Plate VIIL
Plate VIII.
Flate X,,
Plate XI.
172
Port San Juan, nearly opposite Cape Flattery, is in a good position, but the entrance is wide and lies quite open to westerly winds, so that the anchorage is not safe. It could be made so by forming a mole across the entrance, and would then be a most excellent harbour, but the expense would be very great.
Ucluelet Inlet, just within Amphitrite Point, on the north of the entrance of Barclay Sound, has all the requisites for a good harbour except that the outer approach is somewhat obstructed by reefs and rocks, and is exposed to the swell of the Pacific. The entrance is deep, the anchorage good, there is plenty of space for building, &c., and the harbour could easily be protected. There are no settlements in the neighbourhood from which supplies could be drawn,
Of the two stations, Port San Juan is the more convenient and the better placed, but it is doubtful whether the interests to be protected are at present of sufficient value to justify the outlay that would be required in the construction of a mole.
Northward of Barclay Sound there are several good anchorages, and small harbours in which vessels could find shelter in a storm, but none in which they could find supplies.
Hesquiat Harbour is said to be very good, but I had no opportunity of making an inspection of it.
Between the north of Vancouver Island and the mouth of the Skeena River there are no good harbours, and, but few small anchorages in which a vessel might find shelter.
Port Simpson, near the entrance of Portland Inlet, is an excellent harbour, and has been suggested as the terminal station of the Canada Pacific Railway. This harbour could be very easily protected by batteries on Finlayson and Birmi Islands, between which lie the main entrances to the harbour. Should the trade of this part of the province increase, it may be necessary to fortify Port Simpson, as a small refitting station, more particularly as it is rumoured that the United States have in view the formation of a fortified post at Wrangel or Sitka.
The defence of the entrance to Queen Charlotte Sound, and that of the channels between Vancouver Island and the mainland, must be left to the navy. The channels are navigable but difficult, and the currents are so rapid that vessels at full speed would probably pass a battery without being struck by a shot.
The best position for such a battery is on the western extremity of Hardwick's Island or on Thurlow Island, where the water which, for some distance from the entrance to the sound, has been dispersed through several channels, and again contracted into one channel, forms two branches not more than 3,000 yards in width.
When funds admit, the most necessary works for the defence of the Pacific coast will be the conversion of San Juan into a safe anchorage, and the establish. ment of a fortified station near the mouth of the Skeena and Nasse Rivers, for which Port Simpson appears the most eligible site.
The defence of Esquimalt and Victoria, with that of Nanaimo and Burrard Inlet, would secure the chief land interests in the Straits of Georgia against an attack by ships, even if accompanied by a small land force, but would not prevent the descent of a large force on the shores northward of Victoria, nor protect the shipping in the Haro Straits or Gulf of Georgia.
For this purpose one or two gun-boats are required, heavily armed, that they may assist in the defence of Esquimalt, and fast, that they may be able to force their way quickly against the rapid currents in the channels between the islands.
Upon the question of the fitness of Esquimalt for the, naval station, I can only remark that the result of all I have heard and read about other harbours in the province, and of what I saw in my inspection of those that were visited, led me to the conclusion that, under the present circumstances, there is no better position. Its chief drawbacks are the difficulty of defence and its distance from the entrance of the Straits of San Juan de Fuca.
The former may be partly remedied by batteries of guns of great range and power, and the latter by the establishment of a telegraph to Port San Juan. The selection of a port on the Pacific shore of either Vancouver Island or British Columbia for the terminus of the Canada Pacific Railway might have been an inducement to remove the dockyard to that port, but at present no harbour offers + advantages that counterbalance those possessed by Esquimalt Harbour.
☛ Not printed.
178
On the subject of the boundary between British Columbia and Alaska, I would submit the following remarks, based chiefly on information obtained from the Honourable J. Hamilton Gray, Assistant Puisne Judge in British Columbia :-
In Dixon Entrance, at the north of Queen Charlotte's Islands, is an island called Prince of Wales, so named by Vancouver in 1793. At the entrance to Observatory Inlet is another island, called Wales, so named also by Vancouver in 1793, "after his, much-esteemed friend Mr. Wales, of Christ's Hospital."
The southernmost point of both of these islands is in about the same latitude, 54° 40° north, but that of Prince of Wales Island is in longitude 131° 56" west, while in Wales Island it is in 130° 30" west.
The position of the boundary between Alaska and British Columbia rests upon the Convention between Great Britain and Russia in 1825, the full text of which, signed by Canning, Nesselrode, and De Politica, is given in McCulloch's "Commercial Dictionary," published in Philadelphia in 1852, edited by Henry Vethake, LL.D., and Professor in the University of Pennsylvania.
The line of demarcation is thus described :—
"Commencing from the southernmost point of the island called Prince of Wales Island, which lies in the parallel of 54° 40" north latitude, and between the 131st and the 133rd degrees of west longitude (meridian of Greenwich), the said line shall ascend to the north along the channel as far as the point of the continent where it strikes the 56th degree of north latitude, and from this last-mentioned point the line of demarcation shall follow the summit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast as far as the point of intersection of the 141st degree of west longitude (of the same meridian), and finally, from the said point of inter- section, the said meridian line of the 141st degree in its prolongation as far as the Frozen Ocean shall form the limit between the Russian and British possessions on the American continent to the north-west.
"That wherever the summit of the mountains that extend in a direction parallel to the coast from the 56th degree of north latitude to the point of inter- section of the 141st degree of west longitude shall prove to be at the distance of more than 10 marine leagues from the ocean, the limit between the British posses- sions and the line of coast which is to belong to Russia shall be formed by a line parallel to the winding of the coast, and which shall never exceed the distance of 10 marine leagues therefrom."
The line of demarcation, as shown by the charts, commences at the south point of Wales Island, at the entrance of Portland Inlet, thence passes to the bend of the Portland Channel, from whence it is taken at a distance of 10 marine leagues, not from the coast, but from the heads of all the little inlets that run into the
This line seems most emphatically wrong, for the following reasons:-
coast,
1. The starting point is not the southernmost point of Prince of Wales Island, between the 131st and 133rd degrees of west longitude, but it is the southernmost point of Wales Island, in longitude about 130° 30′′.
2. The head of Portland Inlet does not ascend as high as latitude 56°, and, according to Vancouver, it ends in low marshy ground; also instead of being within 10, it is over 20 marine leagues of the ocean.
3. There is no range of mountains that runs parallel to the coast from the head of Portland Inlet.
The true line of demarcation which would accord with the terms of the Conven- tion of 1825 should, it would appear, start from Cape Chacon, the southernmost point of Prince of Wales Island, then pass north up Clarence Strait and Prince Ernest Sound to the point where it strikes the 56th parallel of latitude, a little to the south of Cape Warde, where, so far as I can learn, and as appears by Van- couver's map, the parallel meets, close to the ocean, a mountain that forms the southern extremity of a chain of mountains that passes near the coast as far as latitude 59° north.
Wheaton defines the mountains mentioned in the Convention as the "moun- tains bordering on the coast."
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I am aware that in another version of the Convention of 1825 the words "called Portland Channel "-are introduced as explanatory of the channel that was alluded to in the Convention, but I am informed that this interpolation was not in the original Convention; and I am induced to believe this, as "in "some_old_maps that I have seen the boundary is not shown as in any way connected with Portland Channel; and, moreover, if the boundary started from the southernmost point of
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