14 BRITISH COLUMBIA 

as late as the nineteenth century. Little more than fifty years ago a
Chinese vessel was driven ashore near Cape Flattery, her unfortu-
nate sailors being captured and held as slaves by the Indians of Neah
Bay. James Douglas, then in charge of Fort Victoria, sent a force
to demand the release of the prisoners, who were ultimately re-
turned to their native land. 

In days of old the alchemist at first carefully hugged his secret
and for long years the world at large knew little or nothing of the
results of his labours. With like jealousy governments guarded the
information gained from their officers engaged in the exploration of
the New World. Neither alchemist nor governments wished others
to profit by their discoveries. Thus it came to pass that often and for
many years the narratives of explorers were locked away in the ar-
chives of kings and councillors until the ink which preserved them
faded with age. By reason of this secretiveness many invaluable
manuscripts have been lost, or are even now only just coming to light,
too late to establish territorial claims, or to be of value to any except
the antiquarian. 

No government guarded more carefully the records of its dis-
coveries than did the government of Spain, and no government
gained less by so doing. This point is of peculiar interest to the
historian of British Columbia, because, for a time at least, if not
forever, the whole history of this land might have been changed, if
a different policy had been adopted. It is scarcely to be doubted that
had Spain advertised her discoveries on the northwest coast, if only
in the day of her waning power, it would have had no unimportant
bearing on the controversies of later years touching the Nootka Af-
fair and the Louisiana Purchase, even though the Spanish discover-
ies, before the day that Capt. James Cook landed on these shores,
were, relatively speaking, of small value and extent. 

The same ideals that impelled Christopher Columbus, in the face
of ridicule and opposition, to sail on his adventurous quest in se^irch
of a direct route by water to India, inspired other navigatOiS to
search for a northwest passage through the continent of North Amer-
ica, even when it had been ascertained that the passage must be, if
it existed at all, so far to the northward as to render it practically
useless. The legacy bequeathed by the earliest explorers of x\merica
to those of later times was a persistent belief in the existence of the
Strait of Anian, or a Northwest Passage. That faith acted indeed 

1 

BRITISH COLUMBIA 15 

as the lodestar of the navigators of three centuries, and the search
for that mythical waterway inspired deeds of heroism and led to
sacrifices and sufferings, nobly borne, that are scarcely equalled in
all the annals of the sea. Years rolled on, mariner after mariner was
lost, or returned to add some small stock of knowledge to that al-
ready acquired, but the result was that the belief gained ground that
no such strait or passage existed. Opinions, however, are apt to
cling to life long after practical men have lost in them all active
interest. So it came to pass from time to time that there remained
i some men of standing in the scientific world who laboured to show
I from old records, or reputed discoveries, that the strait was there
1 after all. A notable instance of such obstinacy was the effort of
; Buache to prove that the Portuguese, Lorenzo Ferrer de Maldonado,
I navigated the passage in the year 1588. M. Buache formulated his
I theory in a lecture given before the Academy of Sciences of Paris,
Nov. 13, 1790, for which resurrection of an old story he became
renowned in Europe. Twenty-two years later M. Amoretti pub-
lished the narrative of Maldonado in a small quarto, which was
printed in France in 1812 and in Italy the following year. Yet so
perverse in its prejudices is human nature that, after Samuel
Hearne's narrative of his journey to the mouth of the Coppermine
River and the results of Captain Cook's third and last voyage to the
Pacific had been given to the world, credence was nevertheless
placed in a story so palpably false, in as far as the chief points of the
relation were concerned. 

No history of this period would be complete without a reference
to the Bull of Pope Alexander VI which gave rise in after years to
heated disputes, not only between Spain and Portugal, the im-
mediate beneficiaries, but also between those countries and Eng-
land and Holland. By that memorable ordinance, which was
promulgated in 1493, the undiscovered world, from a point in
Africa easterly to the Indies, was divided between the Kings of
Spain and Portugal. The imaginary line, which demarked the
spheres of activity of the two monarchs, ran from the North to the
South Pole, a hundred leagues west of the Azores. The Pope's pro-
fessed object was to prevent disputes "between Christian Princes"
as to the domination over such territories and islands as might be
discovered by their respective subjects. 

