The Alaskan Boundary Tribunal 



edge within their reach at that day. 

 As early as the sixteenth century ex- 

 plorers had visited the northwest coast 

 of America, but up to the last decade 

 of the eighteenth century very little 

 accurate knowledge of that region ex- 

 isted. Between 1792 and 1794 Captain 

 Vancouver, of the British navy, visited 

 this coast, sent out by his government 

 to discover the supposed passage or 

 water connection between the North 

 Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. He made 

 very careful surveys of the coasts of the 

 continent and islands, and his narrative 

 and charts, giving detailed results of 

 his surveys, were published in 1798. 



These were the main sources of informa- 

 tion upon which the negotiators sought 

 to fix in the treaty of 1825 the boundar> T 

 line between the Russian and British 

 possessions. 



They described the water line as fol- 

 lows : ' ' Starting from the southernmost 

 point of the island called Prince of Wales 

 Island, . . . the said line shall 

 ascend northward along the passage 

 called Portland Channel as far as the 

 point of the mainland, where it reaches 

 the 56th degree of north latitude." 

 The first matter which the tribunal had 

 to determine was, what is the Portland 

 Channel as described in the treaty, and 



Scale of Miles 



Map Showing Boundary in Portland Canal 



