November 3, 1959
Guess I should put down on paper some of the latest happenings—since this is my last day here. Don is supposed to come and take me home tomorrow. Don’t plan to go to the river at all—I’ll just draw maps of the spawning grounds and pack my things. Today there were only 69 fish and 2 sockeyes. Had orders to take scale samples from the sockeyes so that’s in the report now too. About twenty samples have been taken altogether.
First a few statistics so I can remember them too when need arises—or just for the fun of it.
Total fish: 2972 male + 4514 female = 7486
TAGS:-
Own 250 Best day 21/20 = 41 tags
Salmon commission 16
Glen Valley 52
Research Board 7
Total Equals: 325
And that’s enough statistics for my needs. Have taken this last little while pretty easy—6 hours on the river has usually been sufficient. Have really worked at a fast pace so that I’ve usually had time on most evenings to take a trip to the railroad bridge to look for rocks. Often I’ve brought back a load, but by now have thrown most of them away. Got close to the jade, but the ground was still too soft. If I had my own vehicle I couldn’t bear to leave a certain rock behind even if I knew that in reality it was worthless. They are too heavy to carry—maybe they will have value to someone else. Well, at least I’ve learned by now what to look for and how so that I won’t be wasting my time in useless effort.
Last Sunday, October 31st, was a really beautiful day—sunny and warm. I retraced my former path and left that rock after I was able to leave it in a crevice and after being able to test its hardness from the inside. From there I continued my walk north along the same bar. The Fraser is in a deep mountain canyon so going down to the shoreline was not an option. I walked until I came to a spot where the trail starts to descend toward the Bridge River bridge. Then I crossed over the trail and started climbing to the next embankment. There were all kinds of rocks up there but nothing really noteworthy. The landscape at the beginning has been scarred by a forest fire but soon changes into beautiful pine forest. Then comes an open meadow—a lovely area. After that I encountered a waterline—a 6-inch pipe that has been reinforced with metal rings. I wondered to myself if this was a former waterworks station. As far as I could determine no private individual could have funded it. I followed the pipe along the meandering trail—for a distance of about 3 miles. I ended up back in town just above this auto court. That’s where the pipeline ended and the mystery was solved. There was a heaped up rock pile that had been left behind by the gold miners and that’s where the pipe ended. One could never guess that when looking at area from down below. And the altitude difference is only about 20 meters and the distance only about 300 meters.
Translated from the original Finnish: Marja-Leena Tolvanen-Rogers
NB: This blog had been compiled from an autobiography and journal entries by Andy (Valto Antero) Tolvanen. He is renowned in fishing circles in Finland for being one of the first individuals to bring the art of fly-tying to Finland. Andy translated the instructions from English to Finnish in the early 1950s since there was no literature in Finnish on the art of fly-tying at that time. He is mentioned on several Finnish fishing club websites regarding this noteworthy fact. ~ MLR
No comments:
Post a Comment