16 BRITISH COLUMBIA 

The English seafarer from his island home, looked out upon
the broad ocean, and, in the natural course of events, became the
eager competitor of the Spaniard and the Portuguese. England
did not acknowledge the right of the Pope to divide the undiscov-
ered world between the two Catholic countries. Queen Elizabeth's
characteristic reply to the Spanish ambassador, who had complained
of the inroads of her subjects, sufficiently indicates the spirit of the
English of all ages in that regard. The Virgin Queen remarked
with asperity that the "Spaniards had drawn these inconveniences
upon themselves by their severe and unjust dealings in their Ameri-
can commerce; for she did not understand why either her subjects,
or those of any other European prince, should be debarred from
traffic in the Indies; that, as she did not acknowledge the Spaniards
to have any title, by donation of the Bishop of Rome, so she knew
no right they had to any places other than those of which they were
in actual possession; for that their having touched only here and
there upon a coast, and given names to a few rivers or capes, were
such insignificant things, as could in no ways entitle them to a pro-
priety farther than in the parts where they actually settled, and con-
tinued to inhabit." 

And so the English buccaneers sailed the high seas, levying
tribute upon all and sundry with rare audacity, under the protec-
tion of, if not openly sanctioned by, the English government. Of
these famous worthies, whose exploits have been so eloquently re-
corded by the historian Froude, there was none greater than Sir
Francis Drake, the first of Englishmen, as indeed he was the first
of Europeans, to visit the northwest coast, of which he took pos-
session for Queen Elizabeth, at the same time naming it New
Albion. 

The period of scientific discovery as far as this seaboard is con-
cerned began in the year 1774 with the arrival of the Spanish
corvette Santiago, in command of Juan Perez. It but remains to
be observed that in the last quarter of the eighteenth century the lines
of exploration converged upon a land heretofore unexplored and
unknown; for the first time reliable information concerning it be-
came available, which supplanted the mythical and legendary^
accounts, till then the current coin of the geographers and cartog-
raphers who had given it their attention. Now the historian is
concerned with the expeditions of the Spaniards from their estab-
FRENCH I\1A1' UF N(JKTH AMERICA, CIRCA, 1775 

BRITISH COLUMBIA 17 

lishments on the Mexican Pacific seaboard, of the Russians from 

their posts on the Kamchatkan Peninsula, of the British discoverers 

who used the Sandwich Islands as a base for their operations on the 

I northwest coast, of the French explorers who followed the course 

jof the British, of the American traders who, like the British, used 

the Sandwich Islands as a supply depot, of the overland expeditions 

of the Canadian fur traders, and with the westward movement of 

'the people of the United States of America. 

In summing up it may be said that the earliest history of the
territory now known to the world as the Province of British Colum-
|bia is intimately associated with the apocryphal voyages of glib-
itongued impostors and the vague conjectures of the geographer.
To this early period belong the doubtful relations of Maldonado
(1588), Juan de Fuca (1592), de Fonte (1640) and others, and all
those charts and maps in which were embodied the loose impressions
which led at last to the actual exploration of this vast extent of coast-
[line. It will be seen then that by studying the first charts of the
Pacific coast, the historian will be richly rewarded, for thereby
would be revealed to him the many difficulties and uncertainties
under which the explorer and map maker laboured. He will learn
that tardily and gradually the time comes when knowledge ousts
conjecture and rumour from their place of honour and the coastline
assumes its true shape, until after a lapse of more than two hundred
and fifty years, Capt. George Vancouver's great chart of 1798 gives
the first accurate representation of what is now the western seaboard
of Canada.

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BRITISH COLUMBIA 13 

ij named Hoei-shin in the year 499 A. D., who returned from a long
I journey to the East. This report was regularly entered in the year
\ book or annals of the Chinese Empire, whence it passed, not only
1 to the pages of historians, but also to those of poets and writers of
I romances, by whom it was so confused with absurd inventions and
' marvellous tales, that discredit has been thrown upon the entire
I narrative. 

i "The evidence offered," continues the author just mentioned, "in 

i favour of the discovery of America by the Chinese Buddhists of the 

i fifth century is very limited, but it has every characteristic of a seri- 

i ous state document, and of authentic history. It is distinctly re- 

; corded among the annals of the Empire. At the time these journeys 

1 were undertaken, thousands of monks, inspired by the most f anat- 

! ical zeal, were extending their doctrines in every direction; and this 

they did with such success, that though Buddhism has now been 

; steadily declining for many centuries, it still numbers more fol- 

; lowers thatn Christianity, or any other religion on the face of the 

earth, for they are literally counted by hundreds of millions. And 

as their doctrines urged propagandism, it would be almost a matter 

jof wonder if some of the missionaries of the faith had not found their 

'way over an already familiar route." 

