Frank Dawson Adams

“ The carved totem posts of the Haida, standing in front of the heavily framed houses, or at a little distance from them, represent the coats of arms of the respective families of the tribes and generally exhibit designs treated in a bold and original manner, highly conventionalized but always recognizable in their purport by any one familiar with the distinctive marks of the animal forms portrayed. These primitive monuments are, however, rapidly falling to decay, and the people who erected them are becoming reduced in number and spirit. The native population of the islands is less than 700. ”

“ The natives, the Haida people, constitute with little doubt the finest race, and that most advanced in the arts, of the entire west coast of North America. They had developed in its highest degree the peculiar conventional art of the north-west coast Indians, which is found in decreasing importance among the Tsimshians on the west, the Tlingit on the north and the Kwakiutl and other tribes farther south on the Pacific coast. ”

“ There are some level tracts on the south-east coast, as well as in the narrow, well-watered valleys of the interior, which afford excellent agricultural land on which cereals of all kinds, as well as all the fruits of the temperate zone, flourish, and which are also suitable for raising sheep and cattle; The climate of Vancouver Island, especially in the south, is wonderfully mild for the latitude—as mild as that of Great Britain, with dryer summers. The mean temperature of December at Victoria in the south of the island is about 41° Fahr., while that of July is about 60°. ”