and perhaps concealed many social nuances.

Cultural groups mixed in their daily work activities, but they

lived in different settings, and in the evenings and at

weekends socialised separately.

Most of the town's prominent "whites" were men, married

with families. For many of these families, Port Essington

was not a seasonal canning town but their chosen year-round

home. Their houses were the focus of family life, but there

was a strong - if exclusive - community life in the town. In

1904, Cunningham built a large hall for the town's "white"

residents, and it immediately became the focal point of all

social gatherings. Previously they had met in the Essington

Hotel. (225) The "Port Essington Social Club" was formed in

150 1904. It had a committee of 14 (all men) which organised monthly dances and dinners, and weekend outings during the summer. (226) An average of about 50 people attended these functions. Most of them were married couples from the town, although some of the town's single men were invited (separate

"bachelor nights" were also held occasionally). But cannery managers, accountants, and business people from around the

Skeena were also invited - from as far away as Hazelton and

Port Simpson. Special dinners were also put on by the club when dignitaries visited the town. The proceeds of most events went into town funds - to the volunteer "fire relief service" or the school.

Port Essington's newspaper editors were essential participants in this social club. They announced forthcoming gatherings and reported on the success of and attendance at previous meetings. One popular event was termed a "basket social," where "the ladies [sic] provide the entertainment."

Women attending the gathering brought a basket of food. Their names were kept with the committee and the men in the hall bid for the baskets. The proceeds went to a town fund, and the transaction included not only the basket but also the woman who went with it as a dancing partner for the evening. (227)

Events like these illustrate how nineteenth century European social mores and gender relations remained largely intact in coastal British Columbia. There were several social and recreational clubs: the "Young men of Port Essington," the

151 "Port Essington Gun Club," the "Boat Club," and the

"Bachelor's Bridge Club." (228) Theatrical performances were given in the Essington Hotel and by 1909 the town planned to get a "moving picture show." (229)

Political activity was a form of socialisation for the

"white" elite. Port Essington was never an incorporated town, but after 1900 it elected its own municipal council in mock elections. During the early 1900s, Frizzell (the butcher) was the town's unofficial major. It is not certain what influence the municipal council had in the town, but it did coordinate volunteer services like the fire brigade, and its officials were trustees of Port Essington's "white" school. (230) More significantly, perhaps, by 1904 (if not before) Port Essington had its own branches of national political parties, both exclusively "white" and male. Herman, Frizzell, and Frank

Inrig (manager of the Skeena River Commercial Cannery) were the most active members of the local Liberal Party. (231)

George Cunningham and W.R. Lord (manager of the B.A. Cannery) led the town's local Conservatives. (232) These political groups were part of the secular society discussed in part 1.

Port Essington's "white" population were "citizens." They voted for Provincial and Dominion representatives for their area, and had the right to lobby. In return, police constables collected property taxes ($0.45 - $2 per lot per year in Port Essington In 1911) and cannery licence fees, and contractors for the Department of Lands and Works erected and

152 mended board walks. (233)

People in Port Essington knew a great deal about the world around them. Their newspapers published international news received in Victoria by telegraph, and each Saturday town people could read about everything from the installation of a new fire bell to Joseph Chamberlain's British Imperial Policy.

Their editorials usually discussed debates in Victoria and

Ottawa. Their tenor depended on the political convictions of the editor. The editors of the Lovalist and The Sun were

Conservative. The editor of the Skeena District News was a staunch Liberal. In 1908, Port Essington's Methodist minister, B.C. Freeman, established The Star as an

"independent" paper. "It must be a community paper," he argued, "not a one-man or one-party organ." (234) Ironically, it lasted the shortest time. Port Essington's "citizens" usually lobbied government officials by petition, but the newspapers were an important mechanism for raising support and of informing people about many issues before they attended meetings in the town.

Local politics were inextricably linked to local promotional schemes. Port Essington's voters always tried to return political representatives to Victoria and Ottawa who would put their specific interests first. Herman stood for the Skeena region as a Liberal candidate in Provincial

Government elections in 1903, but was not elected. (235) In

1907 the editor of The Sun tried to encourage town people to

153 attend a Conservative political rally to promote a representative from the Skeena for the Dominion Government.

He argued that the Skeena was

sorely in need of advocates who will bring the wants of this much neglected section of promising country before the attention of legislators and the governments - both Provincial and Dominion. The old Hudson's Bay preserve is passing through an evolutionary stage which demands consideration and treatment commensurate with the new order of things that is taking place on all sides of this "miniature British Columbia"...Northern British Columbia has too long been represented by proxy. Speak out! (236)

In the early 1900s, the town's business community lobbied for improvements in the telegraph and mail system on the Skeena.

Mail delivered to Port Essington once a week in CPR boats was sufficient during the winter, but the business community claimed that more frequent deliveries were required in summer.

Residents wrote to The Sun arguing that "For the volume of business transacted in the metropolis of the North Coast, the mail facilities afforded are insufficient," and the government was asked to make the system "more elastic during periods of increased business activity" by permitting the Camosum to carry mail as well. (237) Moreover, mail was only carried between Port Essington and Victoria. "Under the present inadequate arrangements," argued the Skeena District News,

points within our own district cannot be reached with anything like the frequency that outside points can be reached... the shortest time in which a letter can be dispatched from Essington and received a reply by mail from Bella Coola is six weeks. You can post a letter from here to London, England, and receive an equally early reply. (238)

As political "citizens," Port Essington's "white" community

154 demanded as much as they could.

In 1900 a telegraph line connected the lower Skeena with

Vancouver, and radically altered the way businesses in the

region could be run. Merchandising orders could be sent to

Vancouver and the goods delivered on the next ship north.

During the 1904 cannery strikes, Skeena cannery managers

cabled their company bosses in Vancouver to seek advice and,

eventually, approval of their 8.5 cent offer. Without it they

would have had to return to Vancouver by ship and the strike

probably would have lasted another two weeks. The Skeena

cable was built along the northern bank of the Skeena to

Aberdeen, however. Port Essington's "citizens" complained

very bitterly to Sloan that

Under the present system of a daily delivery of telegrams and collection of the same by a messenger from Aberdeen by row boat, considerable delay, expense and loss are occasioned and we think that such a service is not worthy of a progressive country like Canada, and more especially of a point of importance like the Skeena River. (239)

The mail service was improved a little after many petitions;

the telegraph was never extended across the Skeena.

The home, the club, and the desire for better telegraph

and mail services were all part of an exclusive social world.

As citizens of the state with full political rights, Port

Essington's "white" population had certain political

expectations: that their interests would be heard and

represented. Social clubs, merchants' associations, and

petitions to the government all brought Port Essington's

155 "white" population out of their homes and forged exclusive bonds.

Port Essington's Chinese and Japanese inhabited a different social world. The Chinese worked long hours in the three canneries, their work always supervised by foremen and

"China bosses." Most were men and few had wives with them.

Very few could read or speak English. They lived in cramped, sometimes unsanitary conditions and for two or three months per year, never escaping the stench of fish. An early twentieth century resident of Port Essington described this group as "almost monastic." (240) Appleyard gives the following description of what he considered to be Port

Essington's "Chinese Class:"

Every cannery has its "China House," which is a large cheap-looking wooden building, designed to hold 40 or 50 Chinamen employed. It is distinguished by the red dragon flag of China floating from a pole attached to the roof. The interior arrangements are a long narrow hall with cubicles opening into it from each side. The roof covers a bit of China, loped off & transplanted on Western soil. Charms & Prayers, made in China, decorate the smoke begrimed walls; odours, the production too of China, occupy every square inch of space; low tables & benches are placed about the room, & the Chinese, squatting on the benches, reach the level of their food, which with chopsticks they sweep into their mouths; gambling & opium smoking occupy the time not devoted to work, eating or sleeping... Here we are in transplanted China, eyes, ears, & nose bear evidence to the fact, the air bears a burden of odours anything but pleasant, it is a mixture of stale cabbage, rice, & opium, together with odours emanating from grease, steam, fish and perspiration with which the clothes of the Chinaman is saturated. (241)

Little is known about the living arrangements of Port

Essington's Japanese fishermen. Many of them lived in

156 bunkhouses too, but it is very unlikely that their life inside them resembled the above description. Appleyard claimed that the two communities were largely autonomous, and "like Jews and Samaritans they ha[d] no dealings with each other." He claimed that while the Chinese preferred to "sleep, eat, and gamble," the Japanese "get drunk and fight." (242)

Coast Tsimshian groups made up the largest percentage of

Port Essington's summer population. Most of them were associated the canning industry, but their communities were probably quite diverse. Many of the town's resident Kitselas and Kitsumkalum followed the teaching of Freemen, Pierce and other Methodist missionaries. Others on Cunningham's private reserve were attached to the Salvation Army which, after 1900, had its northern headquarters in the town. Many of these Port

Essington Tsimshian lived in houses, attended church twice a week, and did not drink. Those who came for the summer lived

in huts around the canneries, or, sometimes, in tents on the shore. In 1888, Boas thought these huts were rented and that

"Indians...could live quite well in them." "According to our standards," he continued, ty

they are dirty inside, but according to the Indians, nice and elegant...The fireplace is in the middle. Salmon hang dry over it to dry; foodstuffs, cans, or rather boxes of fat, and clothes are scattered all over; in short it is not exactly attractive. Others live in tents on the beaches. (243)

It is difficult to know whether tents were used into the twentieth century; certainly many migratory Coast Tsimshian groups still lived in wooden huts.

157 Most of the above remarks about these "other" groups are based on descriptions written through particular cultural

lenses. Remarkably little is still known about these groups during their summers in Port Essington. Certainly they were all excluded from the gatherings that bound the town's "white" society together, but perhaps most of them did not wish to be

part of this society. Chinese and Japanese groups had their

own cultural codes, their own forms of association and

socialisation, and few could speak the other's language. Many

of them would be in the town for one summer, and were there to

earn money that often was sent back to China and Japan to

support families. Most probably expected to return to their

homeland after a few years.

The cultural distinctions in Port Essington's townscape are reflected in the town's newspapers. The Chinese, Japanese

and "Indians" of Port Essington were usually discussed as

autonomous cultural groups. The opinions expressed about each

vary between newspapers and apparently depend on the personal

views of the editor, and the particular issue of the day.

The Loyalist never spoke of the town's Chinese and

Japanese, but often reported on the state of aboriginal

affairs in northern British Columbia. There is a long report

on the meeting between A.W. Vowell ("Indian" superintendent

for British Columbia) and "about 200 Indians and 13 Chiefs" in

the Band Workers Hall in Port Essington in July 1909 to

discuss the issue of reserves. "If you do get your land back,"

158 a reporter asked Chief Legaic, "will you go back to old tribal ways?" Legaic's reply was also published:

Certainly not, we are not heathens, we are an educated people. Neither do we want the white people to clear out, but want them to pay for the land they have taken and are taking from use right along.

But the editor always passed comment on such statements, in this case adding that "the kick" for the unrest "seems to come from a few Chiefs and Princes who have not been accustomed to working for themselves, but have to do so now white men are in possession." (244)

In 1904, some Skeena canners went to Vancouver to testify for the Rova! Commission on Chinese and Japanese Immigration.

They were asked whether the head tax on Chinese workers entering British Columbia should be increased. The editor of the Skeena District News added his comments "on behalf" of the town's business community:

That the Chinese are shrewd people is not to be doubted by anyone who has come into contact with them. They will labour for just as low wages as it is necessary to labour for in order to obtain employment, but not for a cent lower.

He claimed that if the Government halted Chinese immigration it would "aid the Chinese community as well as the white population." Both could demand higher wages for their labour, but he also thought the whole episode was quite bizarre since the "self-governing colonies of the British Empire are getting rid of the 'yellow pest' at the same time when in one it rules

- Transvaal - the British are directly introducing cheap

Chinese labour." (245)

159 Both sets of editorial statements are equivocal. So too,

probably, were the opinions of other "white" people in the

town. The Chinese, Japanese and aboriginal groups in Port

Essington were undoubtedly viewed as "others," but opinions about them probably varied. They were vital to the economic

stability of the town, and there were some "white-Indian" marriages. (246) The editor of The Sun,, however, was always

forthright with his views of Port Essington's Chinese and

Japanese. "Essington would be one of the best towns in

British Columbia," he claimed,

if the Japanese were excluded from fishing on the Skeena river, and the Chinese in the canneries replaced by Indians and whites...will the canner's association realise that the mongol is treading on its toes. This is no dream. It is a stern reality. (247)

The editor was echoing a discourse on Chinese and Japanese

people that was widespread at this time: that they were "an

inferior oriental race" and "that all these immigration (and

emigration) problems are, at bottom, economic." (248) There are few ways of knowing if his views were shared by the

majority of the town's elite. Bell-Irving had similar views about the Japanese, but all of Port Essington's canners

continued to employ large numbers of Japanese fishermen until

the Dominion Government started to restrict Japanese fishing

licenses in the 1920s. A large Chinese crew was employed at

the B.A. Cannery until it burned down in 1923, and it is more

likely that "Iron Chinks" were introduced because they lowered

production costs rather than because canners wished to exclude Chinese people. Certainly there were fights between aboriginal and Japanese fishermen in Port Essington, and around 1915 Port Essington's Methodist missionary W.H. Pierce organised a "native fishermen's association" to give "the

Indians a better chance" of competing with the Japanese for canners' boats and nets. (249) It would, however, be wrong to speak of a single "white" or aboriginal view about the Chinese and Japanese.

There were, of course, social differences within cultural groups. By 1920 (and probably before) Japanese merchants had

3 general stores and competed with "white" storekeepers. (250)

There were also Chinese restaurants in the town at various times. (251) From the early 1900s to 1915 there were five pool rooms with Japanese proprietors. "These were a great snare to the young people," argued Pierce, and "Whites, Japanese and

Indians all congregated there at times and wasted their money." (252) When discussing the progress of his missionary work at Port Essington, Pierce also drew sharp distinctions between the "sober and respectable" Kitselas and Kitsumkalum group on the reserve and the "whiskey drinking Indians" who came to town just for the canning season. (253)

Port Essington's "whites" had originating from different parts of Europe and North America. Few of them were born in

British Columbia. The members of the town's social clubs were mostly from the town's business elite, but the bonds and associations constituting this elite were not stable. During

161 World War 1, for example, the 75 or so Germans and Austrians living and working on the lower Skeena were called "Alien

Enemies" and had to report fortnightly to the police station in Prince Rupert or Port Essington. Over 30 of the "Alien

Enemies" in the region (included a few living in Port

Essington) were merchants and industrialists. They were shunned by their business associates and reported to the police station like others. (254)

The town's seasonal "white" labourers and fishermen were not part of the elite either. Nor were the travellers and miners who passed through the town, and the GTP labourers who visited every weekend when railway construction was under way.

They drank in the hotel saloons, sometimes got in fights, and often ended up gambling in the back rooms of the Essington and

Caledonia Hotels, and in the Chinese bunkhouses. Individuals from all groups were involved with the gambling rackets in the town. As the 1907 canning season neared its end, The Sun reported that "Gambling has...been on the increase, and at every corner can be seen lanterns hanging out to guide the victim to his lure." (255) The editor sent a reporter to investigate more fully one night and he found gambling games under way in the back rooms of many stores. (256)

The distinctions and interrelations between these different cultural groups were mediated, in part, by Port

Essington's police constables. Gambling was "illegal," but

The Sun reporter had no way of closing down the back rooms.

162 He probably asked the town's police constable to look into the matter. Police constables enforced government liquor laws.

The town's two bars could only open between 8 a.m and 11 p.m., and had to stay closed all day on Sundays. Under the Indian

Act, aboriginal people were forbidden to drink alcohol, and in

Port Essington the Department of Indian Affairs nearly always relied on constables appointed by the Provincial Government to police "its" aboriginal population, although "special Indian police constables" - salaried by the Dominion Government - were sometimes stationed in the town. (257) Port Essington had a full time constable from 1893, and after the Skeena Police

District - with headquarters at Prince Rupert - was created in

1909, "specials" (extra constables) were added in the summer.

(258)

Individuals from all of the town's cultural groups were arrested. In over 90 per cent of cases they were men. Their crimes varied widely, but the four commonest offenses were

"drunk and disorderly," conduct being "drunk and incapable,"

"supplying [alcohol to aboriginals)," and "gambling." (259)

Between 1908 and 1912, about half of the cases of drunkenness involved "whites," and almost never any of the town's elite.

Most of the others were associated with the town's aboriginal population, and a handful with the Japanese. Nearly all of the "supplying" charges were associated with the Chinese, and

"gambling" charges with "whites" and the Chinese. There were on average about 10 arrests per month between October and

163 April, and in the summer this figure tripled - the highest number of monthly arrests (between 40 and 60) always coming in

June and August. (260) Defendants were locked up in the Port

Essington's four-cell jail until a stipendiary magistrate or

J.P. visited the town. Most penalties were fines, ranging from $5-20 plus court costs for drunkenness, to $50-100 for gambling or supplying. Most Chinese and "white" defendants paid their fines immediately, but many aboriginal defendants could not, and instead served a month's hard labour - usually they swept out the police office every day, mended the Port

Essington board walks, and cleared snow in the winter. (261)

Defendants accused of the more 'seriousness' crimes - murder or smuggling - were taken to Port Simpson (and after 1906,

Prince Rupert) for trial.

Police constables served, in part, the interests of the town's "white" elite. Contract, property, and liquor laws were not postulated by pre-emptors and cannery managers, but devised, administered, and enforced by government officials on their behalf. "White" settlers did not possess the means of legal sanction - although after 1900 the government appointed many J.P.s from the region. Instead, they had to petition the

Provincial Government to appoint and dispatch constables, gold commissioners, stipendiary magistrates, and Government Agents from Victoria. Constables were in Port Essington, In part, to keep the peace and ensure that canners had a sober work force each morning. In 1879, the managers of the Aberdeen, Inverness, and Nass River Fish Company Canneries petitioned the government to send a commissioner of the peace to the

Skeena to define aboriginal fishing rights before the season started and to ensure that their cannery equipment and boats would not be tampered with. (262) In the summer of 1893, the

Skeena's cannery managers met at Metlakatla and petitioned the

Provincial Government to appoint a full-time constable at Port

Essington "as that place was headquarters for all the rough necks from all parts of the country." (263) James Kirby was immediately appointed, and his police manual primarily instructed him to act "in the defence of life and property."

(264)

This system of policing did not work smoothly along the lower Skeena. Constables could not effectively enforce laws and arrest 'offenders' without a juridical system to back them up. Kirby was provided with a lock-up, but it could only hold a few prisoners and Port Essington had no resident judge to try cases. During the canning season, the Government employed four or five magistrates to travel around the lower Skeena and hold courts at different places on set days of the week or month. But during the winter, the Skeena's three full time magistrates were not required to leave district headquarters at Port Simpson. In the winter of 1898, Kirby complained to the Superintendent of Provincial Police in Victoria that, as much as anything else, it was costing the Government a lot of money to either send prisoners for trial in Port Simpson or

165 bring magistrates from Port Simpson to hold a court in Port

Essington. (265) Over 10 years later, the editor of the

Loyalist was still asking for a magistrate: "We have a good police force but we have no court, and it seems to use that one is essential to the other...All other districts in this province receive full magisterial attention - why not

Essington?" (266)

If Port Essington's police served and protected particular interests, then Port Essington's "white" elite thought of themselves less as a "class" than as members of a secular society. Port Essington did not represent a new set of "class" interests as much as a new type of community. In the 1870s Duncan was the only J.P. in the region, and appeals for new government-appointed magistrates were a way of severing his influence in Port Essington and "Woodcock's

Landing." In 1872, 29 "white" settlers in the Skeena region

(including Cunningham) wrote to Trutch - then the Lieutenant

Governor of British Columbia - asking for a "commissioner of the peace" for the lower Skeena. "During the freighting season," they argued, "it is an everyday occurrence for misunderstandings to arise between the whites and their Indian crews & it is absolutely necessary to settle such cases on the spot." They complained about the "inconvenience and

injustice" of taking cases to Metlakatla and argued "That from the very circumstance of Mr. Duncan being a Missionary, he views cases coming before him from a different point to any

166 other person." (267) In 1898, Kirby ended his letter to

Superintendent Hussey by suggesting that A. Harris be appointed as magistrate for the town, adding that "parsons are not the right persons to make Justices, as they as a rule have justice too much one-sided." (268)

However differently motivated these appeals were, both attempted to ostracise missionaries from the government of

Port Essington's secular community. Cunningham and Duncan had very different views about aboriginal society. For Duncan,

Cunningham was one the "rapacious" white traders from whom his

Tsimshian needed to be protected. Apparently constable Brown was stationed in Port Essington - upon Duncan's suggestion to the Attorney General - to ensure that Cunningham and Hankin were not selling liquor to the Skeena Tsimshian. (269) When he was withdrawn in 1875, Duncan wrote that "It was the sudden influx of white men around Port Essington which called for the services of a white constable." (270) Cunningham apparently had no intention of curtailing his liquor sales, and must have thought that Duncan was interfering. Kirby probably had other reasons. He appears in his memoirs as an egoist, and missionaries were often the first to charge constables with incompetence. As J.P.s they were probably more likely to do so. Kirby was transferred to Hazelton in 1900, but relations between the church, the police, and the town's "white" population remained fragile. In December, 1905, Port

Essington's three missionaries - Freeman, J. Gosling, and W.F. Rushbrook - wrote to the Attorney General asking for the dismissal of constable Collins for not acting upon a number of complaints reported by town residents. (271) The following

February, 83 of Port Essington's "citizens" (almost all the town's elite including the town's three cannery managers) signed a letter supporting Collins and rebutting the missionaries:

We have known Mr Collins as a Special and Provincial Constables for the past few years, and are pleased to say that he has given us entire satisfaction in the execution of his duty...We may further state, we have been advised that, the contents of the Petition in mention is the general feeling of the public of the District, therefore permit us to correct such error by stating that the existence of the Petition was not known by the Public until a very recent date, "but confined to the knowledge of three persons only," whom we may add, are residents of very short standing in Port Essington. (272)

On this occasion, Port Essington's "citizens" supported their constable; at other times the police were probably resented for some of the laws they attempted to enforce. Port

Essington's hotel proprietors needed a letter of recommendation from the constable each year before their liquor licenses were renewed, and Kirby often found Cunningham drinking in his saloon on Sundays and shut the place down.

