the northern part of this coast rose to a much higher level than
did those of California. This has sometimes been supposed to show
that geographical environment has little influence upon
civilization, but in reality it proves exactly the opposite.

The coast of British Columbia was one of the three chief centers
of aboriginal America. As The Encyclopaedia Britannica* puts it:
"The Haida people constituted with little doubt the finest race
and that most advanced in the arts of the entire west coast of
North America." They and their almost equally advanced Tlingit
and Tsimshian neighbors on the mainland displayed much mechanical
skill, especially in canoe-building, woodcarving, and the working
of stone and copper, as well as in making blankets and baskets.
To this day they earn a considerable amount of money by selling
their carved objects of wood and slate to traders and tourists.
Their canoes were hollowed out of logs of cedar and were often
very large. Houses which were sometimes 40 by 100 feet were built
of huge cedar beams and planks, which were first worked with
stone and were then put together at great feasts. These
correspond to the "raising bees" at which the neighbors gathered
to erect the frames of houses in early New England. Each Haida
house ordinarily had a single carved totem pole in the middle of
the gable end which faced toward the beach. Often the end posts
in front were also carved and the whole house was painted.
Another evidence of the fairly advanced state of the Haidas was
their active commercial intercourse with regions hundreds of
miles away. At their "potlatches," as the raising bees were
called by the whites, trading went on vigorously. Carved copper
plates were among the articles which they esteemed of highest
value. Standing in the tribe depended on the possession of