Note 119 — Chapter XII

The E-cha-chets are not at present recognised as a separate tribe. But there is a large village in Clayoquat Sound on the south end of Wakenninish Island which bears that name. Like many now all but extinct tribes, who have become absorbed into greater ones, the E-cha-chets seem in Jewitt's time to have been more numerous. In Meares's narrative, "Lee-cha-ett" is mentioned as a village of Wakenninish, but this could not have been the same place, for Maquina and Wakenninish were at this period on good terms. The river which the expedition ascended to reach the summer salmon fishing village of the tribe was probably either the Bear or the Onamettis, both of which flow through some swampy ground into the head of Bedwall Arm. But as usual Jewitt exaggerated the distance up which the canoemen paddled. There is no river in Vancouver Island navigable for twenty or thirty miles, and few, even when broken by rapids and falls, quite that length.