These records open a fascinating field for speculation, and while
they may not establish the right of the Chinese to claim the discovery
!of America for their race, yet the chain of general and presumptive
evidence as to the discovery of this continent by the Norse-
men in the eleventh century is scarcely stronger than the evidence
contained in the old year books of the Celestial Empire touching
the voyage of Hoei-shin. The claim of the Norsemen is based upon
the sagas and folk-lore of their race while that of the Chinese is sup-
ported by contemporary state papers, or rather records, if Professor
C. F. Neumann is correct. Perhaps one day it will be established
beyond doubt that the honour of discovering the New World
after all belongs to the ancient Chinese nation and not to Spain. But
so far the enquiry has scarcely travelled beyond the limits of de-
lightful surmise. It is indeed interesting, if not startling, to realize
that perhaps America may not have been found by Europeans from
the east but by Asiatics from the west. 

It need only be added in this connection that there are authentic
records of the wrecking of Chinese and Japanese junks on this coast 

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BRITISH COLUMBIA 11 

lieved that they might have been in America. Others thought that
■ the land seen by them might be a new country lying between Asia
I and America. How very vague and uncertain the opinions of
European geographers were with respect to these Russian discov-
j eries may best be shown by the inspection of certain maps which
I were published soon after Bering's ill-fated expedition. For in-
1 stance Bellin's chart of 1748 exhibits in a quite remarkable manner
I the ignorance of European geographers with regard to the achieve-
j ments of Bering. Of all the Russian discoveries scarcely anything
is given. The northwest corner of the map bears the legend : "The
Russians have come as far as this in the year 1743 (1741), but they
have been shipwrecked on the shoals and drowned." 

Northwestern America is indicated by a dotted line running
from north to south as far as the Bay of Aguilar in California, with
the inscription running along it: "Probably America goes as far as
this." At the northern end of California is added the observation
that "Here the sea begins to be very boisterous." As Kohl justly re-
marks, a more laconic report on the Russian discoveries could not
have been made. 

To this period also belongs the map of the French geographer
Philippe Buache, made as he said after the memoirs of the astrono-
mer De LTsle, who accompanied the expedition of Bering across
Siberia. Apart from the fact that Buache attempted to give the
result of the Russian voyages in Bering Sea, his map is remarkable
because it gives expression to the fabulous discoveries of the so-called
Spanish Admiral de Fonte, who, so it was claimed, had penetrated
the whole extent of the continent by means of a chain of rivers and
lakes, which extended from the Pacific to the North Atlantic. He
laid down all the great lakes and rivers which de Fonte was reported
to have seen, as well as the "Sea of the West" which was entered by
the strait claimed to have been discovered by the Greek Apostolos
Valerianos, or Juan De Fuca, in 1592. Of Bering's discoveries little
is shown except the island where the explorer died. Buache made
the whole of Northwestern America a broken country of "curiously
formed peninsulas and unfinished coast pieces." Strange as it may
seem the chart of Buache and De LTsle was considered authoritative
and it was copied in many countries and by different geographers,
who sometimes added to it a little of their own. Thus the English 

12 BRITISH COLUMBIA 

geographer, Thomas Jefferys, combined in his maps of 1758 and '
1764 the real discoveries of the Russians with the supposed explora-
tions of the Chinese and Japanese, in addition to which he did not i
forget to show the routes of de Fonte and another mythical hero
named Barnardo, who was also credited with having discovered the
Strait of Anian. Nor is Juan De Fuca forgotten, witness the in-
scription: "West Sea disc, by Fuca." In other charts the vaunted ex-
ploits of the impostor Lorenzo Ferrer de Maldonado are seriously
recorded. 

