A wandering pig set off an armed confrontation between Canada and the United States and it lasted for twelve years. The incident occurred June 15,1859, a warm summer's day on San Juan Island, just east of Victoria, B.C. Farmer Lyman Cutler stepped out onto his balcony to find that a pig, owned by the Hudson's Bay Company, was once again rooting around in his garden. Enraged, he promptly shot the pig. The Hudson's Bay Company threatened to take farmer Cutler to Victoria for trial in a British Columbia, but the Americans would not hear of such a thing. The treaty of 1846 had established that the international boundary line lay in mid-channel in the Strait of Juan de Fuca , which they claimed made San Juan Island American territory. The problem was that there were at least two channels. The argument smoldered for months until the Americans called in the military. Captain George Pickett arrived July 26, 1859 and immediately proclaimed the island U.S. territory. The following week 61 Royal Marines, with a different point of view, stepped ashore from a British warship. for the next twelve years armed detachments faced each other across the western end of the long international boundary. In 1871, under the treaty of Washington, the matter was referred to Emperor Wilhelm 1 of Germany for arbitration. He awarded the verdict to the United States.
