“This view, Leading Marks over Nahwitti Bar, was engraved after a sketch taken during the survey of Queen Charlotte Sound by H.M.S. Plumper & Hecate in 1860 to 1863 and published in the Second Edition of the Alaska Coast pilot (including sailing directions for the Inside passage through British Columbia) in 1883. The first edition, published in 1869, just after the transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States, was compiled by George Davidson, but “Assistant Davidson having been charged with other important duties, including direction of a party to observe in Japan the transit of Venus, the compilation of a new work, exhaustive of all known sources of information, was placed by Superintendent Patterson in the hands of William HeaIey Dall.”
Dall commissioned a series of engravings illustrating useful landmarks along the Inside Passage, which were printed on parchment (in monochrome) and tipped into the text. Having been fascinated by Nahwitti Bar ever since first crossing it on the D’Sonoqua on 31 October 1970, and hearing of trollers taking shelter in Bull Harbour reporting gravel left on deck by the seas breaking over the 6-fathom bar, it’s my favourite of all the views in the book.
This copy was scanned from the original, printed on some offset press cleaning pads that were lying around, and painted with watercolors that haven’t seen the light of day for 30 years. ”
— George Dyson, December 2018