In August and September, most residents moved to the Fraser River to catch migrating salmon. The most productive fishing site in the entire Interior Fraser River drainage is in the Six-Mile fishery, shown here, where the river is tightly constricted and where salmon rest before attempting to swim up the rapids. First Nations drying racks can be seen on the far bank of the river. Fish drying camps are simple affairs consisting of pole racks for hanging up fish to dry.
While the areas around the drying racks are kept scrupulously clean of any fish remains, leaving no clue as to their actual function on the basis of faunal remains, the bone and other fish wastes are carried to narrow ravines on the site, where they are dumped in bulk. Some of the piles of fish bones in these locations are over a meter deep. Contents of these ravines are sometimes flushed back into the river by heavy rains. At other fishing sites, fish remains are simply thrown back into the river, again leaving no faunal remains at the actual sites where thousands of fish are butchered each year.
Overfishing and industrial degradation of the river and spawning stream environments have greatly reduced the quantities of salmon that now migrate up the Fraser River. However, at the turn of the century, the fish were "so thick that you could walk on them".
Archaeological remains from a fish drying camp.