At last in the year 1758 the Russian Academy of Sciences pub-
lished an authentic and complete chart of the discoveries made by
Bering and his companion Chirikoff. The coasts seen by those navi-
gators are joined by dotted lines, which show the outlines of the
seaboard as the members of the academy, particularly Miiller, the his-
torian of Siberia, thought them to be. Though the name America
does not appear on this map, still it is evident that the Russian
Academy thought the new country to be a part of that continent.
It was supposed even that the islands of the Aleutian group formed
a long peninsula, which error was only corrected by later discover-
ies. This map of the Russian Academy was now of course adopted
and copied by all the geographers of Europe. It still left open a
large field for speculation. Besides the old traditions concerning the
discovery of a channel through, or to the northward of, the Ameri-
can continent, to which some map makers still adhere, other re-
ports of certain discoveries made by the Chinese and Japanese
gained credit in this age. It is interesting if nothing more to re-
call at this time, when the question of Oriental immigration is at-
tracting such widespread attention, the fact that in 1761 the learned
French sinologist, Deguignes, set forth in an ably written paper
in the "Memoires de I'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres"
(Vol. XXVIII) that he had found in the works of early Chinese
historians a statement that, in the fifth century of our era, certain
travellers of their race had discovered a country which they called
Fusang, which from the direction and distance as described by them
appeared to be Western America, and in all probability Mexico.
The original document, says Charles G. Leland in his book entitled
"Fusang or the Discovery of America by Chinese Buddhist Priests
in the Fifth Century," on which the Chinese historians based their
account of Fusang was the report of a Buddhist monk or missionary 

BRITISH COLUMBIA 9 

i what manner the strait discovered and named by him might be com-
bined with the Strait of Anian, so giving safe conduct to China.
This sketch was published in the work entitled "A True Discourse
of the Late Voyages of Discovery for the Finding of a Passage to
Cathay," which appeared in 1578. On the maps of Peter Apian,
of Ortelius, of Sebastian Munster, of Martinez, of Sir Humphrey
j Gilbert, similar views were adopted though they sometimes vary with
respect to latitude and dimensions given to the strait. Cornelius
a Judaeis also contributed his conjectures touching the geographical
puzzle of the age. The map of this worthy is a quite remarkable
I representation of the western seaboard of North America. On the
j headlands appear the names bestowed by the earliest Spanish navi-
; gators — Corrientes, Mendocino and Blanco. The northwestern
I peninsula is called Anian Regnum, while in the northeast a high
i rock is marked with the legend "Polus Magnetis." A Spanish gal-
' leon sails in mid-ocean and a fabulous monster disports itself in
I a great bay to the north of Cape Corrientes. This map is truly a
I wonderful conception, but it is no more remarkable than many other
I charts which appeared in later times. 

In 1600 the Spanish historian Herrera shows a stunted north-
(West coast to the northward of which is a great sea which separates
{the Asian and American continents and stretches indefinitely
'towards the pole. The Moluccas, the Philippines and Japan are
clearly marked. California appears as a peninsula, whereas ninety
j years later in a map after Sanson, the geographer of the King of
France, that country becomes an island with a broad channel on the
i north leading to the "Mer Glaciale," which extends far into the con-
Itinent. Thus it will be seen how from age to age the tide of conjec-
ture ebbed and flowed. First of all there is the globe of Martin
jBehaim, made in 1492, which shows the eastern coast of Asia pro-
jtected by a vast cluster of islands, notable among which stand Java
jand Japan (Cipangu). Behind this mythical constellation of islands
is the coast of Asia bearing the names India, Cathai and Thebet.
There is no sign of the North American continent, except it be the
island called Brandon, midway between the outermost islands and
the Cape Verde group. This map was succeeded by a notable series
of grotesque delineations until at last the great British navigators
of the eighteenth century set forth the true character of the coast. 

At first the European nations confined their attention to the more
southern parts of the Pacific so that the northern expanse of this 

