Return to Northwest Coast of America exploration
Cook was about to pursue the main reason for this voyage and search for the Northwest Passage from the Pacific. Many people had tried unsuccessfully to find the Passage from the Atlantic side but it was still thought to exist and that it would be more accessible from the Pacific. It was known that the Spanish and Russians had made explorations along the American Coast and charts recording their journeys showed inlets that could easily be entrances to the Passage. The English seaman/pirate, Francis Drake, had sailed a little way up this coast and called it New Albion. Cook now directed his ships there.
Cook's lack of activity earlier in Tonga and the Society Islands was partly attributable to his realisation that he needed to be heading into northern waters in February-March so as to be able to reach Arctic waters in the northern summer months of July and August. He had reached the Pacific too late in 1777 and so had had to find other activities to fill his time. It was the reverse of his previous experience of high latitude sailing as, before now, he had only been south of the Equator in the South Pacific and he was now moving into new waters.
Cook did have, to help him, a copy of Muller's map of the North Pacific that showed the paths and discoveries of the Russian voyages of 1741, as well as some of the Spanish discoveries further south. In 1741 Bering, who had previously shown that the Bering Strait lay between Asia and America, took two ships on an expedition east from Kamchatka. His ship, the St. Peter, was soon separated from the St. Paul, under Chirikov, but both ships sailed on to make some discoveries on the American mainland.
The Spanish had sailed north from their base at Monterey in California to explore the coast and to lay claims to new lands. Among many inlets shown on their charts was a large bay, seen by Juan de Fuca at 49°N.
Oregon and Nootka Sound.
Cook had been instructed to reach the New Albion coast at 45°N and, after an uneventful crossing, the Resolution and the Discovery sighted land on March 7th at 44°50'N. Bad weather caused Cook to name the first headland seen Cape Foulweather and the conditions, together with no apparent harbours, forced Cook to stand off the coast. The ships began to sail south passing two capes that Cook named for Saints' days, Gregory (now usually called Cape Arago) and Perpetua (there are now a Captain Cook's Point and a Cook's Chasm close by Cape Perpetua).
Before gales forced them further out to sea on March 13th Cook identified a larger cape as Cape Blanco, named by Martin de Agualar. Having established his bearings Cook turned north and regained the coast on the 22nd at 47°N. He sighted some rocks, the Flattery Rocks, near a headland he called Cape Flattery before being driven off the coast again by a series of gales that lasted several days. Cook was mistakenly dismissive of the Spanish charts and records and was not to know that Cape Flattery was the southern entrance to Juan de Fuca Strait as depicted on Muller's chart.
Several days later they steered towards snow-covered, mountainous land, being in need of a harbour in which to repair the ships. A midshipman on the Discovery, George Vancouver, would sail into Juan de Fuca Strait 15 years later and show that the land Cook was now approaching was, in fact, an island. It would be named Vancouver Island after him, and in Victoria, the island's largest city there is a statue of Cook in front of the Empress Hotel near the Inner Harbour. There is also a Captain Cook Room in the British Columbia Maritime Museum.
As Cook approached land on March 29th he described a stretch of coast between Point Estevan and Woody Point as Hope Bay (a name no longer used) and steered into an inlet near Point Estevan. Cook's Woody Point was later renamed Cape Cook. It lies on the Brooks Peninsula where there is also a Cape Clerke and a Solander Island.
Lack of wind necessitated the ships being towed into the inlet,Nootka Sound. The inlet divided into several channels, where Cook and King looked for an anchorage before Cook settled on a small cove near the entrance of the right-hand channel, the Zuclarte Channel. This was Ship Cove, later called Resolution Cove. Over 30 canoes full of local people paddled around the ships as they arrived and trading commenced immediately. The local people were selling animal skins, especially those of the sea otter (sea beaver).
For two very wet weeks the crews worked to replace rigging and masts using timber that was felled from coniferous forests growing down to the water's edge. The local people were, for once, not Polynesian but North American Indian (or Native American) and communication was difficult. Gradually though communication was established and Surgeon Anderson produced a vocabulary of the local language but a mistake was made about the name of the place and the people. Cook thought it was Nootka (or Nutka) and the inlet became Nootka Sound (Cook called it King George's Sound but the name soon lapsed). On April 20th Cook set off to explore and went first to the village of Yuquot in Friendly Cove near the mouth of the inlet. The British were made very welcome and shown all around the village and into houses. From Yuquot they rowed up Cook Channel past the Saavedra Islands and across the mouths of the Kendrick and Tahsis Channels. Cook remarked that the trees here were the tallest he had ever seen (probably Douglas Firs). They landed at another village where they received a much cooler reception. Proceeding, they realised that they had rounded an island (Bligh Island) against which they were anchored. More Nootkans visited the ships, entertaining them with music from their canoes. Many features in Nootka Sound now carry names associated with people from the visit.
North to Alaska.
On April 26th Cook sailed from Nootka Sound but storms immediately forced the ships away from the coast and caused the Resolution to spring a leak. Cook was aware that he had strayed too far from land to be able to investigate inlets for the Northwest Passage and Muller's chart showed a possible strait in these latitudes, found by the Spaniard, de Fonte. When he was able to, Cook steered back towards the coast. Unbeknown to Cook, he was sailing north outside a series of islands and had already passed Queen Charlotte Island. Land was sighted on May 2nd on Prince of Wales Island, thought to have been visited by the Russian Chirikov in 1741.