(273)

Port Essington's constables were implicated in all the networks of association outlined above. They routinely monitored different areas of the town, wandering around the canneries and town stores during the day and the town's bars, clubs, restaurants and bunkhouses in the evening. They were,

168 no doubt, the objects of trust as veil as resentment, and in many ways were a group apart.

Police constables were central figures in the expansion of the governmental apparatus in British Columbia between 1890 and 1920. Besides 'keeping the peace', they played two crucial roles for the government. First, they served a vital bureaucratic function. By 1910, many aspects of life and work

in British Columbia were taxed, and police constables were the government's chief revenue collectors. Before the Skeena canners petitioned the government to appoint a constable at

Port Essington, the region's only other constable, John Flewin

(stationed at Port Simpson), had made a similar appeal, but on the grounds that "it is an impossibility for me to attend to the police requirements of that place and also to do justice to the Finance Department of the Province in the collection of revenue." (274) Kirby and Port Essington's other constables collected property and revenue taxes for the Government Agent,

fines from court cases, and cannery, fishing, ship, liquor, trading, and firearms licence fees. They were not simply police constables, but also fishery overseers, sanitation and hotel inspectors, and game wardens. (275) They represented the authority of government on the lower Skeena and in large measure were its bureaucracy too. Early in the twentieth century, Port Essington's police force grew not because there were more "rough necks" in the town, but so that one constable could travel around the Skeena collecting cannery and fishing

169 licence fees, while others monitored the town. (276)

Police constables were also agents of surveillance. They were sent to places like Port Essington to monitor the activities of "ordinary" people. They wrote dally summaries, not just about their arrests, but many other aspects of life around their station too - gambling, fishing and cannery strikes, and the "mood" of the Skeena Tsimshian. (277) They submitted their findings to their superintendent in Victoria in a monthly report. (278) They did not discuss characters, but drew up lists of names and charted attitudes. They were supposed to remain aloof from the communities they policed, and were to abstain from expressing religious or political opinions. (279) Nor were they supposed to stay in one place for long. "Constables shall be auxiliary to each other," deemed the Provincial Secretary, "and shall be subject to removal from place to place as the necessities of the service require." (280) Kirby, in Port Essington between 1893 and

1900, was the town's longest serving constable. Constables were issued with a badge, uniform, and pistol or rifle, and once stationed were "to devote [their] whole time and attention to the police service, and shall follow no other occupation or calling." (281) They were the linchpin in a system of surveillance that stretched from town police stations, through chief constables and the superintendent of provincial police to cabinet ministers. In the Skeena region,

"roaming villains" were still chased by special police squads - such as the Pinkertons - but Port Essington's police station door now carried the faces of criminals on "wanted" posters from as far away as Arizona. (282)

This account is idealised, for these policing functions developed only slowly in Port Essington. The town's constables were not trained surveillance experts, and they were usually unsure about how and when to collect revenue, and to whom it should be sent. They were often just given a handbook of regulations, a copy of the "criminal code," a badge and rifle, and told to start work the following week in a place they had not heard of before. Kirby thought that he was entitled to half of the fines paid by order of magistrates and was promptly told by his superintendent that he should not receive any. (283) He was also without daily and monthly report forms until he had been in the town over a year. (284)

And during the winter of 1915, constable Birchall claimed to have received over 200 applications for fire arms licenses at the Port Essington police station, but could not issue any because he had not received a licence receipt book. (285)

Constables were sometimes not sure of the law. For a week in

May of 1911, "special constable" Godson monitored Port

Essington while constable Forsyth was away collecting cannery licence fees. When Forsyth returned, he discovered that Port

Essington's bars had remained open all day and night, and reported Godson to the chief constable for misconduct. Godson was dismissed, but when he replied to his chief constable's charges he claimed, quite simply, that he did not know that the hotels were supposed to close at llp.m in the week, and all day on Sundays. (286)

All constables worked by a professional code of conduct spelled out in their book of regulations. Among other things, they were not allowed to smoke in public or drink when on duty, and could "upon no occasion...accept any gratuity, present or award from any person for services rendered in the discharge of his duties." (287) Kirby seemed proud to represent the Government and never violated any of the conduct codes. Others did, and were usually dismissed. When, in June of 1910, the deputy commissioner of fisheries, J. Babcock, arrived in Port Essington to find out how many fishing licenses had been issued, he found both of Port Essington's constables drunk on duty. He filed a complaint to chief constable Wynn in Prince Rupert, and both were fired. (288)

The following year, Forsyth dismissed one of his "specials,"

John Gay, for receiving money to keep the Essington hotel open and from a Japanese pool room owner for allowing gambling games on his premises. (289) The town's hotel proprietors and business people obviously did not complain If their bars were left open and their trading licence fees were not collected, but the police department had a strict set of "misconduct" codes. (290) The petition by the missionaries was rare because if there were even a slight suggestion of misconduct the chief constable usually acted upon and resolved the charge without intervention from the Attorney General.

The town jail housed one officer and "special constables" had to rent accommodation. In 1910, Port Essington's constables were paid $70-85 a month, and they complained about how little they had to live on after paying room and board.

For most of them, policing was probably a miserable job that offered few rewards. They indulged themselves as much as possible, but always under the watchful eyes of the citizens they represented. It would, however, be wrong to overemphasise the fitfulness of law enforcement in Port

Essington. Police constables were not just symbols of government in outlying areas of British Columbia, but vital links in an expanding network of authority that from the end of the nineteenth century brought government into the lives of

"ordinary" people.

Conclusion.

The secular communities of places like Port Essington were mediated not just by legal-contractual Institutions but also by new economic and administrative systems.

By 1900, the barter relations and supply system characterising the fur trade of the HBC along the British

Columbian coast had been replaced by a new forms of supply and exchange premised on the availability of credit and, increasingly, the circulation of money. The people who entered Port Essington's stores were not trade partners, but

173 consumers. They were not bargaining for trade goods, but purchasing commodities. Many of them were cannery employees working on contracts for money wages. They were part of a system of industrial production based on a division of labour and the repetition of tasks.

These economic developments were tied to new forms of supervision and administration. Port Essington's canners and hotels proprietors could not operate when and as they pleased, but were subject to a number of regulations. Some of these were requested and others imposed, but they were all supervised by police constables who collected revenue, and monitored relations between the different groups in the town.

Yet Port Essington's "white" population were not just the clients of government, but also citizens. They were part of a larger political community, and petitioned provincial and dominion governments for services that they thought befitted their citizenship.

174 CONCLUSION: PORT ESSINGTON AS HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY.

Port Essington, like most settlements in late nineteenth and early twentieth century British Columbia, was enclosed by wilderness and superimposed on an aboriginal world. It faced a treacherous river mouth and was backed by thundering mountains; until the 20th century the Coast Tsimshian far outnumbered other groups throughout the lower Skeena region.

Port Essington initially provisioned passing gold prospectors, and during the 1870s remained an isolated trading settlement with only a handful of people. The town was transformed by a

"staple" industry. Two canneries were built at Port Essington in 1883; another in 1898. They brought Chinese, Japanese, and

"white" people to the town every summer to fish and process salmon, and employed many Coast Tsimshian. They also brought late nineteenth century techniques of industrial production and organisation. Port Essington became a seasonal, multi• cultural, industrial town.

The town's cultural groups were pressed together along a narrow strip of land, yet set apart in different abodes. They did not find a settlement matted with custom, but a migrant space concocted from a mixture of commercial and industrial capital that harboured many forms of cultural expression.

There was probably a good deal of cross-cultural interaction, but few from any group could speak any other tongue, and disconnected networks of association were forged around

175 language and a group's type and place of residence. Parts of cultures from different parts of the world were juxtaposed; complete cultures were not reproduced. Port Essington was home for some, offering a permanent means of income and the chance to build a new community. For others, it was a

stopping off point, but for most it was simply a summer work

place. Fleeting social attachments in the town were

conditioned by the exigencies of a resource industry and the

needs of strangers.

From 1883 to World War I, Port Essington was the canning and commercial centre on the lower Skeena, a chief port of

call for all coastal steamers on north coast passenger and

freight runs, and the main transshipment point for supplies

destined for Skeena canneries. Stores, businesses,

restaurants, and hotels grew on the back of this busy port and

relied on the canneries to boost their clientele each summer.

After 1910, commercial development in the region focused on

the GTP's rail terminus at Prince Rupert, and business and

businesses started to leave Port Essington. In newly-created,

opportunistic places like Port Essington, economic and social

ties were easily severed.

Port Essington encapsulated many of the changes in

British Columbia's coastal economy. It drew Coast Tsimshian

people and furs away from Fort Simpson and represented a new

era of settlement in British Columbia. By the late nineteenth

century, resource extraction and processing (and associated

176 local commercial economies) had replaced the fur trade as the dominant economic activity in the province. Port Essington reflected the spread of such activity up the coast, and was implicated in the changing geography of finance and management that supported it. Until the 1890s, commercial and industrial activity in and around the town was supported by Victoria merchants. They extended credit to Cunningham and financed many of the region's canneries. By 1905, Port Essington's three canneries - and many others on the lower Skeena - were being managed by Vancouver-based companies financed by banks and shareholders from beyond the province. British Columbia's canning industry depended on an international market and was part of a global economy operated by the movement of commodities by ship and train. Canned salmon from Port

Essington was sent to Great Britain, eastern Canada,

Australasia, the East Indies, and probably many other destinations too. Port Essington's canning economy was conditioned by international economic forces. By the mid-

19303 all of the town's canneries had been closed, and few people remained.

Port Essington represented a new kind of settlement in

British Columbia. Missionaries and fur traders were instructed to act in certain ways, but the institutions and discourses that shaped their conduct did not contain detailed rules for dealing with aboriginal groups and resolving conflict. At Port Essington, on the other hand, economic and

177 social relations were circumscribed by government laws monitored by provincial police constables. Land laws defined who could or could not own land and how it could be gained.

Contract laws defined the economic relation between worker and employer, and disagreements were settled in court. Criminal codes distinguished inadmissable from acceptable behaviour.

By 1900, property, and most forms of economic activity, were in some way taxed. Port Essington was part of a modern, secular society based on a new system of economic regulation and political supervision. Police constables were the tangible elements of government in places like Port Essington, and performed many functions later undertaken by centralised government bureaucracies. Port Essington was not only "a miniature British Columbia," but also a progenitor of modern

British Columbia. By recognising themselves as citizens, by making suits and petitioning the government, Port Essington's

"white" residents actively reproduced this secular society.

Port Essington and the lower Skeena region was part of a modernising world that, in Foucault's words, was composed of

"the near and far, of the side-by-side, of the dispersed."

The region's three largest settlements juxtaposed different cultures, and discourses formed through them. A system of industrial production was superimposed on aboriginal economies and forms of technology that had gone largely unchanged for centuries. Money replaced barter as the chief form of exchange. Fort Simpson and Port Essington were part of an

178 international circuit of finance and commodity exchange.

Metlakatla was an intrinsic part of a British philanthropic movement that sent "modernisers" and "civilisers" all over the globe.

Modernisation processes were composed of multiple historical geographies. This study has described some of these geographies. Historical geography can be written as a mode of critique as well as reconstruction...

179 NOTES AND REFERENCES

ABBREVIATIONS.

DIA. Department of Indian Affairs. DCR-PR Diocese of Caledonia Records, Prince Rupert. PAC. Public Archives of Canada. PABC Provincial Archives of British Columbia. PAM-HBCA...Provincial Archives of Manitoba - Hudson's Bay Company Archives. UBC-MCR....University of British Columbia - Microforms. UBC-SC University of British Columbia - Special Collections Division. VCA Vancouver City Archives.

PART I.

(1) Most of the traders, entrepreneurs, and missionaries on the North Coast were British by origin, but there were also many Norwegians, Germans, and Austrians in the region, so the term 'Europeans' has been preferred to simply 'British'. See, Canada, Census Returns, 1881, BC, 187-New Westminster, D3, s.d.-Coast of Mainland, Lower Skeena; and ibid., 1891, BC, 2- New Westminster, A18, UBC-MCR, AW1 R6453, C-13284 and T-6290. For an assessment of the number of German and Austrian people on the lower Skeena and how long they had been there, see, BC Provincial Police, "Alien Enemies, 1914-1918: Form A," by Police District: Prince Rupert, PABC, GR57, Vol.18. Following Arjun Appadurai, "Putting Hierarchy in its Place," Cultural Anthropology. Vol.3, No.l, (1988) pp.36-49, the term 'aboriginal' (meaning original owner or settler) was chosen instead of the more "ecologically and ideologically restrictive" term 'native', and the Eurocentric term 'Indian* when talking generally about a number of culturally and politically distinct aboriginal groups.

(2) On the maritime fur trade era see, James Gibson, "Old Russia in the New World: adversaries and adversities In Russian America," in J. Gibson (ed.), European Settlement and Development in North America: Essavs on Geographical Change in Honour and Memory of Andrew Hill Clark (Toronto: Toronto University Press; 1978) pp.46-68; Sheila Robinson, "Men and Resources on the Northern Northwest Coast of North America, 1785-1840: A Geographical Approach to the Maritime Fur Trade," 2 Vols., Ph.D. Thesis, University College London, 1984. For an assessment of the number of American, Russian, British and other trading vessels on the far northwest coast between 1783 and 1825, see Robert Galois, Sheila Robinson, "Plate 66: New Caledonia and Columbia I fur trades)," in R. Cole Harris (ed.), Historical Atlas of Canada. Vol.1: From the Beginning to 1800 (Toronto: Toronto University Press; 1987).

180 (3) See, E.E. Rich, The Fur Trade and the Northwest to 1857 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart; 1967) Ch. 14, "The Fur-Traders and the Pacific Slope," esp., pp.275-277. Fort Simpson was originally constructed 20 miles up the Nass river in 1831, but was moved because the new site was more accessible by ship. Mcloughlin had also considered establishing a post on the lower Skeena. In 1832 he wrote to P.S. Ogden at Fort Simpson that "It is important to the Company to find a River communicating with the River North of Portland Canal so as to extend the Trade in that part of the Country North of New Caledonia, and another Establishment in the vicinity of Port Essington or Mill Bank Sound would enable them to carry on the business with fewer vessels," and the HBC trader William Manson was sent on the HBC schooner Cadboro "for the purpose of examining the Skina River otherwise Port Essington." Manson returned to Fort Simpson from the Skeena in November 1832 disappointed that he had only found "one solitary spot...suitable for an Establishment" and this option was dropped. PAM-HBCA, B.223/b/8, fo.19; B.201/a/2. H.H. Bancroft argues that "In 1835 a party set out from Fort Simpson, and proceeding to the mouth of Skeena River they there erected an establishment which they called Port Essington." He does not acknowledge where he obtained this information from, and in light of the above evidence he was probably wrong. H.H. Bancroft, History of The Northwest

Coast. Vol. IIr 1800-46 (San Francisco: Bancroft and Company; 1884) p. 635.

(4) For a range of contemporary British views see, "The Hudson's Bay Question," in the Colonial Intelligencer (London: 1857). The idea of monopoly was, of course, very much out of vogue in Britain at this time. As such, many merely assumed that the HBC was a derogatory influence on the "primitive peoples" of North America. For more recent analyses of aboriginal dependency on the fur trade see, E.E. Rich, "Trade Habits and Economic Motivations among the Indians of North America," Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science. Vol.26, No.1 (1960), pp.35-53; Arthur Ray, Indians in the Fur Trade (Toronto: Toronto University Press; 1974) Ch. 8.

(5) The notion of aboriginal dependency on the HBC's New Caledonian land-based fur trade has been challenged by Robin Fisher, Contact and Conflict: Indian-European Relations in British Columbia, 1774-1890 (Vancouver: UBC Press; 1977) Ch.2.

(6) See Gibson, op.cit.; and his "Bostonians and Muscovites on the Northwest Coast, 1788-1841," in R. McDonald and P. Ward (eds.), British Columbia: Historical Readings (Vancouver: Douglas & Mclntyre; 1981) pp.66-96.

181 (7) Robinson, op.cit.. p.228.

(8) George Simpson to the Governor, Deputy Governor and Committee of the Hudson's Bay Company, Nov. 25, 1841, in Glyndwr Williams (ed.), London Correspondence Inward from Sir George Simpson, 1841-42 (London: Hudson's Bay Company Record Society; 1973) p.67.

(9) M. Halpin, "The Tsimshian Crest System," Ph.D. Thesis, UBC, Department of Anthropology, 1973, p.44.

(10) See George McDonald, "Plate 13: The Coast Tsimshian ca. 1750," in Harris, op.cit.

(11) For good general accounts of the traditional economy and society of the Tsimshian, see Viola Garfield, "The Tsimshian and Their Neighbors," in V. Garfield and P. Wingert (eds.), The Tsimshian Indians and their Arts. (Seattle: University of Washington Press; 1951); Philip Drucker, Indians of the Northwest Coast (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company; 1955). For a brilliant reconstruction of the annual round of the Coast Tsimshian group Kitkatla in 1835 from European records, see Donald Mitchell, "Sebassa's men," in D.N. Abbott (ed.), The World is as Sharp as a Knife: an Anthology in Honour of Wilson Duff (Victoria: BC Provincial Museum; 1981).

(12) George Simpson to William Smith, Nov. 1828, in Frederick Merk (ed.), Fur Trade and Empire: George Simpson's Journal. Remarks Connected with the Fur Trade in the Course of a Voyage from York Factory to Fort George and back to York 1824-1825 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 1931) p.300 and passim; Sir James Douglas, Private Papers, MS 2d. ser., 59, quoted in Bancroft, op.cit., p. 635.

(13) For the Tsimshian house names that moved to Fort Simpson, and where around the fort they moved to see, Homer Barnett, "Tsimshian Indians," in Barnett Collection, box 1, file 9, notebook 3, pp.1-12, UBC-SC.

(14) Sunday June 15, The Journals of William Fraser Tolmie: Fur Trader and Physician (Vancouver: Mitchell Press; 1963) pp.282-283.

(15) Fisher, op.cit., pp.29-31. Numerous skirmishes and "wars" outside the fort walls were reported in the Fort Simpson Journal in the 1830s. Although HBC employees understood little about them, most of them were probably related to the Coast Tsimshian attempt establish dominion over trade with the HBC fort. See, Marlus Barbeau, "Old Port Simpson," The Beaver, outfit 271 (1940), pp.20-23; "Fort Simpson: Post Journals, 1832-1866," PAM-HBCA B201/a/l-3 (Reel IM141). John Work - Chief Trader between 1837 and 1846 -

182 gives many snippets of information.

(16) Fisher, op.cit.f p. 31.

(17) Ibid.r pp.46-47.

(18) The zaison d'etre of potlatching varied between groups, but all potlatch systems involved processes of status assumption and status confirmation. Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian potlatches were more concerned with status assumption than were the kwagulth, Nootka and Coast Salish with their greater emphasis on status confirmation. Tsimshian potlatches usually involved a cycle that began with the death of a chief, and culminated (sometimes after a period of weeks) in the installation of an heir. Attendant upon this cycle would be a series of memorials, the building of a new house, the erection of a totem pole, and a final feast. All of this would happen in the presence of invited guests with whom political relations were maintained (either locally or extra- locally), and through whom the prestige and continuity of the economic and political power of a local lineage was re• affirmed or challenged. For a structuralist account of Northwest Coast potlatching see, A. Rosman and P. Rubel, Feasting With Mine Enemv: Rank and Exchange Among Northwest Coast Societies (New York: Columbia University Press; 1971). For a "symbolic" interpretation of Tsimshian potlatching see, Margaret Seguin, "Understanding Tsimshian 'Potlatch'," in B. Morrison, R. Wilson (eds.), Native Peoples: The Canadian Experience (Toronto: McCelland and Stewart; 1986) pp.473-501.

(19) Wilson Duff, The Indian History of British Columbia:

Vol.lf The Impact of the White Man (Victoria: Provincial Museum; 1964) p.39. HBC officials estimated that the smallpox that came from the north, and did not spread any further south than Fort Simpson.

(20) Fisher, op.cit., pp.45-48; cf, Joyce Wike, "The Effects of the Maritime Fur Trade on Northwest Coast Indian Society," Ph.D. Thesis, Columbia University, New York, Department of Anthropology, 1947, pp.96-103.