10 BRITISH COLUMBIA 

broad ocean for a long time was completely neglected. The Dutch
did not advance beyond Japan which they had already reached in
1643. The Spaniards did not proceed beyond California, known to
them for two and a half centuries, while the English, who under
Drake had been on the northwest coast in 1578, did not make their
appearance again until the last quarter of the eighteenth century.
"Everybody," says Kohl, "seems to shun those stormy, cold, useless
regions, and the world remained in total ignorance about this part
of the globe until a new nation appeared on the coast of Northeastern
Asia, which gave the sign for an earnest exploring activity in these
regions, and which at last conducted this long agitated geographical
question to a satisfactory solution." The Russians had passed the
dividing mountain ridge between Asia and Europe at the end of the
sixteenth century and had worked their way through the whole of
Siberia towards the east and the northern sea. Already in the year
1648 Deschnev, one of those enterprising Cossak adventurers, with a
few companions had circumnavigated the whole northeast end of
Asia, from the mouth of the Lena through Bering Strait to the north-
ern coast of Kamchatka. But Deschnev did not realize the extent and
importance of his discoveries. His reports remained for more than
one hundred years hidden in the archives of Siberia and his voyage
therefore achieved nothing for geography. It was left to Vitus
Bering, a Dane in the service of Russia, to execute the first official
and scientific exploration of Northeastern Asia. He penetrated the
strait named after him without however seeing the coast of America,
and brought home the first map of those regions which was founded
upon an actual astronomical survey. This voyage was undertaken
in the 3^ears 1728 and 1729. Bering's map shows Kamchatka for the
first time in something like its true position. During his sojourn
at the port of St. Peter and St. Paul, Bering received information
concerning land to the eastward, and in 1741 he embarked upon
his memorable enterprise to the northwestern extremity of the North
American continent, making a landfall on the coast of Alaska. He
was cast away upon his return voyage upon Bering Island of the
Komandorskii group where he perished miserably with many of his
crew, as related by the German naturalist, Steller, the historian of
the expedition. 

Europe heard only through vague rumours that the Russians had
made discoveries to the east of Siberia and Kamchatka. Some be- 

8 BRITISH COLUMBIA 

its source and headwaters in the interior of Asia and flows round
the whole North Pacific. Such views were very common in the
period after Cortes, still they were not generally adopted. There
were always many navigators and mapmakers who still believed in
the existence of open water or a strait between Asia and America.
A report was current, which was indeed more or less credited, that
Cortereal, a Portuguese sailor, had already in the year 1500 entered
a strait in about sixty degrees north latitude and that he had called
this strait after one of his brothers "the Strait of Anian." Accord-
ing to this tradition there was open water to the north of America
and to the west again a narrow channel between the two continents
which was likewise called the Strait of Anian. Eventually this
name, which figures so prominently in the early history of the North
Pacific, was almost exclusively applied to the western strait. The
old Strait of Anian came to be called the Northwest Passage. The
belief in the existence of the Strait of Anian became more or less
general after the middle of the sixteenth century. Seemingly the
first maps on which the mythical waterway is actually laid down are
those of the Italian Zalteri of 1566 and of the German Ortelius of
1570. John Barrow states in his "Chronological History of Voy-
ages in the Arctic Regions" that "the name of Anian was given to the
strait supposed to have been discovered by Caspar Cortereal, in
honour of two brothers who accompanied him; but there are no
grounds for such a supposition. ... In the earliest maps Ania
is marked as the name of the western-most part of America. Ania
in the Japanese language is said to signify brother; hence, probably,
the mistake." 

Turning again to the specific work of the early cartographers,
attention may be called to the very famous map of the German
Ruysch published in 1508 in the Roman edition of Ptolemaeus, the
principal features of which are as follows: South America (Terra
Sancte Crucis or Mundus Novus) appears as a detached country of
which the southern and western coasts are not represented at all.
An extensive archipelago lies to the north of South America, while
Northwest America does not appear at all. The expanse of ocean
between Asia and America is still very narrow, in the south about
fifty degrees of longitude and in the north not quite twenty. As
usual Asia stretches a long arm toward the northeast. Martin
Frobisher embodied his views in a chart on which he showed in 

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6 BRITISH COLUMBIA 

Columbus and his companions, of which the most important were
"Isabella" (Cuba), "Spagnuola" (Haiti), "Terra de Cuba" (North
America), and "Sanctae Crucis" (South America). South Amer-
ica is always by far the most extensive of them all. 

Dr. J. G. Kohl, in his valuable monograph entitled "Asia and
America," or "A Historical Disposition Concerning the Ideas
Which Former Geographers Had About the Geographical Re-
lation of the Old and New World," admirably sets forth the
difficulties of the early explorers in charting the results of
their work and the fanciful conceptions they had of the geography
of the country. This source will be freely drawn upon in the fol-
lowing pages. 

