CHAPTER II
EARLY HISTORY

THE earliest information regarding these islands seems
to have been written by De Fonte. It appears that the
Court of Spain in the year 1639, having heard of
trading expeditions despatched by the people of Boston
and New England, appointed Bartholomew De Fonte
as Commander of a squadron to oppose them. These
ships were manned and victualled at Callao in 1640.
They left that port about the month of May and sailed
Northward along the Pacific coast, and arrived at what
De Fonte called the Archipelago of St. Lazarus, on
June 14th. This he states to be situated in 53° North
Latitude, and through it he sailed for 200 leagues,
by intricate channels. During this voyage he made
some very remarkable discoveries. From the latitude
quoted, the passage through which he sailed his ships
appears to be the channel dividing Graham from
Moresby Island. His discovery later of a river up
which he sailed, where there was a fall of water till half
flood, but that an hour and a quarter before high water
the flood begins to set strongly into a lake, corresponds
in a very marked degree with Massett Inlet and the
great salt water lake. Some of his men went ashore at
a place which he named Mynhasset, and there saw
canoes fifty and sixty feet in length hewn out of single
cedar trees.. These correspond exactly to the canoes of

the Haidas, as the Haidas were and are the most expert
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