(21) See, Harold Innis, The Fur Trade In Canada: An Introduction to Canadian Economic History (Revised Edition, Toronto: Toronto University Press; 1956) Ch.10, "From Hudson Bay to the Pacific Coast, 1821-69;" Margaret Ormsby, British Columbia: a History (Toronto: Macmillan; 1971) Ch.3, "Outpost of Commercial Empire;" Richard Mackie, "The Company Transformed: The New Fur Trade on the West Coast, 1821-1858," Paper presented to the Fifth BC Studies Conference, Simon Fraser University, 1988, esp. pp.4-25.

183 (22) The term 'country produce* was a contemporary phrase connoting the internal or provisioning relations between different HBC posts throughout Canada. See, Mackie, op.cit..

(23) This statement relies on the information of Lome Hammond, "'Any Ordinary Degree of System': The Columbia Department of the Hudson's Bay Company and the Harvesting of Wildlife, 1825-1849," M.A. Thesis, University of Victoria, Department of History, 1985, cited in Mackie, op.cit., p.28. Between 1834 and 1849 Fort Simpson probably produced over half of the Columbia Department's furs exported to London.

(24) See, Helen Meilleur, A Pour of Rain: Stories from a West Coast Fort (Victoria: Sono Nis Press; 1980) Ch.12, "Rations and Regales."

(25) Simpson the Governor etc, Nov. 25, 1841, op.cit., pp.61- 62; Meilleur, oo.cit.. pp.75-79.

(26) Meilleur, ibid. These items were recorded in the Fort Journal every Sunday.

(27) See Ray, op.cit.f Ch.3 for a discussion of the barter and market elements in seventeenth and eighteenth century fur trading practices in central Canada.

(28) For citations from the Fort Simpson Journal see,

Meilleur, op.cit.r Ch.16, "Barter." On the natural cycles of scarcity and abundance amongst fur-bearing animals in the cordillera see, I.T. Cowan, "The Fur Trade and the Fur Cycle, 1825-1857," British Columbia Historical Quarterly. Vol.11, No.l (1938), pp.19-30.

(29) James Douglas to the Governor, Deputy Governor and Committee of the Hudson's Bay Company, Oct. 27, 1849, in Hartwell Boswell (ed.), Fort Victoria Letters 1846-1851 (Winnipeg: Hudson's Bay Record Society; 1979) p.61.

(30) See Rich, "Trade Habits and Economic Motivations."

(31) One of the main problems for Fort Simpson traders during the 1840s and 1850s was the appearance of Haida traders in the settlement. The HBC wished to trade with them directly - especially for foodstuffs - but this undermined Coast Tsimshian monopoly privileges. The nature of this monopoly was not fully understand by HBC traders and created tensions in their trading relations. See Meilleur, op.cit.. pp.89-90, 110.

(32) Tolmie, op.cit.f p.290.

(33) Meilleur, op.cit.r Ch.16, "Barter."

184 (34) Ibid.. p.105.

(35) See, Mackie, op.cit., pp.25-47.

(36) Meilleur, op.cit.f p.79 and 85.

(37) See Mackie, "Colonial Land, Indian Labour, and Company Capital: The economy of Vancouver Island, 1849-1858," MA Thesis, University of Victoria, Department of History, 1984, pp.215-226.

(38) See Drucker, op.cit.P pp.134-139, for a still useful account of economic and political change among the Tsimshian at Port Simpson and the Kvagukth at Port Rupert during the 1840s and 50s.

(39) See, Michael Harkin, "History, Narrative, and

Temporality: Examples from the Northwest Coast," Ethnohistoryr Vol. 35, No.2 (Spring, 1988) pp.99-129.

(40) For an analysis of aboriginal-HBC marriage ties in HBC forts east of the Rockies see, Sylvia Van Kirk, "Many Tender Ties:" women in the fur trade society in Western Canada 1670- 1870 (Winnipeg: Watson and Dwyer Publishing Ltd.; 1980); for details on some of the HBC traders who took aboriginal wives see John Walbran's short biographies of W.H. McNeill, J.F. Kennedy, and G. Blenkinsop in his, British Columbia Coast Names 1592-1906: Their Origin and History (Vancouver: J. Douglas Ltd; 1971), pp.55, 391-2 (originally published by the Government Printing Bureau, Ottawa, 1909).

(42) George Simpson, 1841/2, cited in Fisher, OP.cit.. p.26.

(43) HBC factor W. McNeill, cited in Meilleur, op.cit., p.180 (my emphasis).

(44) John Work's journals of the 1830s are notable in this respect. For select citations from him on HBC-Tsimshian relations, see Meilleur, op.cit., Ch.23, "The Factor and Indian-Fort Relations."

(45) Remarkably little is known about the alcohol trade along the British Columbian coast. For details of the presence of "rum boats" and "whiskey schooners" in the lower Skeena region, see Meilleur, op.cit.f Ch.17, "In Spite of Opponents;" Peter Murray, The Devil and Mr. Duncan: A History of the Two Metlakatlas (Victoria: Sono Nis Press; 1985) esp. Ch.8, "Tightening the Reins." For an account of the ways in which the Colonial Government responded to this illicit traffic by dispatching Royal Navy gunboats to the mouths of the Skeena and Nass see,

185 Barry Gough, Gunboat Frontier: British Maritime Authority and Northwest Coast Indians, 1846-90 (Vancouver: UBC Press; 1984) Ch.13, "New Zones of Influence."

(46) J.F.C. Harrison, Early Victorian Britain. 1832-51 (Glasgow: Fontana edition; 1979) p.161.

(47) During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Anglican missionaries in the lower Skeena region published their homebound letters, reports and vignettes in the Church Missionary Intelligencer. The Mission Field, and The Church Missionary Gleaner (published in London through the CMS and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel); Methodist missionaries published in the Missionary Bulletin, and The Missionary Outlook (published in London and Toronto). Many of the missionary letters in these journals were collected in books published by missionary societies.

(48) Thomas Laqueur, "Bodies, Details, and the Humanitarian Narrative," in Lynn Hunt (ed.), The New Cultural History (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press; 1989) pp. 176-205, quote, p.179.

(49) Ibid.

(50) Ibid.r p.180.

(51) Thomas Crosby, Up and Down the North Pacific by Canoe and Mission Ship (Toronto: The Missionary Society of the Methodist Church; 1914) p.99.

(52) See Alice Janvrin's introduction to W. Ridley, Snapshots from the North Pacific (London: Church Missionary Society; 1904) pp.1-7.

(53) Crosby, OP•cit., p.289; also see, "An Appeal From Bishop Ridley," The Church Missionary Gleaner, Vol.VI, No.69 (1879) - in a long letter to his British funding public, Ridley compresses many of these notions in one paragraph: "Civilization threatens to blot out these inferior races, but on it their disappearance leaves a blot and a crime. Its pioneers - drink, violence and debauchery - destroy their few virtues, leaving them more wicked than before, and only less dangerous because less vigorous."

(54) The construction of these social and moral negatives to depict aboriginal life was not restricted to the missionaries, of course, for both HBC and colonial officials in British Columbia harboured similar views. Nevertheless, it is often in missionary accounts that such constructions are given their most overt expression. On the construction of such notions as a generic feature

186 of British relations with aboriginal peoples in North America, see, Colin Calloway, Crown and Calumet: British-Indian Relations. 1783-1815 (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press; 1987) Pt.ll, "The Meeting of Cultures." For a very accomplished argument about these, and a much wider set of cultural constructions that developed from the meeting of European and aboriginal cultures around the world from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century see, Mary Helms, Ulysses' Sail: An Ethnographic Odyssev of Power. Knowledge and Geographical Distance (Princeton: Princeton University Press; 1988) .

(55) This was followed by the establishment of the Kincolith mission on the Nass River in 1866. See, Palmer Patterson II, Mission on the Nass (Waterloo: Eulachon Press; 1982).

(56) Duncan laid down 15 rules which all the Metlakatlan Tsimshian had to obey: they had to give up, "the Demoniacal Rites called Ahlied or Medicine Work; Conjuring and all the heathen practices over the sick; Use of intoxicating liquor; Gambling; Painting Faces; Giving away property for display; [and! tearing up property in anger or to wipe out disgrace," and had to, rest on Sundays, attend church, send their children to school, be cleanly, peaceful and orderly, work hard, be honest in trade, build neat houses, and pay the village tax of one blanket or $2.50 for each adult male. Disobedience to these rules was punishable by fines or banishment. William Duncan, Oct. 1862, Laws of Metlakatla, "Notebooks," UBC-MCR C2158.

(57) Duncan, Oct. 1862, cited in J. Nelson, Metlakatla: Ten Years Work Among the Tsimshian Indians (London: Church Missionary Society; 1869) p.95.

(58) Laqueur, opfcit.f p.201.

(59) Ridley, "Appeal..." To quote in full, "Their ignorance of the benefits of civilization is a greater good than a knowledge of them, until they are fortified morally and spiritually by the Gospel against its evils. The enterprise of commerce, which we shall be glad of then, is beforehand with us now in bridging over the broadest channels, so that the plague is begun. We must enable the missionary at once to emulate the merchant. The very noblest Indians must be enriched with the pearl of great price, or they will sell themselves to perdition while we tarry."

(60) Laqueur, op.cit., p.202.

(61) Wilbert Shenk, "Henry Venn's Instructions to Missionaries," Missiologv. Vol.V, No.4 (1977), pp.467-485, quote, p.472.

187 (62) Duncan, Sept., 1860, "Journals, 1859-1896," UBC-MCR C2155.

(63) Duncan to CMS, Apr. 1862, cited in Jean Usher, William Duncan of Metlakatla: A Victorian Missionary in British Columbia (Ottawa: National Museums of Canada; 1974) p.59.

(64) Fisher, OP.cit.f p.120 and Ch.6, passim. Douglas had previously allowed Roman Catholic Oblates to work on Vancouver Island and the lower mainland in the 1840s and 50s. Perhaps he considered trading relations at Fort Simpson more delicate than those around HBC posts on Vancouver Island. Nevertheless, antagonism between the HBC and missionaries was by no means restricted to British Columbia. See, for example, Robert Jarvenpa, "The Hudson's Bay Company, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Chipewayan in the Late Fur Trade Period," in B. Trigger, T. Morantz, L. Dechene (eds.), Le Castor Fait Tout; Selected Papers of the 5th North American Fur Trade Conference,. 1985 (Lake St. Louis Historical Society; 1987) pp.485-518.

(65) Cited in Shenk, op.cit., p.475.

(66) Duncan to Venn, 1857, cited in Murray, op.cit., p.31-2. (67) Duncan to Sir James Douglas, 1863, cited in Usher, op.cit., p.66.

(68) Duncan to W. Young, cited in Usher, ibid.

(69) For a full account of the following details about the commercial development of Metlakatla, see, Murray, op.cit., Chs. 7 and 8, passim: Usher, op.cit.. Ch.V, "The Metlakatla System."

(70) Meilleur, op.cit.r pll9. By "shop," Moffatt was referring to the HBC's retail outlet at Fort Simpson. It probably became a part of the Fort's trading operations in the mid-1850s. It also attests to the HBC's on-going commercial diversification in British Columbia.

(71) Cited in Usher, op.cit.f p.67.

(72) Duncan, July 1866, "Journals," loc.cit.

(73) Cited in Murray, op.cit., p.117.

(74) A discussion of Duncan's social programmes, with extensive quotations, may be found in Usher, op.cit., Ch.V.

188 (75) Shenk, Ibid

(76) Duncan to Col. Powell (Supt. of Indian Affairs, Victoria, BC), Aug. 1881, DIA, "Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for 1881," Canada, Sessional Papers. 1882, Vol.XV, No.6, p.147.

(77) Church Missionary Intelligencer. Vol.XIV (1863), No.5., p.162.

(78) Cited in Usher, OP.cit•. p.82.

(79) Crosby, op.cit., p.66.

(80) On Duncan's difficulties at Metlakatla in the 1880s, see, Murray, op.cit.f Chs. 10-15; Usher, op.cit.F Ch.VI.

(81) By the mid-1870s, the Dominion and Provincial Government was supporting the Anglican school at Metlakatla and the Methodist school at Fort Simpson. See, DIA, Annual Reports (Ottawa; 1875, abstracts from Dominion Sessional Papers) p.48. Port Essington's "white" school was opened in 1889, supported by four local business, and funded by the Provincial Government rather than missionary societies. See, Department of Education, Correspondence Outward, F.455/89, PABC GR 450. On the tensions created between missionary organisations and colonial governments by the expansion of colonial settlement and the spread of secular institutions in to areas previously under the solitary sway of the missionary's "mosaic rule" in different parts of the world see, S. Neill, A History of Christian Missions 2nd Ed., (Harmondsworth: Penguin; 1984) "The heyday of Colonialism, 1858-1914." The subsumption of the missionary's educational function by governments in different parts of the world (and including British Columbia: Ridley gave testimony in this regard), is nicely stated in the Protestant World Missionary Conference. 1910: Report of Commission V - The Training of Missionaries (Edinburgh: Oilplant, Anderson & Farrier; 1911), p.7, where the chairman asks, "In the midst of the vast surge of these races towards a universal education, what place does the missionary movement occupy? ...Missionary Societies now see this task undertaken by Governments on a scale far beyond that of the missionary schools of the past."

(82) After 1886, Anglican missionaries in the Skeena region devised a new plan of following aboriginal groups from their summer work places - mainly in the salmon canneries on the lower Skeena - to their winter villages (many of them up the Skeena River), instead of remaining in places such as Port Essington to minister just a handful of people. Ridley, op.cit., p.45, 82, told the CMS and his missionaries that "There is a round of work that brooks no intermission," and

189 with this new plan "the whole year is economised...[in] continuous labour." Methodist missionaries pursued a similar policy. Crosby, op.cit., p.129, argued that the need for footloose missionaries had arisen "in answer of the calls which poured in from outlying tribes," and upon their spiritual calling to "go into all the world." D

(83) See, for example, William Duncan, "A contrast," The Church Missionary Intelligencer, Vol. XIV (1863), where he distinguishes between the "demoralization" of the Coast Tsimshian at Fort Simpson and the "virtuous" Metlakatlan Tsimshian obeying his 15 rules.

(84) "Recent Intelligence," ChUKgh Missionary Intelligencer, Vol.XIII (1862).

(85) Duncan to Cridge, Apr.1862, cited in Usher, op.cit, p.60.

(86) Murray, op.cit., p.10.

(87) Ibid.

(88) See, for example, I.W. Powell's report on his trip to Metlakatla in 1881. I.W.Powell to Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs, Nov. 1881, DIA, "Annual Reports of Superintendents and Agents," Canada, Sessional Papers, 1882, Vol.XV, No.6, p.144.

(89) Usher. op.cit., p. 78.

(90) Ibid.

(91) Ibid., p.viii, my emphasis.

(92) Ibid,

(93) Even then, a deed of conveyance was never granted, and as Methodist missionaries came to Fort Simpson in 1873 and started to erect houses and streets, the HBC were still unsure of the legal basis of their land title around the fort, and about which parts of the settlement were intended as reserved Tsimshian land. See, A. Munro to The Board of Commissioners on Indian Land Claims and Reserves in British Columbia, Oct. 1876, DIA, "Black Series," RG10, Vol. 3776, file 37373-1, UBC- MCR, AW1 R6402:39.

(94) On the legal basis of the CMS establishment at Metlakatla, see, Murray, op.cit., p.57ff.

(95) In 1861, Governor Douglas signed the first Ordinance regulating land pre-emptions on both Vancouver Island and the

190 mainland colony of British Columbia. The 1870 Land Act was an extension of this earlier Ordinance. On the development of land policies before and after Confederation see, Robert Cail, Land. Man, and the Law (Vancouver: UBC Press; 1974).

(96) Ibid.. pp.15-20.

(97) P.H.2, Lots 45,46,47,48, Range 5, Coast district (Skeena River) surveyed by J.A. Mahood, March 27, 1890 (Manuscripts, Ministry of Lands and Works, Victoria). Cunningham's 160 acre tract of land was Lot 45.

(98) See Cail, op.cit., pp.59-61. "The problem Douglas faced," he argues (p.l), "was the need to provide for the systematic alienation of public land in an uncharted wilderness of unknown area and unsuspected resources, inhabited by thousands of Indians and a few thousand transient miners."

(99) On the attempt to separate the settler and aboriginal population around Fort Victoria, see, Wilson Duff, "The Fort Victoria Treaties." BC Studies. 3 (1969), pp.3-57.

(100) Cail, op.cit., Chs. 2 and 11.

(101) Lytton to Douglas, 1858, cited in Cail, op.cit.f p.174.

(102) Duncan, cited in Murray, op.cit.r p.59.

(103) See, DIA, "Annual Reports..." 1879-1889, Canada,

Sessional Papersf Vols. III-XIII.

(104) Chief commissioner of lands and works to Henry Soar, November 10, 1870, Colonial Correspondence, fl617A, PABC (Roll B-1364).

(105) "1871- Skeena Route: Instructions to E.W. Dewdney and his Reports," Herald Street Collection, Box 38, 1-201, PABC.

(106) See A.L. Poudrier, "Exploration Survey of New Caledonia," British Columbia, Sessional Papers, 1892.

(107) It is difficult to determine the precise extent of pre• emption in the Skeena region at any one time, because the some pre-empted and surveyed sites were never settled while many of those that were settled either changed hands quickly or were abandoned. The lower Skeena was also part of the much larger Cassiar district and the Department od Lands and Works only published aggregate figures. See, "Annual Report of the Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works," British Columbia, Sessional

Papersr from 1873 onwards. Pre-emptions and Crown Grants in the Skeena are also recorded in the British Columbia Gazette.

191 (108) Sketches and maps of the Tsimshian reserves may be found amongst the voluminous field notes and reports of reserve commissioners, DIA surveyors and Indian Agents in the DIA "Black Series." All the reserves inaugurated up to 1916 may be found on an accompanying sheet to the Report of the Roval Commission on Indian Affairs for the Province of British Columbia, 4 vols., (Victoria; 1919) Vol.3, "Nass Agency."

(109) The role of police constables is discussed more fully in the next chapter.

(110) James McDonald, "Trying to Make a Life: the Historical Political Economy of Kitsumkalum," Ph.D. Thesis, UBC, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, 1985.

(111) Ibid.. Ch.l.

(112) Larry Gringas, "The Tokens of Robert Cunningham." Vancouver Numismatic Society. Vol.4, No.3 (1964), pp.19-20; Henry Doyle, "Notebooks," Vol.21., Henry Doyle Papers, UBC-SC; Henry Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol.5, July 22, 1891, Vol.13, 189 4, n.d., VCA Add. MSS. 1.

(113) Dempster, McKay and Croasdaile to G.A.B. Walken, Attorney General and Chief Commissioner Lands and Works, Jan. 14, 1879, Department of Lands and Works, PABC GR 868 Box 3, fo.27, 81/79.

(114) See, DIA, "Annual Reports..." 1885 and 1891, Canada, Sessional Papers. 1886, Vol.XIX, No.4, p.117; 1892, Vol. XXV, No.14, p.169.

(115) "Memorandum of Agreement between Robert Cunningham and the kitselas Indians," Port Essington, Feb. 1880, DIA, "Black Series," loc.clt.

(116) Canada, Census Returns, 1881, loc.clt., pp.1-7.

(117) For an account of the start of the Methodist mission in Port Essington on Cunningham's private reserve see, J.P. Hicks (ed.), From Potlatch to Pulpit: The Autobiography of W.H. Pierce (Vancouver; 1933) p.l8ff; C. Lillard (ed.) [W.H. Colllson] In the Wake of the War Canoe (Victoria: Sono Nis Press; 1981), p.203. Collison conducted a service among European settlers and Coast Tsimshian groups in Port Essington in 1875 (p.202). On the establishment of the Anglican church in Port Essington see, J.H. Keen's 1932 "History of the Diocese of Caledonia to the Year 1913," p.13, DCR-PR; SPG "Records," PAC, MG17, Bl, Vol.28, D70-Caledonia, pp.542-562.

(118) Cunningham's deed of gift to the Methodist church in

192 1877 is mentioned in passing by Pierce, ibid. On the deed of gift to the Anglican church see, Archbishop Du Vernet, "Notebook," 1904ff, DCR-PR, Box 203.

(119) Canada, Census Returns, 1891, loc.cit.

(120) The legal history of the B.A. Cannery is recorded in the Anglo-British Columbia Packing Company's "Records" (hereafter, ABCPC records), VCA Add. MSS. 870, Vol.5, file 2.

(121) Robert Cunningham and Sons, Ltd, "Summary of Capital and Shares," Sept. 1912, PABC, company files.

(122) On the Kitselas and Kitsumkalum appeal to Todd see, DIA

"Black Series," loc.cit.P Oct. 24, 1887. For the Kitselas explanation of the circumstances surrounding the case see, Report of the Roval Commission Nass Agency, "Evidence, Port Essington," pp.18-19, UBC-MCR, AW5 B7 55915.

(123) Benjamin Appleyard to the Bishop of Caledonia, Oct. 1904, DCR-PR, Misc. file.

(124) Appleyard to the Bishop of Caledonia, 1905, p.9, DCR- PR, Misc. file. The indenture agreements between Bishop Ridley and Peter Herman (dated Aug. 4, 1902) and the injunction drawn by Cunningham on Ridley are also included with Appleyard's letter.

(125) Ibid.. p.8.

(126) Ibid.r p. 9.