Towards the time when the great exploring activity of the Portu-
guese and Spaniards developed itself, it was pretty generally ad-
mitted by the well-instructed cosmographers that the world was
a globe of not very great dimensions, and that therefore "Asia must
bear around this globe and must with its eastern end approach again
somewhere to the western coast of Europe and Africa." The ques-
tion was how far Asia stretched eastward and how long the distance
was between it and Europe across the unknown waters. Marco Polo,
the most celebrated traveller of the fourteenth century, was the great
authority and oracle on this point. He had been to China and had
actually visited the coasts of the Eastern Ocean. Marco Polo in-
formed the world that in the ocean which laved the eastern coast of
Asia was situated a large rich island, called "Zipangu" (the
modern Japan) and besides whole archipelagos of smaller islands.
Likewise on the side of Europe the navigators and discoverers of the
Canary Islands and the Azores had created a belief that there were
still more islands towards the west, amongst which were "Holy
Brandan" and another larger island called "Antilia." But of all
these islands said to be situated between Eastern Asia and Western
Europe none was considered to be more worth exploring than that
of "Zipangu," described by Marco Polo as the residence of an em-
peror and as being rich in gold, silver and other precious products.
Cortes and his companions in arms entered Mexico with ideas
more or less similar to those with which Columbus and his con-
temporaries had entered the archipelago of the Antilles^ — that is to
say with the expectation of finding Asiatic kingdoms and nations.
When Cortes set out upon his discoveries on the Pacific he hoped 

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BRITISH COLUMBIA 7 

to reach Japan, which he thought to be near. When his successors
arrived on the shores of Upper California, sometimes called Qui-
vira, they reported upon their return that they had seen richly laden
Chinese vessels. Whether these statements w^ere founded on fact,
or whether the wish was the father of the thought it is now too late
to ascertain. Be that as it may, many geographers after Cortes ac-
cordingly painted North America, of which so far only the eastern
coast was known, as connected with Northern Asia. They repre-
sented on their maps Mexico and other American places as Asiatic
cities, adorned with mosques and minarets. They placed the sources
of the Rio Colorado in Northern Asia, and they laid down the Chi-
nese province of "Magni" as bordering on Mexico. When they
heard of the wild bison, they thought these to be the herds of the
nomadic tribes of Asia, and put down on their maps of this western
region — sometimes called Cibola, after the famous mythical city of
that name^ — inscriptions like the following: "Here the people live
like the Tartars and raise large droves of cattle." In the British
Museum they still preserve a Spanish map of the year 1560 on which
the portrait of a true Chinese is posted in the center of the Missis-
sippi valley and near him is an elephant grazing. The maps of
the middle of the sixteenth century which adopted this view of a
connection between Asia and America are numerous. This connec-
tion is found broadly marked on the French maps as well as on those
of Italian, German and English cosmographers. Thus a manu-
script chart of the year 1530, or thereabouts, that is to say soon after
Cortes' conquest of Mexico, depicts the Chinese province Magni
as bordering on that country. This old manuscript serves to illus-
trate in a certain manner the ideas and expectations which Cortes
had when he set out from the western coast of Mexico upon the dis-
icovery and conquest of California. 

Again the well-known Italian geographer, Paulo de Furlani,
, prepared a chart in 1560, on which the Pacific stretches northward
only as far as the fortieth parallel. In common with other maps
of the age this one connects North America and Asia on a very broad
basis. "Cimpaga," or Japan, is placed at a distance of about twenty
degrees of longitude from California. "Quisai," the famous
Chinese port, Thibet and other Asiatic places are still very near.
The Colorado river of the Californian Gulf, the entrance of which
had been discovered by the Spaniards some twenty years before, has 

BRITISH COLUMBIA 3 

a long drawn out drama, in the course of which many strange and
fascinating and cruel and repellent scenes are enacted. The curtain
was rung up in the dim dawn of civilization when the primitive pro-
genitors of the nations of today began their migrations towards the
setting sun, for these early tribal movements seem to have taken
their course from the diurnal journey of that heavenly body from
east to west. The curtain will not drop upon the last act of this age-
long drama, the dramatis personae for which have been drawn from
all countries and peoples, until the last exploring expeditions to
the northern and to the southern poles shall have set forth the extent
and physical characteristics of the frozen wastes of the Arctic and
Antarctic regions. 

The configuration of the earth was always a lively subject of dis-
I cussion amongst geographers and men of science, from the days of
I the classic theorists and Arabian mathematicians down to the
Columbian age, whether that discussion were concerned with the
shape of the planet or with the outline of some particular region of
I it. Thus the geographers of old fought among themselves as to
whether the earth was spheroid or plane, and thus later generations
waged a wordy conflict as to the configuration of the eastern part of
Asia, and over the position of its islands of Zipangu or Japan, first
reported to the modern world by Marco Polo. Then Columbus re-
ported his epochal discovery of the Islands of the Indies, and an-
other great discussion ensued as to the extent of the archipelagO'
which was reputed to shield the shores of India, China and Japan
from the prying eye of the European fortune-hunter. 

