In 1859 the Oregon Treaty left several islands in the Harrow strait, of the coast of Vancouver in doubt as to what country owned them, due to uncertain geography and some peculiarities of a cartographic nature. Because of this ambiguity, two countries each had claim to an island called San Juan.

In 1859, an American Farmer named Lyman Cutlar, claimed rights to the land and planted a field of wild tubers, and all was good in the world, but was it!? On June 15th of the same dark year, Lyman caught a mighty black Canadian pig in his freshly fallowed tuber field. The pig became the first victim of the war, when it was shot by blunderbuss.