(127) The details of labour disputes heard in Port Essington between 1906 and 1914, along with their individual court judgments, are listed in, Prince Rupert, County Court, Plaints and Procedure Books: Vol.1, p.l (May 1906) - Vol.2, p.690 (Feb. 1914), PABC GR 1629 (Roll B7377). In 1908, for example, six plaints were brought by European workers against the Grand Trunk Pacific for non-payment of wages, and twenty plaints were brought by Japanese workers against the B.C. Tie and Timber Company for non-payment. In these instances, all of the court's decisions went in favour of the workers, and the following year the B.C. Tie and Timber Company went into liquidation and was bought out by a consortium of local business men organised by Robert Cunningham's son George.

(128) In supplementing the operations of the County Courts, many disputes between private legal individuals (especially when they involved sums of money) were fed through the B.C. Supreme Court in Victoria, and are recorded in either the "Judgement Books" or the "Cause Books." (Court records for all juridical levels and for the different juridical regions in

193 B.C. are now indexed together in the PABC's enormous GR 1590 collection). Supreme Court judgments involving people from Port Essington start in the 1890s. Between 1895 and 1905, Cunningham brought plaints and writs of summons against over 15 individuals (mainly other Port Essington merchants) to recover sums of money of between $50 and $6,000. The dispute between Cunningham and Appleyard was also heard in the Supreme Court (see Cause Books, Vol.2, p.22)

(129) Clarence Bolt, "The Conversion of the Port Simpson Tsimshian: Indian Control or Missionary Manipulation," BC Studies, No.57 (1983), pp.38-56.

(130) Charles Todd, "Annual Report for the North-West Coast Agency," Nov. 1888, Canada, Sessional Papers, 1889, Vol.12, No.16, p.201.

(131) Bolt, op.cit., p.39.

(132) Hicks, OP.cit.r pp.19-20.

(133) See, for example, B.C. Freeman (Methodist), J. Gosling (Salvation Army), W.F. Rushbrook (Anglican) to The Attorney General, Dec. 5, 1905, Attorney General Correspondence, PABC GR429, Box 13, File 1, 21/06.

(134) Michel Foucault, "Of Other Spaces," diacritics. Vol.16, No.l (1984), pp.22-27, quote, p.23. (This was the basis of a lecture given by Foucault in 1967.)

PART II.

(1) Port Essington, The Sun, May 18, 1907.

(2) Following an exploratory trip for the HBC with William Manson from the mouth of the Stikine River to Dease's Lake in 1869, Cunningham also reported that the gravel around Dease Creek contained gold. R. Cunningham, report to J.A. Grahame, July 26, 1870, PAM- HBCA, A.11/85, fo.446-7. Cunningham had not been sent to the Stikine strictly in search of gold, but during the 1850s the HBC had conducted a number of unsuccessful surveys for this, and other minerals, around the Skeena, Nass, and Queen Charlotte Islands. See, Meilleur, OP.cit.. PP.152-157.

(3) In two further articles published in the British Colonist (hereafter, the Colonist) in December of 1870, a correspondent for the north coast reported that "settlers along the coast are wild with excitement over the news" of a gold strike in the Omineca "and a stampede will occur early in the Spring"

194 (Dec. 15); the Government Agent for the Omineca wrote to the newspaper that after a hectic summer season of prospecting "The majority of the miners intend going down the Skeena River route to pass the winter at Victoria or Fort Simpson." (Dec. 4) For a much lengthier account of the events on the lower Skeena around 1870, and a wholly original study of Cunningham's ties with the CMS and the HBC see, Ken Campbell, "Port Essington," unpublished manuscript, Prince Rupert, 1987. Also see, J.B. Kerr's excellent little biography of Robert Cunningham in his Biographical Dictionary of Famous British Columbians (Vancouver: Kerr & Begg; 1890) pp.135-6.

(4) Grahame told Cunningham that "The establishing of a store on Skeena River will depend on the future; our last effort in that quarter was, you are aware, a failure, while our later agent there (Hankin) seems to thrive better on his own account." (Cf. below) J.A. Grahame to R. Cunningham, Nov. 11, 1869. "Fort Victoria Correspondence Outward, 1868-1872," PAM- HBCA B.226/b/44, fo.695.

(5) The chief commissioner of Land and Works told Cunningham that his application contravened clauses 3 and 6 of the 1870 Land Ordinance Act. All of Cunningham's pre-emption correspondence for 1870 can be found in the Colonial Correspondence, F407(9)-f424, file 415-Robert Cunningham, PABC (Roll B-1323).

(6) Little is known about the status of Soar's Military Grant and whether or not it over ruled the Tsimshian land decision, but on Woodcock's townsite see, Edgar Dewdney to B. Pearse (C.C. Land and Works), Sept. 8, 1871. The townsite is also recorded - along with Cunningham's "new town" at Port Essington - on Edgar Dewdney's "Sketch survey of Skeena river and its tributaries" for the Department of Land and Works, Sept 1871, PABC Map Division, CM/A307.

(7) This said, Cunningham and Hankin's pre-emption matters remain unclear. Although Cunningham made the initial pre• emption application, in December of 1870, it was Hankin who applied for the 160 acre lot adjacent to Woodcock's claim, and Cunningham pre-empted land at Hazelton (the Forks of the Skeena). Then, in January of 1871, they were given permission to reverse the land award decision (i.e. Cunningham would now take the land at the mouth of the Skeena, and Hankin the lot at Hazelton). However, because of the decision to withhold the initial pre-emption Cunningham re-applied for land on the opposite side of the northern entrance to the Skeena (probably the north end of Smith Island) where he would not violate clause 6 of the Land Act. Permission for pre-emption was granted in May of 1871. But the chief commissioner had in the meantime allowed Cunningham to occupy his initial pre-emption

195 site (now in Hankin's name) until that land had been properly surveyed and fixed as a Tsimshian reserve by reserve commissioner O'Reilly. While the legal basis of Cunningham's initial pre-emption application remained undecided in the winter of 1870-1, he must have constructed his store on the site next to Woodcock's as by May of 1871 the miners that had stayed and bought goods from the store had all left. Colonial Correspondence, loc.clt.. and F661-731A, file 708-Thomas Hankin (Roll B- 1332).

(8) R.G. Large, Skeena: River of Destiny (Vancouver: Mitchell Press-Museum of Northern British Columbia Edition; 1981) p.30; cf. the Colonist. March 10, 1871.

(9) Campbell, op.cit.. p.12.

(10) Ibid,

(11) Dewdney to Pearse, Sept. 8, 1871, loc.cit.

(12) "Woodcock's Skeena Trail," Herald Street Collection, Box 38, 1-208. Cf. Cunningham to Pearse, February 6, 1871, Colonial Correspondence, F415d(5).

(13) Dewdney to Pearse, July 17, 1871, "1871 - Skeena Route..."

(14) Campbell, ibid. On the naming of Port Essington by Capt. Vancouver, see, Walbran, op.cit., p.172.

(15) This trip is noted in the Colonistf June 7, 1871.

(16) Dewdney to Pearse, Sept. 8, 1871, loc.clt.

(17) Charles Horetzky, Canada on the Pacific (Montreal: Dawson Bros.; 1874) p.113.

(18) The Colonist. July 5, 1871.

(19) Campbell, op.cit., pp.14-17.

(20) See, Roderick Finlayson to William Manson, Victoria, June 7, 1866, PAM-HBCA, "Skeena River Posts," pp.2-3.

(21) Ibid.. pp.3-4.

(22) The furs collected by Cunningham and Hankin were apparently as expensive as those on the coast (and of an inferior quality), and the cost of transporting supplies up the Skeena River in canoes operated by Tsimshian crews was

196 much more expensive than anticipated. Ibid.. pp.3-5.

(23) J. Grahame to William Armit, September 5, 1871 (ack. Oct. 7, 1872), "Fort Victoria Correspondence Outward, 1868- 1872," PAM-HBCA, B.226/b/45, fos.178-184, quote, fo.179.

(24) Ibid., fo.180.

(25) Ibid.f fo.181.

(26) Walbran, op.cit.r "Woodcock Landing," p.533-4.

(27) Large, OP.cit.. p.33.

(28) PAM-HBCA, "Skeena River Posts," pp.6-8. The withdrawal of Feak ended the HBC's 40 year old contemplation of supplying the interior from the mouth of the Skeena - although they did re-establish a trading store at Hazelton in 1880.

(29) Ibid.

(30) Ibid.

(31) Robert Tomlinson, "Journal of a Tour on the Nass and Skeena Rivers," Church Missionary Intelligencer, Vol.XI (1875), New Series, Aug., in two parts - pp.251-6, 281-88, quote, p.252.

(32) See, Campbell, OP.cit., pp.17-8.

(33) For a classic example of this process, see, J.M.S. Careless*s "The Lowe Brothers, 1852-70: A Study in Business History," (1969), reprinted in R. McDonald, P. Ward (eds.), op.cit•f pp.277-296. In fact, Careless's account is partially misleading. For him, the Lowe brothers - and their many mercantile associates - were flag-bearers of an autonomous sphere of economic activity from 1850. However, until 1860 they were involved in a complex set of economic relations with HBC traders in Victoria and Colonial authorities in London. As a condition of the HBC being granted Vancouver Island as a British "Proprietary Colony" in 1849, it had to bring settlers to the Island. Few settlers appeared until after the 1858 Fraser river gold rush, but Colonial officials also granted permission for independent British merchants to operate on the Island. The HBC called these independent merchants "petty traders," and some of them (such as Allan, Lowe, Mckinlay, and Hugh Mckay) had formerly been with the Company. By 1850, the HBC had opened retail stores at Forts Vancouver, Victoria, and Nisquilly, selling goods to newly arrived settlers and aboriginal groups, and receiving a new range of commodities on their annual ships from London and the Sandwich Islands. Many

197 of these goods were "consigned" to independent commission merchants, who thereby obtained the goods they required through extant supply lines, but at a commission of roughly 10 per cent to the Company. It is only with the opening up of mainland British Columbia as a Crown Colony in 1858 that these commission merchants' ties to HBC supply routes were loosened as non-HBC requisitioned commodities and British finance capital and technology entered the province. Thus, it is only from the 1860s that we can perhaps properly talk of a distinct sphere of independent mercantile activity - with the vast majority of merchants still based in, Victoria. On some of the commercial relations between the HBC and independent commission merchants (such as Allan and Lowe) during the 1850s, see, Mackie, "Colonial Land...," pp.280-286.

(34) The following account and tabulation is derived from the scattered entries of Cunningham and Hankin's commercial dealings from Sept. 1871 to Sept. 1874, and Cunningham's and Hankin's separate dealings from Jan. 1878 to Dec. 1879, contained within volumes 5-9 of the Rithet Papers, PABC Add. MSS. 504. There is hardly any trace of Cunningham's financial arrangements after 1879, but police records reveal that Cunningham still held commission and banking accounts with Rithet in 1900. See, Colin Campbell to F.S. Hussey (chief of police, Victoria), Sept. 6, 1900, B.C. Provincial Police, Superintendent Correspondence Inward, PABC GR 55, box 13. Port Essington's police constable reported that a letter from Cunningham to Rithet containing 9 cheques and 3 bank orders for deposit in Victoria had been stolen.

(35) Tabulated from Rithet Papers, Vol.8, "Ledger," p.667; Vol.9, "Ledger," pp.389-90, 407-8. Figures may also derived from Vols. 5, 6 and 7, "Cash Books," but these entries are not a record of total transactions. In Rithet's "Ledger," Cunningham and Hankin's overall account balance was drawn up every September, and read this way their balance at the end of Rithet's fiscal year was always slightly in the black. However, Rithet's balance calculations were usually preceded by a large summer deposit which conceals the cumulative extent of Cunningham and Hankin's debt. For this reason I have calculated the balance on a calendar year basis.

(36) Rithet Papers, Vol. 5, "Cash Book," pp. 86, 98; Vol. 7, "Cash Book," entries scattered, pp.42-570.

(37) Rithet Papers, Vol. 7, "Cash Books," entries scattered, pp.42-698.

(38) Although this is difficult to prove as the "Cash Books" do not reveal how much Hankin had in his account before 1878. However, in 1878 and 79 the "Cash Books" (Vol. 7, p.689)

198 records that Hankin was only paying off 15 per cent of his credit account charges, suggesting that he was in serious financial difficulty.

(39) Rithet Papers, "Cash Books," entries scattered.

(40) In a series of unitemised payments recorded in the "Ledger Books" between 1871 and 1874, Cunningham and Hankin received over $8,000 from L & J Boscowitz who, by the 1870s, had moved into the north coast fur trade (see, the fourth edition of The First Victoria Directory (Victoria; 1871)). Cunningham and Hankin could have been trading in furs during the early-1870s and selling them to the Boscowitz's, but there is no sure way of knowing because the Boscowitz firm also operated a number of sealing schooners from the north coast and could conceivably have entered into some kind of provisioning relationship with Cunningham and Hankin. The Boscowitz sealing schooners are dealt with by Peter Murray in his, The Vagabond Fleet: A History of the West Coast Sealing Schooners (Victoria: Sono Nis; 1988) but he makes no mention of any trading or provisioning relationship with Cunningham. Over $1,000 in cash and cheques was also paid into Cunningham and Hankin's bank account from the captains of the HBC's steamship "Otter," and a further $1,000 was paid to Cunningham and Hankin from the HBC. The HBC could also have been buying furs from Cunningham, but this cannot be corroborated. It is likely that this $1,000 was money that Cunningham had trusted to the "Otter" staff to deposit in Victoria for him. Thus, the figure of $9,000 ($8,000 from Boscowitz and $1,000 from the HBC) should be treated as a very upper limit of the extent of Cunningham and Hankin's fur dealings in this per iod.

(41) Between 1872 and 1874 the Bank's exchange rate increased from $16.40 per ounce to $16.90, and then fell off to $16.70 in the late-1870s.

(42) By comparing credit and debit figures for the 1872-1873, and 1878-1879, it is possible to hypothesise that during the Cunningham-Hank in partnership well over three quarters of the total credits and debits were derived from the trade around Port Essington. The average of Cunningham's 1878-1879 credit and debit totals constitute 40 per cent of the 1872-1873 partnership total. The average of Hankin's 1878-1879 totals, on the other hand, only constitute 7 per cent of their 1872- 1873 total (in terms of credits it is less than 5 per cent). Assuming that the seasonality of trade at Port Essington and Hazelton remained unchanged through the 1870s, and thereby assuming that this percentage division of trade on the Skeena remained the same, then the projection of Cunningham's average of 40 per cent and Hankin's average of 7 per cent back to the

199 overall debit and credit balance for 1872 and 1873 suggests that trade in Cunningham's store accounted for over 80 per cent of the total debits and credits in the early 1870s, and trade in Hankin's store only 20 per cent. Ceteris paribusf Cunningham's Port Essington store would have accounted for roughly $29,000 of the $36,750 paid into the Cunningham-Hank in bank account, and between 1872-3 and 1878-9 his trade receipts had declined by 50 per cent to $14,175. And, ceteris paribus, if Hankin had contributed 20 per cent to overall receipts in 1872-3, then by 1878-9 his earnings had declined by over 70 per cent from $7,350 to $2,081.

(43) Campbell, op.cit.. pp.12-4. On Cunningham's Haida and Tsimshian artefact collections and his status as a purchasing agent for museum collectors and anthropologists on the northwest coast, such as Jacobsen, Dorsey and Boas, see, Douglas Cole, Captured Heritage: The Scramble for Northwest Coast Artifacts (Vancouver: Douglas & Mclntyre; 1985) pp. 61, 124, and 173. Cf. Barbeau Files, PAC 174.8, 174.42, and the Cunningham Collection of Tsimshian artefacts in the Prince Rupert Museum.

(44) And in 1879 gold dust constituted over half of his yearly proceeds. Rithet Papers, Vol. 7, "Cash Books," pp.42- 225, 416-698.

(45) See, Large, OP.cit.. p.44ff.

(46) Little is known about Tsimshian freighting practices along the Skeena, but for some cursory remarks, see, Large, op.cit., pp.24-30; and Walter Wicks, Memories of the Skeena (Seattle: Hancock House; 1976) p.44-47.

(47) See, James McDonald, "Images of the Nineteenth Century Economy of the Tsimshian," in Margaret Seguin (ed.), The Tsimshian: Images of the Past. Views for the Present (Vancouver: UBC Press; 1984) pp.40-57. His focus on the Tsimshian in fact serves as a thematic cover for a larger critique of northwest coast ethnography, and he says remarkably little about the spatiality of Tsimshian economic practices. Cf.. Mitchell, op. cit. , for a far more poignant account of the spatial impress of Kitkatla trading activity in 1835.

(48) I am indebted to Richard Mackie for bringing this statistic to my attention.

(49) Until recently, most studies of the salmon canning industry in British Columbia have focussed solely on the Fraser river. Moreover, most of those who have treated the industry as an aspect of a larger set of industrial relations (unionisation, strikes, capital formation, entrepreneurship,

200 etc.) take the Fraser river canneries as a synonym for the whole industry. Yet, by 1900, salmon canneries were widely distributed along the mainland coast and on Vancouver Island, and the fishing and canning relations underpinning operations in these areas differed. On the changing geography of the industry between 1870 and 1930 see, Edward Higginbottom, "The Changing Geography of Salmon Canning in British Columbia, 1870-1931," MA Thesis, Simon Fraser University, Department of Geography, 1988.

(50) The chronological list of cannery construction is as follows: Inverness, 1876 - North Western Commercial Company and from 1880, Turner, Beeton, and Co.; Windsor (or Aberdeen), 1878 -Windsor Canning Company; Metlakatla, 1882 - Metlakatla Packing Company; Balmoral, 1883 - Cuthbert and Byrnes; British American, 1883 - Gus Holmes et al.; and Cunningham (or Skeena), 1883 -Robert Cunningham. From, William Ross, "Salmon Cannery Distribution on the Nass and Skeena Rivers of British Columbia, 1877-1926," BA Graduating Essay, University of British Columbia, Department of Geography, 1967, "Appendix B: operating canneries on the Skeena River."

(51) Little work has been done on the early financing of the salmon canning industry in British Columbia, but for some cursory remarks, see, Alicja Muszynskl, "Major Processors to 1940 and Early Labour Force: Historical Notes," in P. Marchak, N. Guppy, J. McMuhan (eds.), Uncommon Property: The Fishing and Fish-Processing Industries in British Columbia (Ontario: Methuen; 1987) pp.46-65.

(52) From work with historical materials and air photos, Higginbottom estimates that between 1870 and 1901 at least 96 separate canning sites were developed, and of these 77 were operating in 1901. Higginbottom, OP.cit.. p.3, 19.

(53) Ibid.r p.17.

(54) Ross, op.cit.r pp.39-40.

(55) Ibid.r pp.36-8. The British American Cannery was closed for the 1885 season, but this was associated with lower pack costs on the Columbia River at the time rather than with British Columbia salmon prices.

(56) Hereafter, they will be referred to as the ABC Packing Company, and B.C. Packers.

(57) For two of the best surveys of the reorganisation of British Columbia's space-economy around Vancouver between 1890 and 1910, see, Robert McDonald, "Victoria, Vancouver, and the economic development of British Columbia, 1886-1914," in R.

201 Mcdonald and P. Ward (eds.), op.cit.r pp.369-396; Cole Harris, "Moving Amid the Mountains," BC Studies, No.58 (1983), pp.3- 39.

(58) Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol.3, Dec. 22, 1890.

(59) "History of the A.B.C. Packing Company," ABCPC records, Vol.1, file 2.

(60) In 1881 U.S. companies controlled between 20 and 34 per cent of all the capital investments in B.C.'s salmon canning industry. Higginbottom, op.cit., p.4. The ABC Packing Company's acquisition of U.S. interests in 1891 was in good measure prompted by the bankruptcy three years earlier of W.T. Coleman and Company, which had been the financial broker for all U.S. canning entrepreneurs operating in British Columbia. See, Kieth Ralston, "Patterns of Trade and Investment on the Pacific Coast, 1867-1892: The Case of the British Columbia Salmon Canning Industry," in R. McDonald,

P. Ward (eds.), op.cit.f pp.296-305 (originally published in 1969), p.301.

(61) Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol. 3, Nov. 21 - Dec. 22, 1890, n.d.

(62) "Prospectus," ABCPC records, Vol. 1, file 1. The prospectus was published in London by the News Advertiser.

(63) Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol. 48, July 19, 1911.

(64) "Directors' Annual Reports," 1891 onwards, ABCPC records, Vol.1, file 1. The board of directors in London were made up of the following: J. Whittall, John Bell-Irving, and A.P. McEwan. John Bell-Irving became chairman of the board in 1894 and was Henry Bell-Irving's main advisor in salmon canning matters and most of Henry's other business pursuits.

(65) "Memorandum and Articles of Association," London, April 13, 1891;" "Proceedings of the Annual General Meetings," 1891 onwards, ABCPC Records, Vol.1, file 1.

(66) "Anglo-British Columbia Packing Co.," Henry Doyle Papers, box 6, file 1.

