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The immediate shores are generally low, thickly wooded with spruce, cedar and hemlock, with occasional marsh and meadow openings. The streams are small, and with one exception filled with fallen trees from their mouth up. The Tlell River, the largest, we were able to ascend several miles before meeting any obstructions.
It comprises in the aggregate, between Massett and Skidegate, about 10,000 acres, better adapted for grazing than agricultural purposes, the largest tracts lying on Delcatley Inlet, near Massett, and on the Tlell River, about thirty miles north of Skidegate. The soil is uniformly sandy and of too recent formation to be much enriched by decomposition or alluvial deposits.
From the mouth of Tlell River, south and westward, there is a considerable body of grazing land, estimated at two thousand acres. It produces, besides the usual coarse sand grasses, a nutritious wild pea vine. Is uniformly sandy and of too recent formation to be much enriched by decomposition.
It is broader and deeper than the Ya-koun, navigable for canoes between two and-a-half and three miles, but is only about ten miles in length. The river Tlell emptying into Queen Charlotte Sound twenty-five miles north of Skidegate Inlet, is the principal stream discharging on the outer coast of the island. Canoes can ascend it two or three miles at high tide.
Clay was observed at one or two points, for a short distance between Hoya-kund-la and Tlell Rivers, also a formation resembling peat. A forest of spruce, hemlock, cedar and cypress covers probably nine-tenths of the surface of the island. While in the aggregate, it embraces large quantities of merchantable timber, a comparatively small portion is available for lumbering operations.
Of plants, the strawberry grows everywhere upon the open lands, producing small fruit of fine quality in moderate abundance. Abound in the waters traversed. I was surprised to find the Indians catching the former in Massett Inlet. Nedo and Watoon creeks, Skoonan, Hi-ellen and Tlell Rivers are all salmon streams, with fishing stations at their mouths.
Three brooks, from ten to fifteen feet in width, were crossed between it and This stream, about thirty miles north of Skidegate, is the most important water-course on the island, east of Massett Inlet. It is from seventy-five to 150 feet in width, and navigable at high tide for about three miles. South of Tlell River there are several small brooks, but no rivers as far as Skidegate Inlet.
Maynard also reports that our canoe hit a rock over a mile from shore, when near the mouth of Tlell River. The general elevation of the eastern is much higher than that of the northern shore of the island, rising to bold sand bluffs from 50 to 250 feet in height for the greater portion of the distance between the Hoy-kund-la and Tlell Rivers.
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