“These Indians are perfectly heartless.  They will not render even the smallest aid to each other without payment; and if not to each other, much less to a white man.  I got one of them, whom I had previously assisted with his pack, to take me and two of my party over a small creek in his canoe.  After putting us across he asked for money, and I gave him half a dollar.  Another man stepped up and demanded pay, stating that the canoe was his.  To see what the result would be, I gave to him the same amount as to the first.  Immediately there were three or four more claimants for the canoe.  I dismissed them with a blessing, and made up my mind that I would wade the next creek.

“While paying them I was a little apprehensive of trouble, for they insisted on crowding into my tent, and for myself and the four men who were with me to have attempted to eject them would have been to invite trouble.  I am strongly of the opinion that these Indians would have been much more difficult to deal with if they had not known that Commander Newell remained in the inlet to see that I got through without accident.

“While making the survey from the head of tide water I took the azimuths and altitudes of several of the highest peaks around the head of the inlet, in order to locate them, and obtain an idea of the general height of the peaks in the coast range.  As it does not appear to have been done before, I have taken the opportunity of naming all the peaks, the positions of which I fixed in the above way.  The names and altitudes appear on my map.

“While going up from the head of canoe navigation on the Taiya River I took the angles of elevation of each station from the preceding one.  I would have done this from tide water up, but found many of the courses so short and with so little increase in height that with the instrument I had it was inappreciable.  From these angles I have computed the height of the summit of the Taiya Pass,[2] above the head of canoe navigation, as it appeared to me in June, 1887, and find it to be 3,378 feet.  What depth of snow there was I cannot say.  The head of canoe navigation I estimate at about 120 feet above tide water.  Dr. Dawson gives it as 124 feet.

[Footnote 2:  The distance from the head of Taiya Inlet to the summit of the pass is 15 miles, and the whole length of the pass to Lake Lindeman is 23 miles.  Messrs. Healy and Wilson, dealers in general merchandise and miners’ supplies at Taiya, have a train of pack horses carrying freight from the head of Lynn Canal to the summit.  They hope to be able to take freight through to Lake Lindeman with their horses during the present season.]