(67) The headings of accounts kept at canning sites were as follows: "Acid, Advances, Boxes, Boats, Copper, China Labour, Cash, Expense a/c, Fuel, Fish, Labels, Lacquer, Mess Ho., Merchandise, Machinery and Tools, Nails, Nets, Office expenses, Lead, Tin, Repairs and Renewals, Solder, Salt, Tlnplate, White Labour, and Zinc." The headings of accounts kept In the Vancouver office were as follows: "London Office, Cash, Bill Payments, Bills

202 Received, Exchange, Interest, Deposits, Material, Labour, Merchandise, Repairs and Renewals, General Stores, Petty Cash, Buildings and Land, Machinery and Plants, Boats, General Charges, Commission Petty Expenditure, Insurance Policies, Cable Audits, Subscriptions, Fish a/c, Salmon Sales, and overall a/c." Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol. 5, June 24, 1891. The ABC Packing Company's thirteen "Subsidiary Books" were as follows: "Bills of Lading Book, Label Book, Manifest Book, Shipments and Stock at CPR Wharf, Salmon Accounts at Canneries, Salmon Sales - contracts and summary, Insurance Book, Salmon Orders, Salmon Pack - cost and distribution, Audited Accounts to London, Stores and Sundries, Advice Book - cannery drafts."

Ibid.r Vol. 14, Oct. 29, 1896. These "Subsidiary Books" are not publicly available, but many of their summary details can be found scattered among Bell-Irving's "Notebooks."

(68) Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol. 4, Nov. 21, 1891; Vol. 11, June 17, 1894.

(69) "Anglo-British Columbia Packing Co." In 1920, the ABC Packing Company released the following profit figures for the mid-1890s: 1892: $10,000 1893: $110,000 1894: $64,000 1895: $100,000 1896: $7,000

(70) Henry Doyle, "Report on the British Columbia Salmon Industry," Dec. 5, 1901, Henry Doyle Papers, box 5, file 7. The reasons behind the retention of small scale, single line plants are complex, but Higginbottom has distilled a range of interconnected factors into three broad sets of economic issues. First, with predominantly manual forms of technology in canning plants, the speed of the overall production process was largely determined by the pace at which the salmon could be prepared for cooking and canning. Thus, any increase in plant canning capacity was premised on additions in the salmon preparation labour force. But second, highly skilled salmon "butchers" required to perform these tasks were becoming increasingly scarce and expensive to employ, and so the addition of more canning lines necessitated sharp cost increases. And third, because of wide daily and seasonal fluctuations in the numbers of fish returned to canneries, the increasing competitiveness for fish in river mouth locations created by the presence of large numbers of canneries, and the inability of supplying salmon canneries over long distances due to the high perishability of fresh salmon, multi-line plants would realise few economies of

scale. "The ideal plant," concludes Higginbottom, op.cit.r

203 p.18, "was one large enough to handle the good runs, but small enough to minimize the excess packing capacity lying idle during off years. Single line canneries remained the most efficient, flexible, and practical production unit."

(71) Higginbottom, op.cit.f pp.19-21.

(72) "B.C. Packers Association of New Jersey: Certificate of Incorporation." April 7, 1902, PABC Companies file 202 (still active).

(73) Henry Doyle, "Report on the British Columbia Salmon Industry." Bell-Irving also rationalised his canning lines immediately after the ABC Packing Company merger. He packed at only one cannery on the Fraser in 1891, and in 1892 aimed to reduce the canning capacity of his canneries on the Fraser by 50% and his two on the Skeena by 25%, allowing the ABC Packing Company to produce a total of 90,000 cases per season. Thus, it seems likely that while the B.A. and North Pacific Canneries produced 8,000 cases less in 1893 than in 1891, this was part of a conscious policy by Bell-Irving to prevent overproduction in the Company. Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol. 6, Dec. 29, 1891; Vol. 7, 1892, n.d.

(74) Higginbottom, op.cit., p.22. His statement is derived from Henry Doyle's "Prospectus to the Salmon Canners of British Columbia," Henry Doyle Papers, box 11, file 13. Doyle's proposals were, in the main, carried through, but as is illustrated in appendix 4(b) a few of the canneries acquired by B.C. Packers were bought outright in cash.

(75) "B.C. Packers Association," Henry Doyle Papers, box 11, file 12.

(76) See appendix 4. In 1901 the Balmoral Cannery was owned by Turner Beeton & Co., and the Standard Cannery by the

Victoria Canning Co. (Ross, op.cit.f bibliography). Because these two companies owned more than one cannery at the time, it is difficult to determine the specific share amounts involved in the transaction with B.C. Packers, but Doyle does provide valuations of the B.C. Packers canneries on the Skeena: Balmoral: total value (plant buildings, machinery and labour), $27,000; option (total value plus stock on hand and supplies), $33,000. Cunningham: total value, $36,000; option $45,000. Standard: total value, $32,000; option, $40,000. "B.C. Packers Canneries Report, Nov. 1902: Skeena River Notes," p.3, Henry Doyle Papers, box 11, file 12.

(77) This fire at Port Essington Is mentioned in a letter from John Flewin (Government Agent for the Skeena region) to

204 the Attorney General, Jan. 30 1900, misc. file, PABC GR110. Although B.C. Packers controlled Cunningham's pack from 1902, there was a good deal of confusion surrounding the cannery property. In 1904, the secretary-treasurer of B.C. Packers wrote to Cunningham that, "Our solicitors have called to our attention that transfer of the Cunningham cannery to this company has never been completed," and the "conveyance in fee" required to transfer Cunningham's cannery and its 1.4 acre site to B.C. Packers was not completed until one year after Cunningham's death - in 1906. See, Gladys Blyth, "Skeena Cannery," unpublished manuscript, Port Edward, n.d.

(78) The following account is derived from the B.C. Packers "Certificate of Incorporation," and "By-Laws of The B.C. Packers Association of New Jersey," May 22, 1902, PABC companies files.

(79) Henry Doyle, "Report on the British Columbia Salmon Industry," p.3.

(80) Henry Doyle, "B.C. Packers Canneries Report 1902: Skeena River Notes."

(81) Henry Doyle, "Plan for B.C. Canneries," Henry Doyle Papers, box 1, file 1. The complaint was sparked by the control of Association insurance policies in the east. Doyle could probably have anticipated the type of economic power he bemoaned from an early letter written from Toronto. After his fund raising trip around eastern Canada and the U.S., Jarvis wrote to Doyle in Vancouver in February of 1902 listing the names of the underwriters who had agreed to take the stock, but also asked him "not to make these public, because there is nothing that capitalists object to more than to have their names used or public." Instead of naming the Association's largest creditors, Jarvis suggested that Doyle simply refer to them as "a syndicate" in all Association official correspondence. For the correspondence between Doyle and Jarvis, see, Henry Doyle Papers, box 1, file 9.

(82) Henry Doyle, "Plan for B.C. Canneries."

(83) Dominion and Provincial fisheries officials sought to regulate the lower Skeena fishing grounds by limiting the number of boats that could fish out of individual canneries. The detailed information contained in Dominion fisheries reports and the different "boat rating" commissions merits serious consideration in its own right, but for a useful account of the geography of regulation on the lower Skeena

see, Ross, op.cit.f p.71ff.

(84) Henry Doyle, "B.C. Packers Canneries Report 1902: Skeena

205 River Notes."

(85) In 1899 the cannery was called the Anglo-Alliance, and as manager of the Cannery Herman packed for the Anglo-Alliance Canning Company and the Globe and Mail Canning Company. In 1900 the property was listed as being owned by Peter Herman, and in 1901 and 1902 Herman's company again produced a double pack - one for himself and the other for Peter Turnball. Herman's cannery was expanded in 1902 with money from the Simon Leiser Company (cf. ch.l), but in 1903 they foreclosed the mortgage on Herman's company. Then, in 1904, a group of Vancouver-based shareholders including R.V. Winch and Henry Doyle took control of Herman's Company, bought Herman's cannery for $25,000, and appointed the Vancouver canner, W.A. Wadhams, as cannery manager. The Cannery produced salmon under the Skeena River Commercial Company until it was amalgamated with Winch and Doyle's Northern B.C. Fisheries in

1916. Ross, op.cit.r "Operating canneries on the Skeena River;" Henry Doyle, "Plan for B.C. Canneries;" Henry Doyle, "Notebooks," nos. 21 and 28, Henry Doyle Papers.

(86) B.C. Packers was financed by a number of eastern banks with branches in Vancouver, and the ABC Packing Company was financed from London by the Bank of Hong Kong and Shanghai, and in Vancouver by the Bank of British Columbia. "Prospectus," ABCPC records.

(87) See R. McDonald, op.cit., p.371.

(88) A remark made by one of the B.C. Packers agents in England in 1904 implies that British Columbia salmon and its main competitor in England, Alaskan Red salmon, were aimed at different sections of the population: "dealers," he said, "consider the demand for good British Columbia salmon quite satisfactory. On the other hand they claim that the demand for Alaska salmon is smaller than usual owing principally to the depression in the cotton industry, and trade in general." E.E. Evans to Directors of B.C. Packers, May 5, 1904, Henry Doyle Papers, box 11, file 12. However, the summary calculations from appendix 3 show that an average of nearly 70% of B.C. salmon exports to Great Britain were destined for Liverpool, and so it is likely that canned salmon from British Columbia was also distributed from there to the cotton spinning towns of Lancashire and north west England.

(89) Canada, Report of Special Fishery Commission (Ottawa; 1917) preamble.

(90) See, Henry Peabody & Company, "Annual Report of the Salmon Market of Great Britain for the Year 1911," Bell- Irving Collection, Vol. 1, file 3, VCA Add. MSS. 485; E.E.

206 Evans to the Directors of B.C. Packers.

(91) Peabody & Company, ibid.

(92) Between 1890 and 1910, 5-15 steamers travelled to the U.K. each year. They would usually carry the salmon of a variety of canning companies and were very rarely commissioned solely by one canner or one company. See, Henry Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vols.1-28, entries scattered. Larger shipments of salmon were transported via San Francisco in the 1890s and Valparaiso become of greater importance after 1896.

(93) B.C. Packers' historian Cicely Lyons argues that while the railway enhanced salmon canners' attempts to penetrate the eastern Canadian market, they were initially discouraged from selling salmon in the east: British Columbia canners, she says, "were competing with known brands which, by that time having a 20 year start, had become well established through brokers handling the products of American salmon packers, whose goods were freighted across the continent by U.S. railways and then transhipped in to eastern Canada." The large limited liability companies did eventually build up a network of dealer contacts in eastern Canada, but without consulting canning records from the U.S. it is not possible to even guess what share of the market they had. Cicely Lyons, Salmon: Our Heritage - The Storv of a Province and an Industry (Vancouver: Mitchell Press; 1969) p.186.

(94) E.E. Evans to the Directors of B.C. Packers.

(95) See, Homer Gregory and Kathleen Barnes, North Pacific Fisheries: with special reference to Alaska salmon (San Francisco: American Council Institute of Pacific Relations; 1939) ch.X.

(96) "Directors' Annual Reports," ABCPC records.

(97) Henry Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol.6, Feb. 1892.

(98) E.E. Evans to the Directors of B.C. Packers.

(99) Ibid. Evans wrote from London to B.C. Packers that "The character of the salmon business in the United Kingdom during the last few years or so has materially changed. Up until about [19011...British Columbia packers had no difficulty whatsoever in selling their salmon abroad, and in good round quantities. During the last few years, however, distributors have been adopting a hand to mouth policy, buying practically in retail quantities, on the spot, and forcing canners to carry the stocks, instead of themselves...[T1hese remarks do not apply only to the salmon trade, but also to the grain and

207 many other trades..." At the time this was written B.C. Packers were still trying to sell salmon in the U.K. from their 1901 pack. Evans gives the following figures for unsold stocks of British Columbia salmon in the U.K.: 1901 pack - 5,855 cases; 1902 pack - 18,968 cases; 1903 pack - 48,709 cases.

(100) Canada, Sessional Papersr Vol.26 (1893), 10c, p.330; Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol.7, April 1892.

(101) On the extent of Bell-Irving's sales in eastern Canada, see his "Notebooks," Vol.12, Dec. 31 1894; and Vol.21, Aug.7, 1899. His greatest number of sales were nearly always in Montreal, Hamilton, and Toronto. In Vol.6, Nov. 1891 - March 1892, Bell-Irving lists the number and location of his eastern Canadian buyers: Montreal - 7 buyers; Hamilton - 5; London, Ontario - 5; Toronto - 4; St John - 5; Quebec - 4; Winnipeg - 2; Ottawa - 1; and Brockville - 1. And two years later he had further orders from dealers in Kingston and Halifax.

(102) "Prospectus," ABCPC records;

(103) Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol.12, Dec.31, 1894; Vol.32, April 19, 1907.

(104) Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vols. 6-12: "Salmon orders." The B.A. Cannery only seems to start exporting to the U.K. in consistently greater quantities after 1904, perhaps because the demand for 1/2 lb flats in the U.K. was greater than for the other cuts, and then because the B.A. cannery only started to produce this cut efficiently after the construction of their second canning line in 1904. Loc.cit.f Vol.29, March 1905. Peabody & Company's "Annual Report" for 1911 illuminates the different pricing structures in the markets for 1 lb tails and 1/2 lb flats.

(105) Bell-Irving gives the following figures for the B.A. cannery on the Skeena: 1891 pack - 4,486 cases to London on the "Tltania;" 1892 pack - 1,000 cases to Melbourne; 1893 pack - 1,050 cases to Kingston and 350 cases to St. Catherines, Ontario. Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vols. 6-9, "Salmon orders."

(106) Ibid.r Vol.8, Jan. 12, 1893.

(107) Between 1891 and 1894 Bell-Irving accumulated over $10,000 in freight charges from Boscowitz & Co., and nearly $9,000 from the Canadian Pacific Navigation Company. Ibid., Vol.12, Jan. 1895.

(108) See, Ross, op.cit., pp.15-30, 40-45; Henry Doyle, "The Process of Canning Salmon," Sept. 15, 1921, Doyle Papers, box

208 5, file 6.

(109) Henry Doyle, "B.C. Packers Canneries Report, 1902: Skeena River Notes."

(110) For an excellent description of the Skeena fishing grounds see, "The Skeena River Division," 1910, British Columbia, Department of Fisheries, PABC GR 435, box 70, file 657, pp.2-5.

(111) The availability of fresh water was an important consideration when locating a cannery. Around the turn of the century Peter Herman operated a cannery on Ecstall Island, adjacent to Port Essington, but this was closed after only a few seasons in good measure because he could not secure an adequate supply of fresh water and had to rely on either rainfall or large tanks of water brought from Port Essington. Ross, OP.cit.. p.20.

(112) "Prospectus," ABCPC records; Henry Doyle, "B.C. Packers Canneries Report, 1902: Skeena River Notes."

(113) Ross, op.cit., p.29.

(114) "The Skeena River Division," pp.3-4.

(115) "The Skeena River Division," p.3.

(116) Ross, op.cit.f p.58.

(117) Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol.5, July 1891; Henry Doyle, "Notebooks," Vol.28, Henry Doyle Papers. Doyle calculated that during the peak of the canning season at Herman's cannery, the average weekly return of fish could vary by 500%, and that the average daily return could vary between 50 and 1,700 fish.

(118) Ross, op.cit.r p.30

(119) "Skeena River Commercial Yearly Pack," by day 1908 - 1918, Henry Doyle Papers, box 6, file 16.

(120) "ABC Packing Company: Final Cannery Returns, B.A. Cannery, Port Essington," 1906-1923, Bell-Irving Collection, Vol.5.

(121) Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol.31, July 1906; Vol.33, July 1907.

(122) "ABC Packing Company: Final Cannery Returns, B.A. Cannery Port Essington."

209 (123) Ross, op.cit.f "Number of Forty-Eight Pound Cases Canned, Skeena River, 1877-1958."

(124) Dempster, Mckay and Croasdaile to G.A.B. Walken, 1oc.cit.; also see Duncan Stacey, "North Pacific Cannery," Paper Prepared for the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, n.d.

(125) See James McDonald, "Try to Make a Life," Ch.5, "The Aboriginal Economy."

(126) Stacey, op.cit.. p.l.

(127) "The Skeena River Division," p.4. The British American Packing Company had 4 fishing stations scattered around the mouth of the Skeena (map 2).

(128) Wicks, op.cit.f p.15.

(129) Ibid., P-14.

(130) see, Report of the Special Fishery commission/ questions 2 and 3.

(131) Stacey, op.cit.f p.2.

(132) Report of the Special Fishery Commission, question 3.

(133) Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol.5, June 1891.

(134) Ibid.. Vol.11, June 17, 1894.

(135) Ibid.. Vol.20, June 18, 1899.

(136) See, Japanese fishermens' bosses to Fraser River Canners Association, May 1904, Henry Doyle Papers, box 1, file 8.

(137) See, Higginbottom, op.cit.f pp.60-61.

(138) Ross, op.cit.r p.46.

(139) B.C. Canners' Association Minute Book, 1914, cited in Higginbottom, op.cit., p.56.

(140) "Skeena River Commercial Company, summary of fish caught," 1916 and 1917, Henry Doyle Papers, box 6, file 16.

(141) Canada, Sessional Papers. Vol.36 (1902), 54, "Report of the Royal Commission on Chinese and Japanese Immigration," Henry Bell-Irving, "Evidence," p.340.

210 (142) Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol.40, Jan. 1912.

(143) British Columbia, Department of Marine and Fisheries,

Report of the Fisheries Commissioner for 1902r G29.

(144) "The Skeena River Division," p.11.

(145) See, Canada, Sessional Papers, Vol.16 (1883), 7, "Annual Report of the Department of Fisheries," p.190.

(146) "Skeena River," British Columbia, Department of Fisheries, box 70, file 657.

(147) Ibid. The British Columbia Department of Fisheries recorded the following number of boats actually licensed: 1900-448, 1901-581, 1902-644, 1903-819, 1904-705, 1905-781, 1906-870, 1907-700, 1908-863, 1909-800. "The Skeena River Division," p.10.

(148) Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol.11, June 1894.

(149) Ibid.. Vol.15, June 1896.

(150) Ibid.. Vol.28, June-July 1904.

(151) Skeena District News. June 20 and 27, 1904.

(152) Ibid.. no.24, July 4 1904.

(153) Ibid.

(154) Canada, Census Return, 1881, loc.cit.

(155) Canada, Sessional Papers, Vol.18 (1885), 54a, "Report of the Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration," appendix c, p.36 5.

(156) "Report of the Royal Commission on Chinese and Japanese Immigration," Bell-Irving, "Evidence," p.143.

(157) Ibid. Cf. appendix 6.

(158) See Stacey, op.cit.f p.12.

(159) "Report of the Royal Commission on Chinese and Japanese Immigration," Ch.15, "The Canning Industry," p.135.

(160) "Chinese contract," Henry Doyle Papers, box 11, file 12.

(161) "Report of the Royal Commission on Chinese and Japanese Immigration," Bell-Irving, "Evidence," ibid.

211 (162) See, Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vols. 2-22, entries scattered.

(163) Ibid.. Vol.5, July 1891; Vol.33, July 1907.

(164) "Report of the Royal Commission on Chinese and Japanese Immigration," Bell-Irving, "Evidence," ibid.

(165) Ibid,

(166) Ronald Rohner (ed.), The Ethnography of Franz Boas: Letters and Diaries of Franz Boas Written on the Northwest Coast From 1866 to 1931 (Chicago: Chicago University Press) p.94.

(167) See, Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol.5, September 1891; Vol.13, September 1894; Vol.38, July 1911. Henry Doyle, "Notebooks," Vol.21, "Skeena River Commercial Cannery," 1902- 1916.

(168) Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol.5 and 13, ibid.; Henry Doyle, loc.cit•, "Port Essington Employees, 1918.

(169) Rohner, ibid.

(170) See Stacey, Sockeve & Tinplate: Technological Change in the Fraser River Canning Industry, 1871-1912 (British Columbia Provincial Museum, Heritage Record No. 15; 1982) pp.4-11.

(171) See, Higginbottom, op.cit.r Ch.3.

(172) Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol.13, June 1895; Vol.24, Oct.1900.

(173) Ibid.r Vol.20, June 1899.

(174) See, Higginbottom, ibid.; Stacey, Sockeye & Tinplate, pp.20-25.

(175) Ibid. Also see Alexander Even's "Evidence" to the 1902 "Royal Commission on Chinese and Japanese Immigration," pp.135-139.

(176) Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol.13; appendix 6.

(177) Henry Doyle, "Iron Chink Machine," Henry Doyle Papers, box 5, file 7.

(178) Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol.46, July 12, 1915: "B.A. Cannery has 2 lines, 3 retorts, one Iron Chink."

212 (179) British Columbia Fire Underwriters Association, Plans of Salmon Canneries in British Columbia Together With Inspection Reports On Each (1924), Cannery No.50 - British America, No.50A - Cunningham, NO.50B - Port Essington [Skeena River Commercial].

(180) See, Higginbottom, ibid.: Stacey, Sockeye & Tinplate, ibid.

(181)

(182) "Anglo-British Columbia Packing Company: Final Cannery Returns, B.A. Cannery, Port Essington," 1915-1923.

(183) British Columbia Fire Underwriters Association, ibid.

(184) Stacey, "North Pacific Cannery," p.8.

(185) See, Report of the Special Fishery Commission, question 2.

(186) Higginbottom, op.cit., pp.58-60.

(187) Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol.27, Oct. 1903.

(188) A collection of salmon can labels can be found in the "Bell-Irving Collection."

(189) B.C. Freeman, "Port Essington, Feb. 13, 1906," Missionary Bulletin. Vol.Ill (1905-1907), pp.235-244, quote p.237.

