The Haida are an old people in an old land. Exactly how long they have possessed their island chain is not known, but they had probably been there thousands of years before the white man stumbled on them.
The first Europeans arrived in 1774 in the Santiago, commanded by Juan Perez, who had been ordered by the viceroy of New Spain to search out whatever lay between present-day California and Cape St. Elias, at 60 degrees north latitude, then the southernmost limit of Russian exploration. Perez and his men first encountered the Haida at Langara (North) Island, and his naming of Cape Santa Margarita on Langara was the first European place naming to be recorded on the entire coast from Monterey to Cape St. Elias. On that historic occasion, a ship-to-canoe exchange of goods took place, but the first white trader to deal seriously with the Haida did not come along until thirteen years later.
The trader was England's George Dixon, who sailed into Haida waters in 1787 and named the islands after his ship, the Queen Charlotte. Dixon had served with the famous navigator-explorer James Cook on his third and final world voyage. As an armorer aboard the discovery, Dixon had seen at Nootka Sound in 1778 what Cook alerted the western world to -- the presence of innumerable sea otters, who's luxurious pelts Chinese mandarins were already buying at high prices from the Russians who were currently exploiting the Aleutian Islands. Dixon had realized then that an excellent opportunity lay waiting in the unknown Pacific Northwest, and had decided to become a merchant-navigator.
Financed by an English company, the two-ship expedition of which Dixon was part was the most ambitious to reach this coast since Cook's day. The commander was Nathaniel Portlock aboard the King George and, as was customary for trading efficiency and safety, the two ships coasted separately and rendezvoused later. . . |
