The Santiago was a Spanish frigate launched at San Blas in 1773. On July 19, 1774, she made the first recorded contact with the Natives of coastal British Columbia. The location was three or four miles offshore, west of Parry Passage, with the north-west point of Langara Island the furthest point visible. To reconstruct the event I was able to draw on several excellent logs and diaries kept by the Spanish. The difficulty was in reconstructing the look of the ship, on which there was very little hard information. I ended up drawing a set of plans and making a small model.