QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS. 9 B 



exploration of this part of tho coast of America, he was absolutely 

 without authentic reports of its nature. His instructions, based on the 

 fact that Hearne had found the extent of the American continent to 

 be very groat northward, were to begin a search for a passage to Hud- 

 son's Bay north of the 65th degree. He did not visit the Queen 

 Charlotte Islands. He left King George's Sound (Nootka) for the 

 north in April, 1778, but owing to stormy weather did not sight the 

 land again till he reached latitude 55° 20'. 



In 1786, La Perouse coasted along the shore of the Queen Charlotte LaPerouse. 

 Islands, and was the first to suggest their separation from the main- 

 land. (Arteaga and Bodega, in 1779, did not visit them.) He named 

 (on his ehart), in the north part, Baie cle Clonard ; a bay in the south 

 part, Baie de la Touche ; the south cape, Cape Hector, and some small 

 islands off it, Isles Kerouart. He sailed to the eastward sufficiently to 

 satisfy himself that a deep inlet extended between the islands and the 

 mainland. His Isles Fleurieu are on the main coast, south and east of 

 the Queen Charlotte Islands, and are the Princess Eoyal Islands of 

 Duncan. He gave no name to the Queen Charlotte Islands. 



In 1786, Captains Lowrie and G-uise, in the Captain Cook and Vessels visiting 

 Experiment, fitted out in Bombay, visited, in the course of a trading 17313. bia 

 voyage, the Queen Charlotte Islands. They have left no information 

 on record in regard to it, but as they are said to have sailed in a direct 

 course from Queen Charlotte Sound (which they named) to Prince 

 William's Sound, it appears not unlikely that they passed inside the 

 Queen Charlotte Islands. In the same year, Captain Hanna,* in the 

 Sea Otter, from Macao, is stated to have traced the coast northward 

 from Nootka to nearly the 53rd degree of latitude, and probably visited 

 the Queen Charlotte Islands. In September, 1786, Captains Portlock 

 and Dixon, in the King George and Queen Charlotte, made the 

 land of the west coast of the islands, near Hippa Island, but finding 

 " no harbor nor the least sign of any inhabitants," bore up and stood 

 to the southward. 



In 1787, Dixon, in the Queen Charlotte spent more than a month Account of the 

 on the coast of the islands (July 1st to August 3rd). He gave the ifixon. ? 2 

 name to the islands which they still bear, naming also Dixon's 

 Entrance, North Island, Cloak Bay, Hippa Island, RenneH's Sound. 

 Cape St. James and Ibbitson's Sound. With the exception of the last. 

 which is now called Houston Stewart Channel, all these names still hold- 

 Dixon did not land anywhere, but the anonymous narrator of his voyage 

 devotes 29 pages of his volume to the proceedings on the coast of the 



* Captain Hanna appears to have been the first to engage in the fur trade on the coast of what 

 is now British Coluitbia. He sailed from China, in a brig of about 60 tons, reaching' King 

 George's Sound (Nootka) in August, 3785, and sold his eaivo in Canton the following year for 

 §20,600. Captain Cook had indicated Nootka as the best place known to him for the trade. 



