The Oregon Treaty of 1846 aimed to settle the border between British North America and the United States along the 49th parallel. However, when it came to the water boundary near Vancouver Island, the treaty vaguely stated the border should run through the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island. Unfortunately for diplomats, there were two major channels: Rosario Strait on the east and Haro Strait on the west, with the fertile San Juan Islands sitting right in the middle.
Surveyors from both nations mapped the area in the 1850s, but each side selected the channel that granted them ownership of San Juan Island. British maps heavily favored Rosario Strait, while American surveys insisted on Haro Strait. This cartographic deadlock left the islands in a tense dual-sovereignty limbo.
The geopolitical absurdity reached a boiling point on June 15, 1859, when American farmer Lyman Cutlar shot an Irish boar belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company for eating his potatoes. British authorities threatened to arrest Cutlar, prompting American settlers to request military protection. Captain George Pickett arrived with U.
S. soldiers, and the British sent three warships. For months, hundreds of soldiers and armed vessels faced off over a potato patch.
Sanity finally prevailed when leaders in London and Washington realized the sheer embarrassment of starting a global conflict over a pig. The issue was submitted to Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany for arbitration in 1872, who ruled in favor of the American survey along Haro Strait, ending the standoff without a single human casualty.