Discovery and Exploration,

The Queen Charlotte Islands were first discovered by Juan Perez, a
Spanish navigator, on the 18th of July, 1774, and named by him, Cabo
De St. Margarita, and their highest mountains, Sierra de San
Cristoval.

La Perouse coasted along their shores in 1786, and first determined
their entire separation from the mainland. In 1787, Captain Dixon
sailed off and on their north-west shores, with his vessel, the Queen
Charlotte, naming the group, also North Island, Cloak Bay, Parry
Passage, Hippa Island, Rennell Sound, Cape St. James, and Ibbitson's
Sound, now known as Houston Stewart Channel. The first white men known
to have landed upon the islands, were a portion of the crew of the
_Iphigenia_, under command of Captain William Douglass, who remained
about a week in Parry Passage in 1788, trading with the natives. The
most extensive explorations made of any portion of the islands, by
those early navigators, whose voyages for purposes of discovery, trade
and adventure, extended into these northern seas, were those of
Captain Etienne Marchand in the French ship _Solide_, who in 1791,
examined the shores bordering on Parry Passage, and also about twenty
miles of the west coast of Graham Island, from near Frederick Island
southward. Since that date, although several parties of prospectors
and others have visited various parts of the islands, no systematic
effort has hitherto been made for the exploration of the entire group.

Under the direction of the Dominion Government, the waters and shores
of the north and east coast of the islands including those of Massett
Inlet and Sound, Naden Harbor and Skidegate Inlet, have been partially
examined, and mapped with considerable accuracy; but almost the entire