Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/66

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OREGON AND WASHINGTON.

to California, South America, China, and the Islands. It is expected to find a market for it in New York and London, as soon as the amount produced becomes large enough to supply those cities.

The whistle of the Dixie warns us to bring our observation to a close at this point. Turning back down the slough, we emerge once more into the Columbia, and soon arrive at a point in the river known as the "Narrows," but to which Lieutenant Wilkes gave the name of St. Helen's Reach, from the bold view of that mountain obtained here, at a distance of eighty miles. The Narrows is a famous fishing ground, and the largest drift is here. Traps, or weirs, were also in use about the Narrows, but the high water, this year (1871), destroyed most of them. There are no less than seven fisheries in a distance of three miles, two of them being large establishments. That of Hapgood & Hume put up, this year, 700,000 pounds of canned salmon; West & Co., 400,000 pounds. Hume & Co., another firm, have also a large cannery, and Reed & Trott, another large establishment opposite these last, on the Oregon side. In all, there are twenty-five of these fisheries, from Chinook up to a point just above the Narrows, employing, altogether, about three hundred men.

The profits of the fishing business may be roughly computed by estimating the value of a case of canned salmon. An average salmon fills ten cans. These are put into cases containing forty-eight pounds each, and worth $9. Hapgood & Hume must then have put up, this year, over 14,583 cases, amounting to $131,247. About twenty men are employed about such an establishment during the fishing season, and eight or ten during the winter months. The winter's work consists in making barrels and cans. The cost of the labor of