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Updated: May 27, 2025
Scottish fur merchants of Montreal had formed the North-West Company in opposition to the Hudson's Bay Company, and were pushing their traders far west towards the Rockies, far north towards the Arctic Circle. Who would be first to find the great unknown river, to fathom the mysteries of Juan de Fuca's strait?
The treaty of 1846 continued the line of boundary westward along "the 49th parallel of north latitude to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver Island, and thence southerly through the middle of the said channel and of Fuca's straits to the Pacific Ocean" Anyone reading this clause for the first time, without reference to the contentions that were raised afterwards, would certainly interpret it to mean the whole body of water that separates the continent from Vancouver, such a channel, in fact, as divides England from France; but it appears there are a number of small channels separating the islands which lie in the great channel in question, and the clever diplomatists at Washington immediately claimed the Canal de Haro, the widest and deepest, as the canal of the treaty.
From the point on the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude, where the boundary laid down in existing treaties and conventions between the United States and Great Britain, terminates, the line of boundary between the territories of the United States and those of her Britannic Majesty shall be continued westward along the said forty-ninth parallel of north, latitude to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island, and thence southerly through the middle of the said channel, and of Fuca's Straits, to the Pacific ocean: Provided, however, that the navigation of the whole of the said channel and straits, south of the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude, remain free and open to both parties.
In fact, he set down that in this latitude there was no possibility of Juan de Fuca's strait existing. Landing was made on Vancouver Island at the famous harbour now known as Nootka; and Indians swarmed the sea in gaily painted dug-outs with prows carved like totem-poles. Women and children were in the canoes.
He was directed to endeavour to find an opening on the north-west coast of America which would lead into Hudson's Bay. The old legend of Juan de Fuca's great bay still misled geographers as to this coast.
So Bering must have known or guessed that an empire half the size of Russia lay undiscovered north of Juan de Fuca's passage. So confident were the members of the expedition of reaching land to the east at an early date that provisions and water for only a few weeks were carried along.
In spite of Cook's adverse report, the questions were again mooted: Where was Juan de Fuca's strait? Did it lead to Hudson Bay? Where was this Great River of which both the inland savages and the Spanish explorers spoke? Quebec had fallen.
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