According to a seventeenth century account, Apostolos Valerianos discovered a waterway through the northwest corner of North America in 1592, a Northwest Passage, while reputedly sailing for Spain under the name Juan de Fuca. For a century and a half, no one tested the claim. Finally, in the late eighteenth century, explorers of many nations sailed their tall ships to the Pacific Northwest to chart, claim, and trade. In 1787, Charles William Barkley, an Englishman commanding the Imperial Eagle and seeking sea otter pelts from Indian people, sighted a major inlet at 48°20' north latitude. He honored the perhaps imaginary ancient mariner by giving de Fuca's name to the strait. From 1790 to 1792, the Spanish charted the strait and met its residents, the Makah and Klallam tribes. George Vancouver included the title “supposed Strait of Juan de Fuca” on his charts, which were published in London in 1798 and widely distributed.