The longing of the West for the East was expressed in the terms
of that vigorous debate concerning a safe and navigable water way
to India, which it was hoped that Columbus had at last discovered.
Such is the strength of men's hopes that years after the general trend
of the eastern seaboard of the North, Central and South America
had been established, there were still some geographers who clung
to the old theory of the archipelago and the open channel to the
jewelled East. An eminent German geographer and cartographer,
named Schoner, in the year 1520, published a map of Northern
America, depicting that continent as a group of islands threaded
by wide channels leading to the South Sea. Perhaps there is in all
the history of the discovery of the New World no more pathetic
exemplification of the old belief in the existence of a septentrional 

4 BRITISH COLUMBIA 

water way to India than this chart of Schoner, which appeared
after Waldseemiiller's famous map of North and South America.
It was on Waldseemiiller's map that the name "America" appeared
for the first time, that appellation being bestowed upon the southern
continent in honour of Amerigo Vespucci, whose achievements
otherwise might have been lost in oblivion, with those of many an-
other "forgotten worthy." 

After Balboa sighted the Pacific Ocean from the Isthmus of
Darien, or Panama as it is now called, in 15 13, the search for a chan-
nel through the continent leading thereto was pursued with renewed
zeal. Northward and southward along the eastern coasts of the
northern and southern continents the explorers of the great mari-
time powers of Europe groped their way, ever hoping to find the
reputed channel, but their dreams were never realized. The coast
stretched interminably northward and southward. At last Magel-
lan found his strait at the far southern extremity of the south-
ern continent and he, first of Europeans, set sail upon the ocean he
named "Pacific." To the northward Cabot, Cortereal, Frobisher,
Baffin and Hudson were no more successful, the entrance of the chan-
nel, if such existed, being sealed by Arctic mist and ice. Then it
was, after years of futile efifort, which none the less is a glorious chap-
ter in the annals of seamanship, the quest of the Orient resolved it-
self into a search for the Strait of Anian, or, as it came to be called by
a later generation of navigators, the Northwest Passage. 

Naturally, the dreams of the navigators and the conjectures of
the geographers with regard to the mythical passage leading to
Japan and India had a marked effect upon the earliest cartography
of Eastern America. Not otherwise is it with the western portion of
the continent, which from age to age assumed all imaginable shapes
and deformities as this or that geographer gave expression to his pet
theory as to the configuration of the "backside" of America, as Sir
Humphrey Gilbert called it. It is a matter of fact and history that
the earliest extant European records of this region are not written
accounts but crude cartographical representations which exhibit in
rich abundance the eccentric notions of their several ages. Having
delineated the eastern coastline of the continent with some degree
of accuracy, and having failed to find the long-sought channel, the
navigator turned his attention to the western seaboard until at last
it was determined to search for the Pacific outlet of the Northwest 

BRITISH COLUMBIA 5 

Passage, and so it may be said with truth that the search for this
fabled communication led to the lifting of the veil from the vast do-
main which stretches from California to the Arctic Ocean between
the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. 

"'Now'' writes the learned Dr. J. G. Kohl already quoted, "the
huge bulk of the American block began to show something of its
true proportions. At least, this was the case on its eastern side,
which lay towards Europe, and with which the first European navi-
gators soon became tolerably well acquainted, whilst the western
side still remained untouched and hidden in darkness. On the maps
of this period, America looks like one of those gigantic statues of
gods or kings which we see carved in high relief in the rock-temples
of Hindustan and Egypt. Their front parts, turned towards us, are
tolerably well drawn and sculptured, but their backs still adhere
to, and form a portion of, the shapeless mountainside. After Magel-
lan had pierced through his strait into the open water to the west,
when Pizarro had worked his laborious way down the coast of Peru,
and when Cortez in the latter part of his career, in search of some-
thing like Japan or China, had navigated to the northwest and ex-
plored the shores of California, then, likewise, this western side was
cut loose from the mass of the unknown, and began to assume at
least the principal features of its true configuration." 