(190) Canada, Marine Branch, Shipping Registers for Victoria, PABC GR1333 (Roll B2527, f.35). For descriptions of Cunningham's ships in the early 1890s see E.W. Wright (ed.) Lewis and Dryden's Marine History of the Pacific Northwest (Seattle: Superior Publishing Co.; 1967), p.377 n.29. (First published in 1895 by Lewis & Dryden Printing Co.).

(191) Canada, Marine Branch, List of Shipping for Shipping, loc.cit.. f.76.

(192) Between 1890 and 1916 Robert and George Cunningham kept a register of all the ships passing in and out of Port Essington, and detailed their departure and destination points, the number of passengers they carried, and their type of freight. "Cunningham Records," DCR-PR. They are also on microfilm in the PABC (Roll 446A).

(193) Canada, Marine Branch, List of Shipping for Victoria, loc.cit.. f.43.

213 (194) "Cunningham Records," 1890-1900. The names and owners of all ships registered in British Columbia can be found in Canada, Sessional Papers, "Marine and Fisheries Department, List of Shipping" and "List of Vessels."

(195) "Cunningham Records," entries scattered.

(196) Canada, Marine Branch, List of Shipping for Victoria, loc.clt., (Roll B2528, f.66.).

(197) Lyons, op.cit, p.192; Canada, Marine Branch, List of Shipping for Victoria, ibid., f.145.

(198) "Cunningham Records," 1897-1903.

(199) The "Cunningham Records" indicate that May 2 1891 was the first time the Caledonia arrived in Port Essington.

(200) Ibid.. 1898-1902.

(201) Ibid.

(202) Cunningham's land holding in Hazelton is recorded in the Port Essington's Skeena District News, Jan. 9, 1904.

(203) Canada, Department of Transport, PABC GR1237, box 6, f .33.

(204) Skeena District News, ibid.

(205) See, Wiggs O'Neill [Stan Rough (ed.)l Steamboat Days on the Skeena River (Smithers; c.1960).

(206) Skeena steamship fares were published regularly by the Port Essington Loyalist, Oct. 1908 - Aug. 1909.

(207) See, the British Columbia Directories. Bibliography given in appendix 1.

(208) The Sun. Aug. 17, 1907.

(209) See, for example, ibid., July 27, 1906; Port Essington Loyalist, April 10, 1909.

(210) Port ESSlngton Loyalist/ May 22, 1909; The Sun/ Sept. 14, 1907.

(211) See, "Occupants of Port Essington Jail," Aug. 1908 - Mar. 1911, PABC G88-84.

(212) Port Essington Loyalist, Ibid.

214 (213) Ibid.. April 24, 1909.

(214) Ibid., July 10, 1909. The bar in the Essington hotel was supposed to be the longest in western North America north of San Francisco.

(215) Port Essinatonf The Star, June 20, 1908.

(216) See. Skeena District News. Jan. 9. 1904.

(217) The Sun. SeDt. 28, 1907.

(218) Ibid., Nov. 30, 1907.

(219) Port Essinaton Lovalist, March 6r 1909 .

(220) On the flight of people to Prince Rupert see the Rev. W.H. Pierce's remarks in the Missionary Bulletin. Vol.VII (1910-1911) p.215-6.

(221) Appleyard, "Missionary Work among the Fishermen and Skeena Indians around Port Essington," SPG missionary report 1907, PABC HA Ap5. For plans of all the Skeena canneries for 1915 see, Chas Goad, Northern Canneries. British Columbia including Port Essinaton (Goad & Co.; 1915), UBC-SC.

(222) Skeena District Newsr Jan. 9, 1904.

(223) Appleyard, "Missionary Work...," p.24.

(224) Ibid.

(225) Skeena District News, Feb. 6, Feb. 24, 1904.

(226) Ibid., June 11, 1904.

(227) See, for example, Port Essinaton Loyalist, May 22, 1909.

(228) Skeena District News, ibid.

(229) Port Essinaton Loyalist, June 5, 1909.

(230) Large, op.cit., p.35.

(231) Skeena District News, June 11, 1904.

(232) Ibid.. July 4, 1904. The Annual General Meetings of both parties were always held in June or July when there were the most people in the town during the canning season. These political parties were

215 probably started before 1904, but there is no record of them.

(233) There is very little information on how much Port Essington's residents paid in Provincial taxes. The figures cited come from the Queen Charlotte News, Oct. 28, 1911.

(234) The Star. June 20, 1908.

(235) Gosnell, op.cit. (1914 ed. ), p.78.

(236) The Sun. Dec. 21, 1907.

(237) The Sun. July 20, 1907.

(238) Skeena District News. Jan. 16, 1904.

(239) The Sun. Aug. 10, 1907.

(240) Interview with Ernest Harris, conducted in Vancouver, July 1988.

(241) Appleyard, "Missionary Work ," p.34.

(242) Ibid.. p.29.

(243) Rohner, ibid.

(244) Port Essington Loyalist. July 31, 1909.

(245) Skeena District News. March 26, 1904.

(246) See "Register of Marriages, St. John the Baptist's Church, Port Essington," 1885-1927, DCR-PR. Robert Cunningham had a Tsimshian wife.

(247) The Sun. Nov. 16, 1907.

(248) Ibid.. Nov. 2, 1907.

(249) Large, op.cit.r pp.38-39; Pierce, "Missionary Work at the Salmon Canneries at the Mouth of the Skeena River, BC," Port Essington, Sept. 26, 1916, Missionary Bulletin. Vol.XIII (1917), pp.27-28.

(250) See, British Columbia Fire Underwriters Association, op.cit.f "Port Essington."

(251) These Chinese and Japanese were not included in the Directories. On their merchant activities in the town see, Large, Ibid.

(252) Pierce, "Port Essington," Sept. 25, 1914, Missionary

216 Bulletin. Vol.XI (1915), p.20.

(253) Pierce's letters in the Missionary Bulletin run from 1907 to 1917.

(254) British Columbia, Provincial Police, "Description of Alien Enemies, 1914-1918: Form A - Port Essington & Prince Rupert," loc.cit.

(255) The Sun. Aug. 17, 1907.

(256) Ibid. For example, the reporter found George Hays's cigar store "a rather busy place with some fifty men of all nationalities congregated in a space of about 20x15 feet. There were three black-jack tables in full blast and a chuch- a-luck layout in the north-east corner."

(257) Harry Berryman was appointed as Port Essington's first "special Indian constable" in 1900. The next was John Herring in 1911. See, "List of [police constables'] names," British Columbia, Provincial Police, PABC GR 55, Vol. 80; C.C. Perry (Indian Agent, Nass) to A. Forsyth (constable, Port Essington), June 6, 1911, Provincial Police: Port Essington, UBC-SC AVII Bl/3.

(258) "List of [police constables'] names," loc.cit; "Staff particulars for controllers department no.2141, Prince Rupert," British Columbia, Provincial Police, Superintendent Correspondence Inwards, 1912-22, PABC GR 57, Vol.30.

(259) See, Port Essington police, "Charge Book" - including occupants of Port Essington jail, Jan. 1, 1909 - Sept. 16, 1910, PABC uncatalogued.

(260) Ibid.

(261) Ibid. The "occupants" section of the "Charge Book" contains a "Statement shewing Employment of Prisoners."

(262) Dempster, McKay and Croasdalle to G.A.B. Walken, loc.cit.

(263) "Memoirs of James Kirby," p.64, James E. Kirby Papers, PABC (Roll A999).

(264) British Columbia, Provincial Police Regulations (Victoria: Richard Wolfenden; 1908), IX(e) p.12. This is the earliest handbook that could be found, but there are references to them being issued before 1900.

(265) J. Kirby to J.W. Hussey, Oct. 3, 1898, British Columbia, Provincial Police, Superintendent Correspondence

217 Inward - office and official, PABC GR 55, Vol.22, (filed alphabetically by surname of constable).

(266) Port Essington Loyalist. Jan 30, 1909.

(267) Early Settlers on the Skeena to his Hon. Joseph W. Trutch, 1873, Attorney General Correspondence, PABC GR 429, box 1, file 2, 44/73.

(268) Kirby to Hussey, Oct. 3, 1898, loc.clt.

(269) See, Barbeau Files, B.F.215.1, p.4, PAC.

(270) Duncan, Jan. 27, 1875, "Letterbook, 1871-1876," p.432, UBC-MCR M2321.

(271) Freeman, Gosling, and W.F. Rushbrook to the Attorney General, loc.cit.

(272) Citizens of Port Essington to CE. Wilson Esq. (Attorney General), Feb. 12, 1906, ibid.

(273) See Kirby to Hussey, Nov. 20, 1898, British Columbia, Provincial Police, Superintendent Correspondence Inward, loc.clt... Vol.24.

(274) John Flewin to the Hon. John Robson (Provincial Secretary), 1889, PABC Add. MSS. EC F631.

(275) For a detailed picture of how these different functions were combined and performed, see constable Forsyth's official correspondence for 1911 in, Provincial Police: Port Essington, loc.cit. Also see, Kenneth Birchall (provincial police constable, Port Essington) to Provincial Game Warden, 1915 (6 letters), Provincial Game Warden's Correspondence, PABC GR 446, file 122.

(276) There are many Instances of this after 1900. For example, "special constable" Gay was appointed to Port Essington for three months in the summer of 1911 while Forsyth collected fishing and cannery licenses. See W. Owen (chief constable, Skeena) to Hussey, May 12, 1911, British Columbia, Superintendent Correspondence Inward, PABC GR 56, Vol.7. Constables often complained about the variety of functions they had to perform. Moreover, because fishery inspectors and game wardens, for example, were accountable to different departments and to different governments, there was sometimes confusion about which party should pay their salary.

(277) See, for example, Port Essington, Police Day Book, 1909, PABC (Roll A862). Many of these observations are contained in police correspondence as well.

218 (278) Provincial Police Regulations, op.cit., IV, 22 and 23, pp.5-6.

(279) Ibid.. I, 6(a) p.3; VI, 36 p.7, and 53 p. 10.

(280) Ibid.. VI, 25 p.6.

(281) Ibid.r VI, 33 p.6.

(282) These "wanted" posters from Port Essington jail are contained in, Milton McAlpine, "Police Records, including informations and warrants, Port Essington, 1909-1913," PABC Add. MSS. 732.

(283) See Kirby to Hussey, May 11 1896, British Columbia, Provincial Police, Superintendent Correspondence Inward, GR 55, Vol.10.

(284) Kirby to Hussey, Aug. 28, 1894, ibid.f Vol.16.

(285) Birchall to Provincial Game Warden, Aug. 23, 1915, loc.cit.

(286) W. Owen to Forsyth, May 31, 1911, Provincial Police: Port Essington, loc.cit.

(287) Provincial Police. Regulations, op.cit. P vi, 37, pp. 7- 8, and 49, p.10.

(288) J.P. Babcock to T. Wynn, July 3, 1910, British Columbia, Superintendent Correspondence Inward, GR 56, Vol.6, file 6.

(289) Owen to Hussey, June 27, 1911, British Columbia, Superintendent Correspondence Inward, GR 56, Vol.7, file 2.

(290) See, Provincial Police Regulations. VI, 44-46, p.9.

(291) Foucault, ibid.

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Murray, Peter. The Devil and Mr. Duncan: A History of the Two Metlakatlas (Victoria: Sono Nis Press; 1985).

Ormsby, Margaret. British Columbia: a History (Toronto: Macmillan; 1971).

Ray, Arthur. Indians in the Fur Trade (Toronto: Toronto University Press; 1974).

Rich, E.E. The Fur Trade and the Northwest to 1857 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart; 1967).

. "Trade Habits and Economic Motivations among the

225 Indians of North America." Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science. Vol.26, No.1 (1960), pp.35-53.

Shenk, Wilbert. "Henry Venn's Instructions to Missionaries." Missioloqy. Vol.V, No.4 (1977), pp.467-485.

Stacey, Duncan. Sockeye & Tinplate: Technological Change in the Fraser River Canning Industry. 1871-1912 (British Columbia Provincial Museum, Heritage Record No. 15; 1982).

Usher, Jean. William Duncan of Metlakatla: A Victorian Missionary in British Columbia (Ottawa: National Museums of Canada; 1974).

Walbran, Capt. John, [1909] British Columbia Coast Names 1592- 1906: Their Origin and History (Vancouver: J. Douglas Ltd; 1971).

Wicks, Walter. Memories of the Skeena (Seattle: Hancock House; 1976).

B. Unpublished.

Campbell, Ken. "Port Essington." Manuscript, Prince Rupert, 1987.

Halpin, M. "The Tsimshian Crest System." Ph.D. Thesis, UBC, Department of Anthropology, 1973.

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Higginbottom, Edward. "The Changing Geography of Salmon Canning in British Columbia, 1870-1931." MA Thesis, Simon Fraser University, Department of Geography, 1988.

McDonald, James. "Trying to Make a Life: the Historical Political Economy of Kitsumkalum." Ph.D. Thesis, University of British Columbia, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, 1985.

Mackie, Richard. "Colonial Land, Indian Labour, and Company Capital: The economy of Vancouver Island, 1849-1858." MA Thesis, University of Victoria, Department of History, 1984.

. "The Company Transformed: The New Fur Trade on the West Coast, 1821-1858." Paper presented to the Fifth BC Studies Conference, Simon Fraser University, 1988.

226 Robinson, Shiela. "Men and Resources on the Northern Northwest Coast of North America, 1785-1840: A Geographical Approach to the Maritime Fur Trade," 2 Vols. Ph.D. Thesis, University College London, 1984.

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Stacey, Duncan. "North Pacific Cannery." Paper Prepared for the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, n.d.

J

227 Appendix 1

Port Essinaton: Population Estimates. 1881-1920.

(a) B.C. Directories (1)

Year Total no. listed Port Essington (2) under Port Essington residents

1882-3 22 7 1884-5 19 7 1886 No Information 1887 26 13 1888 No Information 1889 No Information 1890 - 8 ("60 whites, 300 Indians. In fishing season, 1000, 100 whites.") 1891 26 22 1892 57 49 1893 53 45 ("population about 60 ") 1894 54 40 1895 58 46 1896 No Information 1897 25 1898 - No Information 1899 53 38 ("50 whites; 200 Indians") 1900-1 58 50 1902 52 46 1903 63 61 (from 1903 on, directories give entries for some other lower Skeena cannery settlements) 1904 63 61 1905 71 69 1906 No Information 1907 No Information 1908 No Information 1909 No Information 1910 - 228 1911 No Information 1912 No Information 1913 No Information 1914 No Information 1915 No Information 1916 - 59 1917 No Information 1918 - 58 1919 - 58 1920 - 59

228 (b) Census data.

C A J W (3)

1881 Census of Canada. (Nov.)

Lower Skeena: non-aboriginal census 74 0 28 Port Essington: non-aboriginal census 0-07 Port Essington: aboriginal census 112 "about 125 Tsimshian." (4)

1891 Census of Canada. (June)

Port Essington: 22 133 5 38 (233) (5)

(c) Other estimates.

1888 (June) "...about forty Indian houses... (and] six hundred Indians, all of whom fish. During fishing time there are at least twenty whites. (6)

....."List of persons entitled to vote, Skeena Polling Division." (7)

1889 Port Essington, 5 1893 Port Essington, 23 1894 Port Essington, 25 1899 Port Essington, 33

...."Population of British Columbia according to proposed electoral districts."

1902 Port Essington, Balmoral, etc., 374

1911, "Port Essington, Indian population, 199; total population, 874" (8)

1916, Kitsumkalum living at Port Essington: 96. Kitselas living at Port Essington: 80. (9)

1917, "Number of Japanese, Skeena: Port Essington, 217 (male), 50 (female), 7 (children) (10)

Notes and References.

229 (1) 1882-3, The British Columbia Directory, (Victoria: R. Williams) "Northern Coast," p.350; 1884-5, op.cit., p.229; 1887, op.cit. , p.287.

1890, Henderson's British Columbia Gazetteer and Directory (Victoria: Henderson Publishing Co.),""Port

Essington," p.169; 1897, ibid.r p.443; 1900-1, ibid.. pp.515-

6; 1902, ibid.r pp.225-6; 1903, ibid, pp.227-8; 1904, ibid., pp.238-9; 1905, ibid.. pp.185-6; 1910, ibid.r pp. 555-8.

1891, Williams British Columbia Directory (Victoria: R.T. Williams) "North West Coast," p.85; 1892, "Port Essington," pp.18-19; 1893, ibid.. pp.195-6; 1894, Ibid.r pp.154-5; 1895, ibid.r p.144; 1899, ibid.r pp.217-8.

1916, Northern British Columbia Index and Guide (F.S.Wright), "Port Essington," p.135.

1918, Wrialey's B.C. Directory (Vancouver: Wrigley Ltd.), "Port Essington," p.361; 1919, Ibid.. pp.499-500; 1920, Ibid., p.509.

(2) The B.C. directories give occupational listings, and only the occupations of "white" settlers in the town. In all cases, over 95 per cent of these occupations were assigned to men. Women's domestic labour is not included. Thus, the figures above are not estimates of total population, but estimates of the number of sedentary, "white" males. Although most of the directory listings are for Port Essington, two numerical categories were used because prominent individuals from other lower Skeena settlements (usually salmon canning settlements, and always men) appear on Port Essington lists. Some of them may have lived in Port Essington but it is difficult to tell. After 1902, the occupational occupants of some of these other settlements (Balmoral, Carlisle, Claxton, Inverness, etc), are listed separately.

(3) Canada, Census Returns, 1881, non-aboriginal: British

Columbia, 187 - New Westminster, D3, s.d. - Coast ofv Mainland, Lower Skeena (incl. Port Essington), pp. 1-7; aboriginal: British Columbia, 187 - New Westminster, D6, s.d. - Coast of Mainland, "Port Essington," pp. 1-5. Ibid., 1891, British Columbia, 2 - New Westminster, A18, s.d. New Westminster, Port Essington C?l, pp. 1-14.

C= Chinese A= Aboriginal J= Japanese W= White (European, Canadian, British Columbian)

230 (4) The figure of 125 is from, N.H. Chittenden, [1882] Travels in British Columbia (Gordon Soules; 1984) p.75.

(5) The figures and page numbers cited from the 1891 census are derived. The enumerator did not enter settlement names with the population information. For the "white" population, my estimates come from checking the names given against the directory information. Estimates of the aboriginal population come from checking the census names listed against the Port Essington Methodist Church Register, "Baptisms and Burials - 1883-1946," PABC (Roll 94A); and Book 29, "Anglican Register of Baptisms in the Parish of St. John, Port Essington" (1885- 1932), and Book 32, "Register of Burials, St. John the Baptist Church, Port Essington," DCR-PR. The extra 100 people (233 listed in brackets) are those Coast Tsimshian without Anglicised surnames who appear after the list of Port Essington "whites" and before the list of Port Essington Coast Tsimshian with Anglicised names. These people were probably resident in Port Essington, but since the majority of Coast Tsimshian in the settlement had been given Anglicised surnames by 1890, and because the census was taken during the early part of the salmon canning season, it is likely that these extra 100 people constituted a large portion of the two canneries' summer fishing and cannery employees. "150 employees" is recorded next to the entry for R. Cunningham, only 22 of whom appear to be Chinese from their employer listing "Cn", so it is likely that many of the 233 Tsimshian in ray estimate were working for either the Cunningham or the British America Cannery. Bell-Irving notes that the B.A. Cannery had 34 fishing licenses for 1891 ("Notebooks," Vol. 5, July 19, 1891) which, with 2 men per crew, means 68 fishermen; with only a few "white" fishermen listed - and no Japanese - it is likely that most of these fishermen were Coast Ts imshian. All 5 of the Japanese people listed were male, and although there is no occupational listing accompanying their names, they appear beneath a Port Essington sawmill owner, T. Gamble, and were perhaps in his employ. From the employer entry "Cn," my estimate is that 22 Chinese people were working in Cunningham's cannery. Their gender is not specified. A further 22 Chinese names appear immediately below the list for Cunningham's cannery. They are, however, preceded by George Dempster, the manager of the Aberdeen Cannery. These 22 workers may have been working for Dempster. Equally, if Dempster lived in Port Essington, his name might have been wrongly associated with them when they were really working for the B.A. Cannery. I am not sure, so they have been excluded from the list.

(6) R. Rohner (ed.), The Ethnography of Franz Boas: Letters and Diaries of Franz Boas Written on the Northwest Coast From 1866 to 1931 (Chicago: Chicago University Press) pp.92-93.

231 (7) British Columbia, Sessional Papers, 1890, p.697; 1894, pp.361-3; 1894 Pt.2, pp.1521-4; 1899, pp.219-224; 1902 Pt.l, p.744 .

(8) R.E. Gosnell, The Year Book of British Columbia (Victoria; 1911) pp.168, 222.

(9) Canada, Report of the Roval Commission on Indian Affairs for the Province of British Columbia. 4 Vols. (Victoria: Acme Press, 1916), Vol.3, "Nass Agency," Table C. The report states that the figure of 96 "represent[s] the Kitsumkalum Division of the population of Port Essington," and the "Kitselas Division" of 80 "would apparently not be included in the Kitselas population of the Babine Agency."

(10) Figures given at Japanese Consulate, Vancouver, in miscellaneous files from the Bishop's house, Diocese of Caledonia, by courtesy.

