No. 61.
On this twelfth day of March, A. D. one thousand eight hundred and seventy-two, personally appeared before me, David Eckstein, Consul of the United States of America for the Province of [Page 160] British Columbia, Dominion of Canada, residing at Victoria, Vancouver Island, Remington F. Pickett, who, being first duly sworn, states as follows:Affidavits on the canal de Haro.
My age is thirty-seven years. My occupation that of merchant and shipping agent. My place of residence is Victoria, Vancouver Island, and have resided here most of the time since eighteen hundred and fifty-nine.
For the last ten years I have been agent for a line of sail-vessels running between San Francisco and ports in British Columbia.
During all the time since eighteen hundred and fifty-nine, vessels, both sail and steam, in making trips from Victoria to the Gulf of Georgia and Fraser River, have invariably used the canal de Haro as a passage.
I have also heard masters of steamers and sail-vessels invariably speak of the canal de Haro as the channel used by them, and of its superiority, for purposes of navigation, over any other channel between the continent and Vancouver Island.
All English steamers have used the canal de Haro as a passage in making trips from Victoria to Fraser River, since my residence at this place, and continue to do so at this time. American steamers have done the same and do now. In fact the canal de Haro is the only channel used by steam and sail vessels, at the present time, and has been the only one used for years.
[SEAL.]