The Alaska citizen., 1910-08-06
 5 Early Explorers in Alaska } $ $ - B.: Allied H. Brooks ==== === 5


discovered land was not omitted. though Portlock and Dixon had sur veyed and published a chart of the bay some years before, and the Rus sians had long used |, as ren- dezvous in their fur-trading expedi. tions. Malaspina made a cursory ex- Cross Sounds. and then turned south ward
 George Vancouver. one of Cooks midshipmen, was the Englis,i repre- sentative in the Nootka dispute. and while his conference with the Span iards had no immediate result. his later explorations were of the utmost importance He received orders to survey the coast between the thir- ty-fifth and sixtieth parallels of lat itude, task which he faithfully ex- ecuted with his two vessels in 1793 and 1794 In the course of two sea sons he accurately delineated thou. sands of miles of the coast line of southeastern Alaska, and supple mented the work of previous ex- plorers westward as far as Cook h. let. Not an indentation of the main land, hardly a break in the shore line of the numerous islands, es- ranpi hiC notice IiS rn,,ll been a difficult task even in the days of steam. and to thread the intricate waterways of the Alexan- der Archipelago and make such sur veys as he did within so short period was little short of marvel ous. He was worthy successor of the great Cook, under whom he had learned navigation and geodesy. After his task was completed the general features of the entire coast line of the mainland of Alaska from Dixon Entrance as far north as Cape Belcher were charted with fair degree of accuracy
 While the Russians and the Span iards were attempting to dispossess all other nations of commercial and territorial rights in the coastal zone of Alaska, the English, their most aggressive rivals, were steadily ap- preaching the regions from the east. The French pioneers, following the route of the Great Lakes, had cross ed half the American continent long before the Russians had knowledge of the Aleutian Islands, and about the time of Berings discovery of the mainland of Alaska, Nerandrye, had reached the foot hills of the Rock ies near the headwaters of the Mis- souri. Ten years later another pi- oneer trader established a post at the present sight of Calgary CAL berta), at the very base of the Rocky Mountains and only 300 miles from the Pacific waters. This post, with many others, was abandoned when Canada passed into the hands of the English,
 Henceforth the English fur trade gradually expanded into the region which had been pioneered by the French. The Rocky Mountain bar Tier for long time marked the limits of the western fur trade. It remained for Alexander Mackenzie to surmount this barrier, and to in- troduce new factor in the develop ment of Alaska Mackenzie, who was member of the Northwestern Fur Company, the great rival of the Hud- son Bay Company, ascended the Peace river from Lake Athabasca. crossed the Rocky Mountains, then traversed the headwaters of the Fraser, and after crossing the Coast range reached the Pacific waters in the latitude of Queen Charlotte Sound. This journey, which was the first made across the continent north of Mexico, was accomplished in 1793, at the same time that Van couver was surveying adjacent wa ters. It was the forerunner of the fierce rivalry which was to spring up between the two great competitors in the fur trade, the Russian-Ameri- can and Hudson Bay companies
 In spite of the small degree of success achieved by previous official explorations, the authorities at St Petersburg in 17S5 determined on another. This was placed in charge of Joseph Billings, who seems to have been chosen more because he had been attached to one of Cooks vessels than because of any particu- lar merit or experience Billings sailed from Kamchatka in 17S9, and passing through Boring strait pene- rated the Arctic Ocean to about lat itude 69 degrees and then returned to Kamchatka. In 1790 he made a second start, and the two vessels of the expedition, stopping at Unalaska, whence he sailed northward, touching at Pribilof Islands, Seward Peninsu- la, and St. Lawrence Island. Billings himself afterwards landed on the Chuckchee Peninsula, Siberia, where he made A haZardOus hut anparaptly