232 Appendix 2

Goods with a total value of over slr000 purchased bv Robert Cunningham and Thomas Hankin from merchants in Victoria. January 1. 1872 to August 31. 1874.

Name of Company (specified line of business) Individual purchase amounts ($), per year Total value of transactions

Findlay, Durham & Brodie Turner, Beeton, and Tunstall (Dry goods and clothing) (Dry goods, importers, whole -sale and retail dealers) 1872 398 1872: 300 230 572 275 150 200 400 400 450 750 1873: 300 1873 450 62 250 500 1,700 125 34 400 700 500 800 1874: 125 1874 300 400 500 150 300 300 250 4.734 450 250 8,237

J. Rueff G. Sutro & Co, Lowe & Co. (merchant, (cigars and (merchants) wholesaler) tobacco) 1872: 300 1872: 350 1872: 200 150 150 125 100 400 150 100 200 200 243 100 250 200

1873: 250 1873: 200 1873: 200 50 70 100 75 250 35 350 175 200 200 ' 200

233 200 250 1874 50 200 63 1874: 50 1874: 50 150 1.741 150 50 75 100 2.800 2.420

C. Strauss & Co A. Rickman E. Grancini (merchants) (wholesale and (hardware) 1872: 80 retail grocer) 1872: 128 300 1872: - 100 201 100 400 1873 100 117 125 1873 75 100 1873: 75 34 175 35 150 250 150 50 100 125 140 100 1874: 50 100 1874: 100 100 175 252 1874 50 1,705 100 15. 1,352 1,3,55

Goods with a total value of under $lf000 purchased by Cunningham and Hankin from merchants in Victoria, January 1. 1872 to August 31. 1874.

S. Nisbett (Bakery), 880; A. Bunster (Brewer), 755; Langley & Co. (Druggists), 700; Burns and Edwards (Importers and Dealers), 615; G. Huston (gun and locksmith), 253; Matthew & Co. (-), 203; Mansell & Holroyd (-), 157; Mclreland (-), 150; T.H. Mann & Co. (saddler and harness maker), 130; W.M. Dalby & Co. (saddler and harness maker), 105; J.Dickson (tinsmith), 101; H. Short (gun and locksmith), 95; C.T. Millard (merchant importer), 95; W.P. Saywood (lumber merchant), 84; P. McQuide (ship chandlers), 65.

Compiled from Rithet Papers, Vol. 6, "Cash Book," entries scattered, pp.42-569, PABC Add. MSS. 504.

234 Appendix 3

(a) Svunmayy of. Capital and Shares of B.C. Packers Association. 12 Sept.. 1904.

Nominal Capital: $4,000,000 (40,000 shares of $100) Number of shares taken up by Sept., 1904 - 27,627 Total amount of calls received - $2,762,700

(entries in same order as original text)

Specified Surname Initial Add.* Occupation No. shares listed

Abbott H. V Gentleman 14 Alexander Geo. V Salmon Canner 190 Allan (Sir) H.Mont. M Steamship owner 373 Ambrose Geo. Ma Capitalist 30 Anderson Thos. T Broker 45 AtwoOd J. N.H. Farmer 3 Ayling Margaret Ma - 42 Bain Ninian V Salmon Canner 97 Baker, Ayling & Co. B Bankers 1 Baker Edith B - 42 Ball H. 0 News Reporter 2 Ballou Chas. R.I. Banker 15 Barton H. BC Book-Keeper 15 Batchelder Geo. SF Banker 26 Bell Fran. V Book-keeper 140 Bixby Cornelia Ve - 10 Blackwood S. Temple T Broker 15 Blake H. T Barr ister 8 Bowser W.J. V Barrister 52 Bracy Lydia N.H. 4 Branch O.E. N.H. Lawye- r 25 Brennan J.R. NW Salmon Canner 60 Brown Clara H - 1 Brown F. M Fire Ins. Agt. 12 Brown G.T. O Fire Ins. Agt. 30 Brown Mrs. Ma - 5 v - Brown Louise H 2 Brymer G.D NW Bank Mgr. 50 Burn G. Ot Banker 2 Burnett & Co M Brokers 26 Burnham Addie N.H. -' 15 Burn Miss Ph - 10 Burt Mrs. N.H. - 20 Burton Mrs. Ve - 10 Buttimer A.J. V Salmon Canner 125 Cameron A. V Book-keeper 90 Campbell C. M Barrister 154

235 Canty J. N.H. Engineer 5 Carlton C. Ma Cashier 2 Case G. T Broker 50 Casselman 0. 0 - 25 Chase Mary N.H. - 10 Cheape Mrs. B - 2 Cong On Luck NW Merchant 20 Churchill S. BC Netman 15 Clinch & Paterson T Bank Mgrs. 90 Clouston E. M Gen.Mgr.Bank 124 Montreal Corbet B. SF Lawyer 3 Corbet J. V - 15 Corsan Mrs. T - 32 Coulthard F. NW Real Estate 5 Cronyn E. T Broker 77 Cronyn H. 0 Barrister 4 Crowder J. V Merchant 34 Cruft G. B Capitalist 50 Currie,McWilliaras,Fowler NW Salmon Canners 33 Currie R. NW Salmon Canner 100 Danforth C. Mai - 5 Davies W. T Pork Packer 25 Davidson H. Vi - 10 Deming H. Cal - 4 Davis B. SF - 2 Deming Mrs . Cal - 4 Davis B. SF - 12 Deming Mrs. Cal - 4 Davis G. SF - 12 Doyle Henr V Merchant 1601 Davis Miss SF - 12 Drummond(Sir)G. M - 14 Davis Geo. SF - 12 Dudley - N.H. Banker 2 Dunscomb & Jennisn NY Bankers 47 Edwards Miss 0 - 5 English MaryF. NW Widow 295 Esmond J. C Cashier 50 Esty - Ma - 50 Evans, Coleman & Evans V Merchants 85 Evans C. V Merchant 1 Evans E.E. V Merchant 350 Evans P.W. V Merchant 150 Ewen Alex NW Salmon Canner 1498 Fagan J. SF - 150 Forget H. M Broker 44 Forget R. M Broker 42 Foster E. Co Capital ist 80 Foster G. T Mgr.Union Trust 8 Fowler G. N.H. Farmer 7 Fowler J. NW Lloyds 100

236 Francis Mrs T - 15 Fraser F V Salmon Canner 53 Fulford G. 0 Proprietary 279 Garneau J. QU - 100 Godfrey & Roberts V Bank Mgrs. 13 Goldman C. T Broker 77 Goodmurphy W. BC Salmon Canner 15 Gosling T Agt. Bank of 433 Hamilton Goss G. N.J. - 10 Gov J. 0 Gentleman 20 Gov W. T Barrister 4 Greenwood & Co., Ltd BC Salmon Canners 30 Hale C. Mai Judge 10 Hale Mrs. NY 10 Harcourt R. T Min- . Education 30 Harris D. C - 50 Hayden, Stone & Co. B Brokers 373 Hayes Mary N.H. - 1 Hebden E. M Banker 144 Halffanger F. N.H. - 10 Henshaw F. M Insurance 88 Herbert J. NY Capitalist 350 Hewett G. H - 10 Hill Miss T - 4 Hills J. Ma Bank Director 8 Holt H. M Pres. Sovereign 168 Bank Hoskin J. T - 59 Houston A. V Salmon Canner 94 Hoyt Miss N.H. - 10 Hunter Miss Ph - 2 Huntington Mrs. N.H. - 10 Hutton M. T Univ. Professor 5 Ingalls C. W - 10 Jackson Mrs. 0 - 10 Jarvis Amelius T Broker 1065 Jarvis, Amelius & Co T Brokers 2972 Jarvis Mrs. T - 65 Kemp J. T Mgr.Can.Bnk. 475 Commerce Ker R. V Sec. BC Packers 1 Kidd T. NW Farmer 35 Klrkland Anus T Mgr.Bnk.Montreal 624 Kwong Man Tai &Co. NW Merchants 50 Laidlaw & Plummer T - 30 Lam Tung & Lee Son NW Merchants 123 Landon L. N.H. Capital1st 5 Lane Mrs. Ma - 4 Langdon F. N.H. - 5 Langmuir J. T Mgr. Toronto 72 General Trust Co •

237 Laur ie Mrs. Co - 1 Lavson - Vi - 10 Law, Young & Co. M - 51 Lee Ching NW Merchant 10 Lee Yee Yow NW Merchant 10 Lee Yick Quon NW Merchant 10 Lockerby Mrs. M - 50 Lord Mrs. N.H. - 10 Lord & Chase N.H. - 20 Lovett G. Ma Capitalist 15 Maclnnes C. T Barister 15 MacLaren D. Ot Lumberman 161 MacNider A. M Bank Mgr. 108 MacRae J. V Salmon Canner 1 Magee C. Ot V-Pres.Crown Bnk. 31 Malcolm 0. V - 1 Mai ins A. NW Real Estate Agt. 10 Mai ins A. NW Real Estate Agt. 700 Mara & Taylor T - 25 Marpole R. V Supt.Can.Pac.Rly. 2 Meredith & Co. M Bankers 325 Mlllichamp R. T Merchant 92 Moat & Co. M Broker 75 Morr is J. V Cannery Foreman 54 Morris M. T Bank Manager 576 Morr is R. H Banker 59 Munn D. M - 217 Murphy W. V. Banker 132 McClarence Mrs. Ma - 3 McClery - BC Salmon Canner 65 McDaniel S. Co 20 McDonald J. BC Salmo- n Canner 94 McDonald R. BC Salmon Canner 94 McLaren K. N.J. Director, BC 1 Packers McPherson W. V Salmon Canner 63 McPherson A. 0 - 25 McWilliams D. NW Salmon Canner 100 Neill C. V Mgr. Royal Bank 40 Nicholls F. T Mgr.Can.Gen. 50 Electric Co. Nichols C. N.H. - 20 Olive Branch Lodge N.H. - 5 011ve r F. 0 Banker 25 Paterson R. M - 418 Pellat H. T Broker 50 Penler E. V Merchant 34 People's Savings Bak R.I - 150 Peterson Mrs. T - 8 Pishon J. B Banker 8 Pitkin H. Con - 6 Plummer J . T Pres.Domin.Steel 203

238 Porteous C. M Montreal St. Rly10 0 Radley Mrs. T - 50 Rand H. N.H. Capitalist 10 Renouk E. N.H. Clergyman 1 Reymoulds T Co Banker 5 Rhoades & Richmond NY Bankers 100 Rich C. Mai - 5 Richards S. N.H. Capitalist 100 Richardson H. T Banker 4 Richmond S. NY Banker 3 Rintoul R. V Bank Mgr. 4 Roby H. N.H. Banker 50 Rollins, E. H. & Sons B Bankers 1411 Rollins, E. H. & Sons SF Bankers 50 Rollins E.W. N.H. Banker 10 Rollins E.W. B Banker 164 Rollins F.W. B Banker 195 Rollins G. N.H. Manufacturer 30 Rosamund B. 0 Manufacturer 25 Rowan D. V Salmon Canner 240 Rowan J . V Salmon Canner 93 Ruggles D. B Lawyer 10 Rumsey C. 0 10 Saint J. BC Treas- . C.P.R. 62 Schoonmaker C. SF Banker 3 Scott H. M Broker 25 Seavy W. B Banker 30 Sewall H. B Broker 20 Sewall R. B Broker 20 Sewall W. B Broker 20 Seymour G. V Merchant 25 Sirois L. Qu - 50 Sisterhood of St. Joh T - 19 Slayton G. B - 5 Smith Mrs. N.S. Merchant 6 Smart C. N.H. - 5 Smith T. Vi Merchant 275 Smithers G. M 12 Soper W. Ot Elec. Ctr. 94 Spaulding F. NY Teacher 4 Spencer S . Vi Capitalist 313 Stevens F. B Journalist 15 Stockbrldge L. Ma - 10 Sturvant L. N.H. - 5 Sweeny Mrs. N.B. - 3 Sweeny Campbell V Banker 101 Talbot F. SF - 100 Tandy A. H - 4 Taylor G. C Bank Mgr. 30 Thomas E. Ve - 10 Tilden H. SF - 55 Tindall J. Co - 11

239 Toms Lewis V Salmon Canner 52 Townsend T. 0 250 Trowbr idge Mrs. Ma - 3 Turnball J. H Gen.Mgr.Ban- k of 100 Hamilton Turpin, W.J. & Co. M Brokers 25 Twombly C. N.H. 5 Vaughan H. B - 10 Victoria Canning Co. Vi Salmo- n Canners 1525 Von Cleve H. SF 50 Wadhams, Estate of E.. V Salmo- n Canner 600 Welch E. T Canon 5 Welsh E. V Salmon Canner 118 Welsh R. V Salmon Canner 105 Wentworth G. N.H. Capitalist 10 Whitehead J. V Ass.Sec. BC 7 Packers Whyte M. B - 2 Wilkinson M. V Salmon Canner 62 Wilson A. M 63 Wilson G.I . V Gen- . Mgr. BC 374 Packers Wilson M. 0 Barrister 100 Wood G. Ma 5 York E. Ma Banke- r 7 Young A. N.H. 10 Young R. B Banke- r 30 Houston A. V Salmon Canner 63 Farrell W. V Salmon Canner 125 Acme Canning Co . V Salmon Canners 13 Cunningham, R. & Son BC Merchants 375

Add. * Address of Shareholders|No. of shareholders|Total no.shares

B Boston, Massachusetts 18 2, 398 BC British Columbia 9 765 C Chicago, Illinois 3 130 Cal California 3 12 Co Colorado 5 117 Con Connecticut 1 6 H Hamilton, Ontario 6 176 M Montreal, Quebec 23 2,655 Ma Massachusetts 13 184 Mai Maine 3 20 N.B. New Brunswick 1 3 N.H. New Hampshire 30 423 N.J. New Jersey 2 11 N.S. Nova Scotia 1 6 NW New Westminster, BC 18 3,209 NY New york 6 514 0 Ontar io 14 810

240 ot Ottawa, Ontario 4 288 Ph Philadelphia 2 12 Qu Quebec City, Quebec 2 150 R.I. Rhode Island 2 165 SF San Francisco, Califoria 13 487 T Toronto, Ontario 35 7,373 V Vancouver, BC 41 5,414 Ve Vermont 3 30 VI Victoria 2,133 263 27.491

Percentage distribution of shares.

by total no. by no. shareholders

Eastern U.S. (B, Con, 13.7 30.4 Ma, Mai, N.H., N.J., NY, Ph, R.I., Ve)

Rest of U.S. 2.3 9.1

Eastern Canada

N.B., N.S., O, Ot, Qu, T) 41.9 32.8

Vancouver and N. West. 31.4 22.4

Victoria 7.8 1.9

Rest of B.C. 2.8 3.4

Source: PABC companies files, 202 (still active).

(b) List of shares to be held bv canneries in B.C. Packers Association, 1902.

(As cited In original text)

Alliance Canning Co. 167 Anglo-American Canning Co. 208 (issued) Turner, Beeton & Co. 425 Dinsmore Island Canning Co. 125 (issued) Brunswick Canning Co. 250 Westminster Packing Co. 163 (issued) R. Ward and Co. (Imperial cannery) 275 do. Pacific Coast Packing Co. 250 do. Greenwood Canning Co. 175 do. Cleeve Canning and Cold Storage 700 do. A. Houston (Atlas cannery) 250 do. J.A. Hume & Co. Ltd 250 do.

241 Even & Co. 1,250 Provincial Packing Co. 208 (issued) Westham Island Packing Co. 188 do. Currie, McWilliams and Fowler 333 Victoria Canning Co. 1,560 Vancouver Packing Co. cash paid W.A. Wadhams 600 Cuthbert and Byrn (Balmoral canery) cash paid Acme Canning Co. 175 (issued) Welsh Bros. 225 do. Canadian Pacific Packing Co. 375 F. Boutelier and Co. 225 (issued) Terra Nova Canning Co. 333 Kwong Man Tai & Co. (Colonial cannery) 100 (issued) J. Clayton cash paid Alert Bay Canning Co. 313 (issued) R. Cunningham and Son 375 Toms, Morris and Fraser 159 (issued) Bon Accord Fishing Co. 125 Empire Canning Co. 150 (issued)

Source: Doyle Papers, box 11, file 12, UBC-SC.

242 Appendix 4

Estimates of the aggregate distribution of British Columbia's salmon pack bv number of cases. 1886-1905.

(a) Canners' Estimates from British Columbia.

Destination Year

1886 1887 1888 1889

London: 1. direct 169,032 2. with option to 0 Liverpool or Glasgow

Liverpool: 3. direct 113,308

To Great Britain: 4. overland (via rail) 600 5. via other ports 55,507

Total no. cases of B.C. 102,091 127,544 100,207 338,447 salmon exported to G.B.

6. Eastern Canada 47,223 46,202 46,236 40,033

7. Australia and New 12,700 15,038 19,627 24,031 Zealand

8. Other destinations 0 9,332 0 400

9. Local sales 990 3,895 3,839 2,238

10. Sold but undelivered 0 0 0 0

11. Stock on hand 0 3,077 7,396 9,145

12. Lost 0 0 0 0

13. Total no. cases 163,004 205,088 177,305 414,294 packed in British Columbia

243 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895

1. - - 61,864 148,322 94,203 96,459 2. 0 0 0 0

3. - - 71,354 253,833 222,345 256,301

4 . - 0 27,445 20,424 65,647 5. - 30,093 25,703 59,296 29,590

309,000 220,000 163,211 455,303 396,268 447,997

6. 77,593 61,000 59,350 114,792 76,009 79,258

7. 29,000 - 1,498 8,830 15,078 8,832

8. 0 - 0 150 0 .0

9. 3,000 - 4,311 2,931 2,642 4,326

10. 0 - 0 0 0 0

11. 0 - 0 8,213 4,374 25,952

12. 0 - 0 0 0 0

13. 418,593 314,893 228,470 590,229 494,371 556,395

1896 1897 1898 1899 1900

1. 182,253 325,966 79,598 150,670 51,095 2. 9,076 4,957 5,687 5,733 10,143

3. 322,364 407,738 242,437 365,151 357,848

4. 11,405 38,373 8,050 26,128 60,090 5. 0 0 19,862 0 3,802

525,098 777,034 355,634 547,682 482,928

6. 51,041 130,815 87,881 114,736 79,171

7. 11,609 28,579 9,644 41,518 25,903

8. 2,128 226 439 4,246 56,237

9. 3,844 4,823 1,183 11,945 20,309

244 10. 0 0 0 0 0

11. 7,850 74,000 29,380 12,079 20,815

12. 0 0 0 231 0

13. 601,570 1,015,477 484,161 732,437 585,413

1901 1902 1903 1904 1905

1. 206,344 95,711 24,590 60,844 105,088 2. 19,236 1,700 461 3,070 16,904

3. 576,065 290,913 162,649 101,855 320,039

4. 46,831 0 33,358 0 109,637 5. 3,350 6,000 18,750 15,315

851,826 394,324 239,808 181,084 551,668

6 131,875 135,806 152,498 160,258 152,118

7 38,022 10,355 35,463 37,050 53,847

8 13,538 627 1,472 3,278 4,556

9 19,956 5,156 10,344 15,919 57,037

10. 0 0 0 0 136,982

11. 180,939 79,714 34,089 68,275 211,252

12. 0 0 0 0 0

13. 1,236,156 625,982 473,674 465,894 1,167,460

Note: Dashes denote that there is no specific information available.

Summary calculations.

1. Average percentage distribution of British Columbia's total pack, 1886-1905: exported to Great Britain, 69% - through London (excluding 4 and 5), 30% - through Liverpool (excluding 4 and 5), 70% exported to eastern Canada, 17% exported to Australia and New Zealand, 4% (These averages have been calculated only from the years when

245 comparative figures are available.)

2. Henry Doyle gives the following percentages of British Columbia's total pack exported to the U.K. between 1911 and 1917, by number of cases: Total B.C. pack No. cases exported to U.K. % 1911 948,965 352,229 37.1 1912 996,576 440,867 44.25 1913 1,353,901 573,671 42.4 1914 1,111,039 737,702 66 1915 1,135,381 806,606 77.1 1916 995,065 999,238 100.4 1917 1,557,485 460,758 29.6 The percentage for 1915 is much higher than the others because of the exceptional demand created for canned produce by authorities supplying soldiers fighting in Europe. And in 1916 all of the canned salmon purchased by European nations was shipped to England and re-shipped from there.

Notes and sources.

Figures for 1886-1891 are compiled from Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol.1, Nov. 1889 - April 1890; Vol.7, March - Sept., 1892; VCA, Add. MSS. 1. The figures for British Columbia's total pack for these years are taken from Cicely Lyons, Salmon: Our Heritage (Vancouver: Mitchell Press; 1969) Appendix 36, p.706. Figures for 1891-1895 were compiled by R.P. Rithet & Co., in Anglo-British Columbia Packing Company, Records, VCA Add. MSS. 870, Vol.1, file 1. Figures for 1896-1905 are from British Columbia, Department of Marine and Fisheries, Report of the Commissioner of Fisheries, 1907, C15. Figures for B.C. salmon exports to the U.K. between 1911 and 1917 come from the Doyle Papers, box 5, file 2, UBC-SC.