Investigations of old maps and charts displayed in chronologi-
cal order disclose the very earliest impressions of geographers
respecting the physical features and ethnography of Northwest
America. These maps also reveal the tedious progress which
marked maritime discoveries in that quarter. No student of history
will, therefore, think that undue emphasis has been laid upon this
point. It is not possible, nor is it desirable, to set forth here the
whole history of cartography as it relates to the North Pacific, but
a general outline of the story is indispensable. 

North America became known in detached pieces. And these
detached pieces were believed to be separate islands or peninsulas
of Northern Asia, which was prolonged towards the east much
more than the southern part of that continent. The generality of
the maps, which were made and published soon after Columbus, show
the ocean between Eastern Asia and Western Europe filled with
large and small islands. Some of them are the old islands men-
tioned by Marco Polo, while others are the new ones discovered by 

Vol. I— 1 

1 

3 BRITISH COLUMBIA 

not divide the country into districts, he being content to designate the
whole western seaboard of North America as "The Californias." 

Although the country now known as British Columbia was not
so named until 1858, nor its boundaries finally fixed until 1863, the
history of the land reaches back into a far earlier period of dis-
covery and exploration, when at least three great European powers
were rivals in that virgin field, and farther back again into the pre-
historic period when the aboriginal tribes held undisputed sway in
and over the whole of it. Great Britain, Spain, and Russia all ex-
hibited a keen interest in the distant and unknown region of North-
western America concerning which conjecture was rife. Each of
these nations, in fact, sought to establish sovereign jurisdiction in
that quarter. Later the situation was complicated by the efforts of
the young American nation to extend its territory westward to the
Pacific Ocean. 

The political boundaries of the territories of Northwestern
America are the result of a process of elimination and evolution,
or of progressive geographical discoveries, in the course of which
Spain and Russia relinquished their claims, leaving the field to Great
Britain and the United States of America. The rival claims of Great
Britain and the United States gave rise to a long and bitter contro-
versy which was not laid at rest until the Treaty of 1846 settled the
Oregon boundary question. It is because the early history of the
territory now known as the Province of British Columbia is fraught
with international jealousies, as well as because it is concerned with
the brilliant efforts of the navigator and the explorer, that it offers
a peculiarly inviting field to the student and to the historian. The
exploration of the northwest coast of North America culminated in
a series of noble efforts no less worthy of admiration than the essays
of European navigators on the eastern shores of the continent. The
search for a broad and safe channel leading to the Orient, the dream
of generations of navigators, melted into thin air with the charting
of this coast. 

The history of geographical discovery throughout the world is
one of absorbing interest, for the making of it is sealed with the in-
domitable heroism of the explorer, who laboured in the face of
untold difficulties to establish an accepted theory, or to prove its
incorrectness. The slow and painful processes by which the true con-
figuration of the earth has been established present all the features of. 

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PREHISTORIC NORTHWEST; AMERICA 

The Colony of Vancouver Island, constituted in 1849, was the
first British Colony to be formally established in the northwestern
region of North America. It was not until 1858 that British Colum-
bia became a geographical expression. In that year the Crown
Colony of British Columbia was called into being by act of the Im-
perial Parliament, although its northern boundary as it exists today
was not so defined until 1863. The new colony in the North Pacific
was formed out of the territory hitherto loosely called New Cale-
donia, which term was applied generally, both before and after the
Oregon Treaty of 1846, to the country lying to the north of the forty-
ninth parallel. The district of New Caledonia, however, was not
really so extensive as the preamble of the Act of 1858 might lead one
to imagine, for it can scarcely be claimed that it extended far beyond
the limits assigned by the Reverend A. G. Morice, who defines the
territory as that vast tract of land "lying between the Coast Range
and the Rocky Mountains, from 51° 30' to 57° of latitude north."
The central interior was named New Caledonia by Simon Eraser, of
the North-West Company of Montreal, who built Fort St. James at
the outlet of Stuart Lake in 1806. 

Capt. George Vancouver in his famous survey of the western
seaboard of North America named the coasts he visited in the years
1792 and 1793 New Georgia, New Hanover and New Cornwall,
but these titles scarcely survived the explorer. At the same time
Vancouver gave the name of "Quadra and Vancouver" to the large
island which guards the continental shore between parallels forty-
eight and fifty. Two centuries before Capt. James Cook sailed on
his third and last voyage to the Pacific Ocean, Sir Francis Drake, of
the Golden Hynde, had given the name New Albion to the region
of Northern California, a title which had a vogue in many successive
generations of cartographers. The Spaniard, on the other hand, did