Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1891 — FORTY LIVES LOST. [ARTICLE]

FORTY LIVES LOST.

Disastrous Results of a Laud* slide. Nta« Hoom with Oemputi Swept AwayOm Whit* Woman and About Forty Indian* Killed. The steamer Princess Louise, from Skeena, B. C., brings news of a terrible landslide pn the banks of the Skeena river, resulting in the death < ifFbne women and about forty Indians. On the 7th inst., at Pam, those residing near the Northern Pacific cannery at Skeena river heard a great rushing noise in the region of the high, steep mountain at the back of the cannery. In a moment an avalanche of rocks and earth and trees was thrown upon the settlemnt, carrying everything before it into the slough close to the cannery. The occupants of the bouses had time to get outside of the building, but before they could escape from the advancing torrent of debris they were caught and carried along with fearful velocity. In all nine houses with their occupants were destroyed, Including the mess-houseand residence of the form&n of the cannery. In the mess-room was the young Swed- 1 ish wife of the forman. She was carried along In the mad and deadly current and dashed^to death hundreds of feet below. Indians claim that among those destroyed were about forty Indians of the Port Simpson, Sitka, Metalkatian and Kitimat tribes. Two days after this slide thirteen bodies of the Indians had been recovered. The body of the foreman’s wife has not yet been found, but there is not the slightest hope for any living thing within the range of the terrible slide of boulders, trees and earth. The slide just missed the cannery building about two feet. Had the slide struck the cannery or occurred half an hour earlier, the death rate would have reached Info the hundreds. It had been raining in the mountains for the previous four days and it is thought that the accumulation of water on the mountain side broke away, carrying death and destruction before It. The Indians are greatly excited over the disaster.