Bell-Irving's figures up to 1891 were probably guesses. Export figures probably only started to be collected by canners in 1891. After 1891, Bell-Irving's figures are the same as those given by Rithet & Co. Cf. Henry Bell-Irving, "Notebooks," Vol.8, Sept. 1892 - June 1893; Vol.10, Sept. 1893 - April 1894; Vol.11, April - Sept. 1894, and Vol.27, April 1903 - May 1904. Rithet & Co.'s figures for 1896 are the same as the Government figures. The Government figures for 1896-1905 are the same as those released by the Fraser River Canners Association. See their "Disposition of the British Columbia Pack," n.d., in Bell-Irving "Collection," VCA Add. MSS. 485, Vol. 1, file 3.

246 (b) Dominion Government figures for the export of British Columbian and Canadian canned salmon, 1887-1905.

Countries, colonies, Canning Season, no. cases possessions, listed (BCX=British Columbia exports; alphabetically, as CX=Canadian exports) spelt in original.

1887 1888 1889 (BCX) (BCX) (BCX)

1. Argentine 325 350 2. Australia 23,522 25,550 13,800 3. Bermuda 4. Brazil 5. British Empire (unspecified destination) 6. British Africa 146 7. British Poss. in China 37 8. British Guiana 9. British East Indies

10. British West Indies 11. Chili 200 1,050 987 12. China 39 2 802 13. Cuba 14. Danish West Indies 15. Dutch West Indies 16. Fiji Islands 17. France 18. French Possessions 19. French West Indies 20. Germany 21. Great Britain 148,595 110,429 347,328 22. Hawaii 23. Hayti 24. Holland 25. Hong Kong 26. Italy 27. Japan 23 28. Newfoundland 29. New Zealand 30. Norway-Sweden 31. Peru 32. Porto Rico 33. Sandwich Islands 34. Spanish Possessions 35. Spanish West Indies 36. St. Pierre 37. United States of America 277 2,689 9,639 38. United States of Colombia

247 1887 - BCX = 172,815; 1888 - BCX = 139,995; 1889 - BCX = 60,334.

1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 (CX) (CX) (CX) (CX) (CX) (CX)

1. 2. 47,028 19,200 4,612 12,509 15,092 8, 306 3. 4. 58 5. 6. 200 7. 8. 52 259 9 . 164 50 10. 200 456 21 4 15

11. 1,121 100 200 250 12. 71 62 13. 14. 5 15. 5 16 6 62 17. 350 732 18. 20 19 . 22 20. 21. 282,836 235,941 166,368 486,910 411,910 455,443 22. 50 40 23. 1 24. 813 25. 26. 27. 1 21 28. 4 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 2 34 . 50 35. 36. 1 37. 396 1,604 46 241 9 3,762 38. 120 58 10 85 30 15

1890 - BCX = 331,257 , CX = 331,994 ; 1891 - BCX = 257,470, CX = 257,670; 1892 - BCX = 171 ,187, CX = 171,240; 1893 - BCX = 498,626 , CX = 500,877; 1894 - BCX = 424,873 , CX = 427, 591; 1895 -BCX = 439,618, CX = 468, 367.

248 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 (CX) (CX) (CX) (CX) (CX) (CX)

1. 2. 17,050 46,868 18 ,774 50,422 44,192 42,179 3. 4. 5. 2,092 6. 10 1, 454 2,410 7. 8. 12 20 5 9. 15 75 78 733 3,643 10. 33 48 54 61 20 119 11. 149 408 599 12. 135 4 136 200 25 13. 14. 2 2 15. 25 16. 254 2,531 17. 350 708 528 50 2,065 18. 19 . 20. 495 25 1,439 21. 564,695 816,221 501 ,209 708,178 585,582 955,575 22. 132 19 174 136 22 23. 20 24. 25. 1 824 48 110 26. 27. 56 185 6,670 9,949 4,938 28. 10 2 6 3 10 22 29. 218 723 3,057 31. 32. 33. 34. 5 34 35. 1 36. 1 3 1 2 2 37. 83 1,590 19 ,398 4,514 86,476 6,281 38. 17

1896 - BCX = 573,794, CX = 582,540; 1897 - BCX = 826,330, CX = 867,646; 1898 - BCX = 525,856, CX = 538,379; 1899 - BCX = 733,792, CX = 771,089; 1900 - CX = 736,321; 1901 - CX = 1,027,139.

249 1902 1903 1904 1905 (CX) (CX) (CX) (CX)

1. 2. 15,322 31,961 33,104 34,498 3. 5 4. 775 5. 25 6. 1,906 1,125 325 7. 8. 7 9. 2,851 2,026 1,870 2,849 10. 88 38 592 36 11. 1,755 12. 15 58 401 13. 1 2,679 14. 15. 16. 4,458 4,468 5,563 5,632 17. 2,187 1,100 18. 19. 20. 34 1 21. 451,570 254,501 195,958 254,314 22. 23. 24. 25. 2,194 271 250 26. 149 27. 22 25,643 9,034 2,135 28. 1 1 1,275 29. 5,219 7,379 15,171 6,805 30. 6 31. 825 32. 1 33. 34. 35. 36. 1 2 37 . 115 660 4,038 7,390 38.

1902 - CX = 485,885; 1903 - CX = 327,612; 1904 - CX = 269,763; 1905 - CX = 319,842.

Source: Canada, Sessional Papers. Vol. 22 (1889) - Vol.42 (1907-8), "Tables of the Trade and Navigation of the Dominion of Canada, for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30: General Statement of Exports from the Dominion of Canada."

250 Notes: Dominion figures are given in lbs, and have been converted here into the number of 48 lb cases. The number of lbs have been rounded up or down to the nearest whole number of cases using 0.44 as the rounding dividing line. The total number of lbs cited are Dominion totals and have likewise been rounded. Thus, the total number of cases from entries 1-38 do not add up exactly to the total BCX or CX figures given at the bottom of each page. Because export figures are given for the end of the previous fiscal year (June 30), and because the canning season only starts at the end of June, export figures for a particular season only appear in the Sessional Papers two years later: i.e. export figures for a canning season 1887, appear in the export tables for the fiscal year ending June 30 1888, which appear in the 1889 Sessional Papers, and so forth. The distribution of British Columbia's exports has been given wherever possible. After the 1889 season, distribution figures are only given for Canada's total canned salmon exports. British Columbia's aggregate exports are only tabulated separately until the 1899 season. For every year between 1887 and 1899 British Columbia's exports made up over 97 per cent of Canada's total exports. It is likely that this percentage remained the same until 1905, and that the distribution of Canada's exports represents the extent of British Columbia's distribution.

(c) Imports of canned salmon to Great Britain, per case and by value (pounds), 1902-1914.

Origin of import Year

1902 1903 1904

Total no. cases from: 1. British Columbia 772,076 433,440 305,874 2. Canada 854,861 436,049 307,410 3. United States 1,055,801 586,663 699,608 Value of imports from: 4. British Columbia 810,097 481,007 406,473 5. Canada 886,066 484,676 408,292 6. United States 908,156 472,734 757,260

7. Total imports to G.B. 1,916,656 1,027,283 1,007,018 8. Total value of imports 1,798,787 961,895 1,165,552

9. Percentage of total no 38% 42% 30% cases imported from British Columbia

251 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910

1. 248,033 707,431 — _ — — 2. 310,585 712,824 327,024 357,891 361,377 617,773 3. 512,981 533,316 146,949 321,510 486,859 859,010

4 . 325,597 875,605 - — — — 5. 406,663 883,281 490,968 512,982 483,495 812,949 6. 525,298 507,408 169,320 331,909 509,548 943,233

7. 823,706 1, 247,090 474,502 680,481 851,909 1, 483,967 8 . 929,961 394,249 662,891 847,449 999,160 1/ 765,134

9. 30% - - - - -

1911 1912 1913 1914

1. — — _ — 2. 394,497 493,771 642,511 821,746 3. 529,174 292,147 620,240 1,190,770

4. — 5. 586,194 723,698 900,068 1,116,368 6. 630,071 386,696 698,018 1,390,842

7. 935,629 829,108 1/ 401,307 2,060,730 8 . 1,229,603 1,160,552 1, 764,937 2,569,941 9. - - - -

Source: Great Britain, Statistical Dept., Annual Statement of Trade of the United Kingdom with British Countries and Foreign Countries. 1886-1914 (London: H.M.S.O.).

Notes: Imports of canned salmon are only enumerated separately from 1902 onwards. In the Annual Statement..., canned salmon imports are tabulated in cwt. Here they been converted into 48 lb cases. Figures for British Columbia ("Pacific Canada") are only given until 1906. Thereafter they are included in an import total from Canada.

252 Appendix 5.

(a) Total pack of sockeve and other species of salmon bv number of cases for the Skeena river. 1900-1920.

Year Sockeye Salmon Other Species Total no. cases

1900 — — 135,424 1901 81,209 44,636 125,845 1902 117,677 37,198 154,875 1903 50,968 47,701 98,669 1904 93,404 61,465 154,869 1905 84,717 29,368 114,085 1906 86,394 76,026 162,420 1907 108,413 50,842 159,255 1908 139,846 69,331 209,177 1909 87,901 52,838 140,739 1910 187,246 34,789 222,035 1911 131,066 123,404 254,410 1912 92,498 161,760 254,258 1913 52,927 111,128 164,055 1914 130,166 107,468 237,634 1915 116,553 162,608 279,161 1916 60,293 162,865 223,158 1917 65,760 226,459 292,219 1918 123,322 250,984 374,306 1919 184,945 213,932 398,877 1920 89,364 243,523 332,887

Source: Figures for 1900-1902, Canada, Sessional Papers. Vol.36 - Vol.38, "Annual Report of the Department of Marine and Fisheries (Fisheries)." Figures for 1903-1920, British Columbia, Department of Marine and Fisheries, Report of the Commissioner of Fisheries.

(b) Total pack of sockeye and other species of salmon bv number of cases for the Port Essinaton canneries. 1900-1920. Year

1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 B.A. Cannerv 1. sockeye 13,792 9,038 15,870 6795 9,300 2. other species 6759 10,171 4,849 7,007 10,350 3. total 20,551 19,209 20,719 13,802 19,650 Cunninaham Cannerv 4. sockeye - 8,591 12,399 3,313 6,824 5. other species - 6,109 5,427 5,145 5,116 6. total 15,500 14,700 17,826 8,458 11,940 Herman's/SRC Cannerv 7. sockeye - 5,000 7,500 2,611 5,367 8. other species - 5,230 3,230 6,524 5,446 9. total 10,000 10,230 10,730 9,135 10,813

253 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 B.A. Cannery 1. 12,881 8,597 8,800 10,765 5,932 13,974 9,883 2. 3,912 8,708 5,975 10,442 5,058 3,672 10,245 3. 16,793 17,305 14,775 21,207 10,990 17,646 20,128 Cunningham Cannery 4. - _ _ _ _ _ 5. - 6. - 7,446 8,326 11,070 8,430 13,570 14,636 Herman's/SRC Cannery 7. 6,745 4,806 7,549 8,053 5,419 - 7,134 8. 1,621 3,798 2,581 0 723 - 4,707 9. 8,366 8,604 10,130 8,053 6,142 - 11,841

1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 B,A, cannery 1. - 4,607 12,592 10,955 5,629 5,844 10,583 2. - 10,612 11,138 20,877 16,450 19,537 23,576 3. 27,328 15,219 23,730 31,832 22,079 25,381 34,159 Cunninaham Cannerv 4. - _ _ _ 5. - 6. 13,895 10,623 11,975 17,413 13,645 17,512 14,499 Herman's/SRC Cannery 7. 5,582 2,968 6,907 6,307 3,527 4,070 5,729 8. 7,319 3,421 3,501 7,683 9,127 12,833 15,316 9. 12,901 6,389 10,408 13,990 12,654 16,903 21,045

1919 1920 B.A. Cannery 1. 16,882 6,399 2. 21,676 24,134 3. 38,558 30,533 Cunningham Cannery 4. - 5. - 6. 16,787 15,292 Herman's/SRC Cannery 7. 16,919 8,042 8. 16,475 21,008 9. 33,394 29,050

Sources: B.A. Cannery figures, 1900-1905, "Pack Book," ABC Packing Company, Records, VCA Add. MSS. 870, Vol.2. B.A. Cannery figures, 1906-1920, "Final Cannery Returns," Bell- Irving Collection, VCA Add. MSS. 485, Vol.5. Cunningham Cannery figures, 1900-1904, Canada, Sessional Papers. Vol.36 (1902) - Vol.40 (1906), "Annual Report of the Department of Marine and Fisheries (fisheries);" Cunningham

254 Cannery totals, 1905-1920, from William Ross, "Salmon Cannery Distribution on the Nass and Skeena Rivers of British Columbia, 1877-1926," BA graduating essay, UBC, Dept. of Geography, 1967, "Number of Forty-Eight Pound Cases Canned, Skeena River, 1877-1958." Herman's/SRC Cannery figures, 1900-1901, Canada, Sessional Papers, OP.cit.: figures for 1902-1920, British

Columbia, op.cit.r except the 1917 figures which come from the Henry Doyle Papers, box 6, file 16.

Notes: In British Columbia and Dominion statistics, the packs of the B.A. and North Pacific Canneries are tabulated together from 1902, as are those of the Cunningham and Balmoral Canneries from 1905. Bell-Irving's figures differ slightly from British Columbia and Dominion Government pack statistics, the difference on most occasions being equal to the number of "do- over" cases (leaky cans) either added or subtracted from the total. Doyle kept his own figures for the Herman/Skeena River Commercial Cannery from 1904 to 1919, and again the difference between his figures and official ones is usually equal to the number of "do-over" cases produced. Dominion and British Columbia figures for the Herman/SRC Cannery are identical in nearly every year. The British Columbia total for the Herman/SRC Cannery in 1917 (30,824) seems too high, and is in fact wrong. Doyle notes that 13,921 of these 30,824 cases were packed by the Queen Charlotte Fishing Company and only 16,903 by the SRC Cannery.

255 Appendix 6

Canning statistics for the B.A. Cannery. Port Essington, 19Q$-192.Q.

Year No. employees No. boats fished W J C A (1) W J A Total

1906 17 0 61 60 contract 0 3 0 3 share 0 31 44 78

1907 18 0 57 56 contract 0 4 5 9 share 1 7 40 48

1908 18 0 58 54 contract 0 0 0 0 share 0 41 29 70

1909 18 0 40 64 contract 0 0 0 0 share 14 26 33 73

1910 20 0 47 50 contract 13 29 33 75 share 0 0 0 0

1911 32 2 53 57 contract 2 0 0 2 share 7 54 26 87

1912 (missing from collection)

1913 17 124 53 72 (2) contract 2 60 19 81 share 0 0 0 0

1914 16 7 7 contract 5 0 0 5 share 0 66 5 71

1915 16 140 41 43 (3) independent 5 0 0 5 contract 0 66 5 71 share 15 0 0 15

1916 12 16 44 34 independent 4 0 0 4 contract 0 64 9 73 share 5 0 0 5

1917 12 10 38 46 contract 5 29 14 48 share 1 12 2 15

1918 18 15 43 61 contract 4 0 0 4 share 0 63 6 69

1919 11 12 42 49 contract 11 59 11 81 share 0 0 0 0

1920 12 14 32 38 contract 14 56 15 85

256 share 0 0 0 0

Year Chinese Contract Prices (per case, cents) T F 1/2F

1906 46 50 _ 1907 49 53 85 1908 50 53 86 1909 52 - 86 1910 52 53 86 1911 52 53 86 1912 (missing) 1913 60 60 90 1914 - 40 60 1915 - 35 55 1916 - 35 55 1917 - 35 55 1918 - 50 72 1919 - 50 72 1920 - 65 85

Year Type of fishing Price of Fish

(per fish, cents)

So Sp C H Ch (5)

1906 contract 12.5 35 12.5 1 share 8.5 25 8.5 1 - 1907 contract 15 40 15 1 share 10 30 10 1 -

1908 contract - - - - share 10 30 10 1 -

1909 contract - - - share 10 30 10 1 -

1910 contract 10 30 14 share - - - -

1911 contract 15 - 0.03. 0.72 (per lb)

share 10 - - - -

1912 (missing from collection)

1913 contract 12.5 40 12.5 1.5 10 share -

257 1914 contract 20 4(p.lb) 22.5 2 4 share 12. 5 40 15 1. 5 3

1915 contract 12. 5 40(r.s) — 1. 5 — 10(w.s) independent 20 60(r.s) - 2 - 1916 contract 15 40 15 1. 5 1. 5 17. 5 40 17.5 1. 5 1. 5 25 40 25 3 3 independent 20 3.5 20 2 2

1917 22.5-32.5 (So) 60-90 (Sp) 22.5-50 (C) 2.5-3.5 (H) 5-12 (Ch)

1918 cannery 30 $1.10 45 12 gear independent 45 7(p.lb) 65 10 18

1919 30-45 (So) 75-$1.10 (r.s.) 3-25 (w.s.) 30-75 (C) 5-10 (H) 8-30 (Ch) 30-65 (Steelhead)

1920 37-70 (So) 90-$1.25 (r.s.) 5.5-8 p.lb (r .s. ) 37-$1.25 (p.s.) 25-35 (w.s.) 37-70 (C) 4-7 (H) 4-6 (Ch) 37-50 (Steelhead)

Notes:

(1) W = "White" J = Japanese C = Chinese A = Aboriginal

(2) The Cannery probably did not employ 124 Japanese cannery workers. As all the Cannery's Japanese fishermen in this year worked on contracts it is likely that the manager has included them in the total number of employees. With 60 Japanese boats

258 in 1913 the Cannery had 120 Japanese fishermen. Thus, the number of Japanese Cannery employees would only be 4.

(3) Ibid. With 66 Japanese boats (132 Japanese fishermen), only 8 Japanese probably worked in the Cannery

(4) T = 1 lb Tails F = 1 lb Flats 1/2F = 1/2 lb Flats

(5) So = Sockeye Sp = Spring r.s. = red spring w.s. = white spring p.s. = pink spring C = Cohoe H = Humpback • Ch = Chum

Source: "Anglo-British Columbia Packing Company: Final Cannery Returns, B.A. Cannery, Port Essington," Bell-Irving Collection, VCA Add. MSS. 485, Vol.5.

259 Map 1

HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY

FORTS: 1825-1850.

Name Date Established

1. Fort Durham 1839

2. Fort Stikine 1840

3. Fort Simpson 1834

4. Fort McLoughlin 1833

5. Fort Rupert 1849

6. Fort Langley 1827

7. Fort Victoria 1843

8. Fort Vancouver 1825

Source: Adapted from Hartwell Bosvell (ed.), Fort Victoria Letters 1846-1851 (Winnipeg: Hudson's Bay Record Society; 1979), map of Pacific Northwest.

260 Map 2 S IMPSOW PRE-EMPTIONS AND "INDIAN RESERVES" IN THE LOWER SKEENA REGION, c a. 1900.

X.sla.*d.

3'J<.

/

Key: - • Pre-emption 0ori.it. "Indian Reserve"

Source: Adapted from map of pre-emptions, Prince Rupert, 1916. (Victoria: Ministry of Land and Works)

261 262 Number Name of Cannery Built Coast District 5, Lot Number

1. Inverness 1876 Lot 1, Block 1

2. Aberdeen/Windsor 1878 Lot 15, Block 1

3. Metlakatla 1882 "Indian Reserve" 2

4. Cunningham 1883 Lot 45

5. Balmoral 1883 Lot 11

6 . British American 1883 Lot 45

7. North Pacific 1889 Lot 37

8. Standard 1890 Lot 36

9. Claxton 1892 Lots 20 and 65

10. Carlisle 1895 Lot 69

11. Herman's/Skeena River 1899 Lot 45 Commercial

12. Ladysmith/Turnball's 1901 Lot 45 Village Island

13. Cassiar 1903 Lot 44

14. Oceanic 1903 Lot 10

15. Alexandria 1904 Lot 53

16. Dominion 1906 Lot 127

17. Tuck's Inlet 1913 No Lot Recorded

18. Sunnyside 1916 Lot 117

19. Port Edward 1918 Lot 446

20. Haysport 1920 Lot 11

Key:- ut/Vi^;«j ";«s-;^" a*/ "av^d*." f;rku^.

Source: Adapted from map of pre-emptions, Prince Rupert, 1916 (Victoria: Ministry of Land and Works). Cannery dates from Edward Higginbottom, "The Changing Geography of Salmon Canning in British Columbia, 1870-1931," MA Thesis, Simon Fraser University, Department of Geography, 1988, APPENDIX A.

263 Map 4a

PORT ESSINGTON, ca.1915.

including Port Essington (Goad & Co.; 1915). Map information compared with photographs of Port Essington, 1902-1915, in the Ernest Harris Collection, Vancouver Public Library.

continued overleaf...

264

Map 4c

266 Key:-

Res idence

Aboriginal

Chinese bunkhouse

Japanese

w "White"

Industrial and Commercial

^ Cannery buildings

Business and commercial establishments

1. B.A. Cannery store 2. Royal Bank 3. Skeena River Commercial Cannery store 4. Dominion fisheries office 5. Post Office 6. Cunningham Hall 7. Caledonia Hotel 8. Essington Hotel 9., Cunningham's store 10. Morrow and Frizzell's butcher shop and abattoir 11. Port Essington police station 12. Salvation Army Hall 13. Christian Band Workers' Hall 14. Rectory of the Methodist Church 15. Hospital 16. School 17. School 18. Salvation Army 19. Boat Builders

267