in the accompanying plates I-III were taken exceeds in mass area the largest middens of Denmark, and abounds in interesting ethnological data.
This particular midden, for which the name “Great Fraser Midden” has been suggested by the writer, is upwards of 1,400 feet in length and 300 feet in breadth; and covers to an average depth of about 5, and to a maximum depth of over 15, feet an area exceeding 4% acres in extent. It is composed of the remains of shells, mostly of the clam (Tridacna, sp.) and mussel (Mytilus edulis?) intermingled with ashes and other human refuse matter. It is situated on the right bank of the north arm of the Fraser a few miles up from its present mouth and opposite the alluvial islands called Sea and Lulu Islands.
The existence of so extensive a midden, composed so largely of the remains of shell-fish that belong to salt water, at such an unusual distance from the nearest clam and mussel-bearing beds of today, was for a time a puzzle to me. I could perceive no satisfactory reason why these midden-makers should have chosen this particular site for their camping-ground instead of one five or six miles farther down the bank and nearer to the present source of supply of these much-coveted dainties of their larder. And upon discovery, a little later, of other middens still higher up the river by fifteen or sixteen miles, the puzzle became proportionately greater. I found it difficult to believe that the enormous mass of shell-fish whose remains enter so largely into the composition of these great piles had been laboriously brought up against the stream in canoes or “packed” on the backs of the patient “klutchmans.” It was too contrary to the genius of the people to suppose this. Making a brief survey of the district, a little later, the fact was disclosed that the mouth of the river was formerly some twenty miles higher up than it is at present, and that the salt waters of the Gulf of Georgia had in bygone days laved the base of the declivity on which the city of New Westminster now stands, and had passed on from thence and met the fresh water of the Fraser in the neighbourhood of the little wayside village of Port Hammond. And, further, that the large islands, now inhabited by ranchers, which bar in mid-stream the onrush of the annual freshets, must once have had no existence at all, and even after their formation had begun must have existed for a very considerable period as tidal flats, such as are seen today stretching beyond the whole delta for a distance of five or six miles. That these islands were once tidal flats is certain from the fact that the water from the wells dug on them by the ranchers is so brackish that the water of the Fraser is preferred to it. And, further, that when in this condition they afforded shelter to shell-fish similar to those whose remains are found in the middens near by, is clearly evidenced by the fact that beds of similar shells are frequently met with, in situ, as I have been credibly informed, when digging for water in the interior parts of the islands.
But as this discovery seemed to point to a rather remote past for the formation of these middens, I was reluctant to admit the obvious inference, until I had ascertained that the enormous stumps of cedar and fir which I found projecting from the midden — several of which have a diameter of from six to eight feet, and indicate by their rings from five to seven centuries’ growth — had their roots actually in the midden itself; and had obviously grown there since the midden had been formed. Ascertaining this by personal excavation, and realizing that nearly three-quarters of a millennium ha’d passed away, for certain, since the middens had been abandoned, I could no longer resist the inference that they had been formed when the islands opposite and below them were tidal shell-bearing flats; and I have since found no reason for questioning that conclusion.
The question now naturally arises, When and for what reason was this ancient camping-ground abandoned? Was it at a period shortly before the appearance upon them of those forest giants whose size and approximate age I have just mentioned, or was it at a much earlier date; and was it abandoned because the particular community dwelling there had been exterminated by their enemies, or was it because the clams and mussels gave out in consequence of a sudden or a gradual rise in the level of the neighbouring flats? In seeking an answer to these queries, the cause of the abandonment of so ancient a camping-ground may possibly be found in this last reason. That is a gradual, or possibly a sudden, deposition of river detrius on these flats raised them above the reach of ordinary tides, and so brought about the extinction of the shell-fish at this point, and made it desirable for the natives to seek a camp lower down the river, where the molluscs were able, as now, to maintain an existence. This explanation has the advantage of simplicity, and seems plausible; but the former cause suggested is not unlikely the truer one. The abandonment, many centuries ago, of so many other middens elsewhere in the district along the neighbouring bays and inlets, where no such cause as this can be assigned — where clams and mussels still exist in great quantities, and have so existed from time immemorial, as the extensive midden-piles now testify — seems to call for a more comprehensive and less local explanation. And further evidence and a more thorough investigation than I have thus far been able to give them may confirm the conjecture, which certain other evidence would seem to support, that the intrusion of the Salishan emigrants into this district, and the inevitable extermination of many of the former inhabitants, is more likely the real cause of the desertion of this and the many other ancient camping-grounds of this region. Should this conjecture hereafter prove to be the truth, the results of Dr. Boas’ study of the Cowitchin tongue will receive an interesting and independent confirmation.2 The discussion and settlement of this question, however, must needs be left till further evidence has been gathered.
In considering the time when the abandonment took place, the physical changes which have clearly taken place in the estuary since the shells which enter so largely into the composition of the middens were gathered from the tidal-flats that have since become tree-clad and cultivable islands, afford us some clue to work upon in the case of the midden under consideration. If we can arrive at an estimate of the age of the islands, we shall get some idea of the period of abandonment; for there is little doubt, I think, that these Fraser middens were wholly formed before those physical changes which transformed the shell-bearing flats into islands, took place. In seeking to form this estimate, we are assisted in some measure by the independent, extraneous evidence of the enormous tree-stumps now found in the midden; and although Professor Cyrus Thomas has shown, in his investigations among the mounds east of the Rockies, that no great reliance can be placed upon the evidence of the age of trees based upon the number of their rings,3 the size, condition and other characteristics of these stumps all warrant one in saying that many of them are from 500 to 700 years old. The age of the islands, then, cannot be less than the age of the midden trees, though it may not be very considerably greater. Exactly how much older they are it seems impossible, from the evidence at hand at present, to say with any certainty. There is nothing in their formation, as far as I have been able to learn, for which it is necessary to assign a greater length of time than 1,000 years. They are wholly alluvial, and only just above the level of the freshets and high tides, and were often, before they were dyked, during the annual freshets, extensively inundated. And although they are in their higher parts now thickly covered with timber, I have not been able to find or hear of a tree more than a few feet in diameter or of more than three or four centuries’ growth at most. It might occur to some here that the best way to get at the age of the islands would be to ascertain the rate at which the deposits of the Fraser accumulate at this point; but a little experience of the ways of the Fraser would soon convince them that this would be no easy task. To begin with, there is no uniform rate of deposit; the amount of detrius brought down by the river depends altogether upon causes beyond our control or calculation; the quantity brought down sometimes in one year exceeding that of any other half dozen. Last year was an instance of the kind; and cases like last year happen every now and again at uncertain intervals. If amount of matter brought down by the water counted for anything, then islands as large or larger than those now existing might have been formed, if circumstances had been favourable, during last year’s freshet. It will be easily seen from this statement how useless it is to go to the river for information.4
If, then, I am correct in estimating the period which has elapsed since the flats ceased to support shell-fish and took on the form of islands at a thousand years, something like this period has, in all probability, elapsed since this camping-ground was abandoned by its owners, if on account of the extinction of their chief food supply at this point; and possibly
