Or, if it should be decided that this was the meaning of the treaty, they maintained that the width of the lisière was to be measured from the line of the general direction of the mainland coast, and not from the heads of the many inlets.
They claimed, also, that the broad and beautiful "Portland's Canal" of Vancouver and the "Portland Channel" of the Convention of 1825, were the Pearse Channel or Inlet of more recent times. This contention, if sustained, would give them our Wales and Pearse islands.
It was early suspected, however, that this claim was only made that they might have something to yield when, as they hoped, their later claim to Pyramid Harbor and the valley of the Chilkaht River should be made and upheld. This would give them a clear route into the Klondike territory.
In 1898 a Joint High Commission was appointed for the consideration of Pelagic Fur Sealing, Commercial Reciprocity, and the Alaska Boundary. The Commission met in Quebec. The discussion upon the boundary continued for several months, the members being unable to agree upon the meaning of the wording of the treaty of 1825.
The British and Canadian members, thereupon, unblushingly proposed that the United States should cede to Canada Pyramid Harbor and a strip of land through the entire width of the lisière.
To Americans who know that part of our country, this proposal came as a shock. Pyramid Harbor is the best harbor in that vicinity; and its cession, accompanied by a highway through the lisière to British possessions, would have given Canada the most desirable route at that time to the Yukon and the Klondike—the rivers upon which the eyes of all nations were at that time set. Many routes into that rich and picturesque region had been tested, but no other had proved so satisfactory.
It has since developed that the Skaguay route is the real prize. Had Canada foreseen this, she would not have hesitated to demand it.
From the disagreement of the Joint High Commission of 1898 arose the modus vivendi of the following year. There has been a very general opinion that the temporary boundary points around the heads of the inlets at the northern end of Lynn Canal, laid down in that year, were fixed for all time—although it seems impossible that this opinion could be held by any one knowing the definition of the term "modus vivendi."
By the modus vivendi Canada was given temporary possession of valuable Chilkaht territory, and her new maps were made accordingly.