The next day a mountain was observed and called Mount Edgcombe. It is on Kruzof Island, to the east of Baranof Island. Cook could see many small inlets and channels, such as Olga Strait and Salisbury Sound, and speculated about them joining up to form islands of the visible land. Cook had reached Alaska. The islands to the north were Chichagof and Yakobi where Chirikov may have landed and where some of his men may have been stranded 37 years earlier. Cape Cross and Cross Sound, seen on May 3rd, mark the northern end of the islands.
The coast had begun trending more to the northwest and a high mountain, Mount Fairweather, dominated this part of it. They were approaching the area explored by Bering and, as yet, had seen no likely Passage. Cook was having difficulty identifying features on the chart with what he could see, but on the 5th he saw another snow-covered mountain ahead that he equated with Bering's Mount St. Elias. Cook was confused though about a bay on the chart visited by Bering. Dry, Yakutat and Icy Bays were all possibilities but Yakutat Bay is most likely. A mountain overlooking Yakutat Bay is called Mount Cook.
On May 10th the Resolution and the Discovery approached some islands and a headland (called Cape Suckling by Cook after the Navy Controller). Cook was keen to repair leaks and landed briefly on the largest island but decided to sail on. He left a bottle with some coins on the island, which he called Kayes' Island but is now known as Kayak Island.
Prince William Sound.
Though the coast was now trending east-west Cook was still looking out for the Northwest Passage and on the 12th he rounded Cape Hinchingbrook to investigate a large inlet. Another map they had on board, by the Russian Stahlin, showed northward running channels linking to a northern ocean and this inlet could be such a channel. Cook put into a cove just inside the inlet and was surrounded by local people in kayaks keen to trade. The next day Cook transferred to another anchorage, Snug Corner Bay, deeper in the inlet in Port Fidalgo. Repairs were carried out as more people, a different Native American tribe from those met at Nootka, visited the ships to trade furs. Gore and Roberts rowed up the Valdez Arm to check for the Passage but returned unsuccessfully, although Roberts thought he had seen a channel.
The ships sailed on May 17th and waited off Bligh Island before heading southwest, having given up on the inlet being the Passage. Cook called the inlet Sandwich Sound but the Earl of Sandwich later changed it to Prince William Sound. Cook sailed through the Montague Strait past Green Island and between Montague Island and the mainland.
Cook Inlet and Kodiak Island.
Another large inlet presented itself on May 25th when Cook worked the ships past the Barren Islands and a headland, Cape Douglas, in towards Mount St. Augustine on the western shore (this later proved to be an island). The inlet stretched north and Cook sailed back to its eastern shore at Cape Bede and crossed Kachemak Bay to an anchorage. The ships proceeded with high hopes up the inlet past Kalgin Island and anchored off Fire Island on June 1st. These hopes were not realised as Cook was already aware that the water of the inlet was fresh and not salty so it was improbable that this was the Passage. The head of the inlet divided into two and Bligh was sent north up Knik Arm to check while Cook tried the other arm. Feeling it was a waste of time and not being prepared to spend any more time Cook called it Turnagain Arm and, with Bligh's return, decided to leave.
King landed at Possession Point, near Fire Island and buried a bottle. On the return journey south Cook nearly ran aground on shoals but by June 6th he had left the inlet tha the Earl of Sandwich later directed should be called Cook's River. George Vancouver changed it to Cook Inlet. Anchorage, at the head of Cook Inlet, has a statue of Cook in Resolution Park.
Passing the Barren Islands to be back in the open ocean, Cook was concerned that the trend of the coast was now to the southwest and, instead of being in latitude 65°N, he was now at 58°N and sailing south. Valuable time for exploring higher latitudes appeared to be disappearing quickly. He sailed to the east of land, not aware that it was a cluster of islands separated from the mainland by Shelikof Strait. The two largest islands are Kodiak Island and Afognak Island. Cook identified Bering's St. Hermogenes with Marmot Island, off Afognak Island. Fog slowed their progress as they crossed Marmot Bay between the two larger islands and passed down the coast of Kodiak Island. Sightings of land were confused and infrequent but, on June 14th , Cook was able to sail west, passing Sitkinak and Tugidak Islands. Cook called these the Trinity Islands.
Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Islands.
Cook was looking out for Bering's Foggy Island and several islands and capes loomed out of the fog but the most probable, Chirikof Island (sighted and named by Vancouver in 1794), remained unseen. Cook regained the mainland in the form of the Alaska Peninsula but there was still no passage and he was forced further south. On June 17th he came to an island where one of Bering's crew, Nikita Shumagin, had died. Bering had named it Nagai and Cook sailed between it and its neighbour, Unga, both members of the Shumagin Group.
The presence of Russians in the area was demonstrated when local people, Aleuts, approached them in kayaks and passed on notes written in Russian. Rocks and breakers forced the ships south of the Sanek Islands (Cook's Halibut Island). Fog continued to slow progress but on June 21st a volcano, Shishaldin, on Unimak Island, the first island in the Aleutian Chain was seen. After two more days Cook approached the western end of Unimak but turned back before realising there was a passage through Unimak Pass to the north. Instead he steered south of the Krenitzin Islands and on the 26th was lucky to anchor off Sedanka Island having narrowly avoided large rocks in thick fog.
The next day they changed their anchorage to one between Egg and Sedanka Islands. They sailed north through Unalga Pass before taking shelter in Samgoonoodha Harbour (English Bay) on Unalaska Island. Here they met more Aleuts, with whom they traded, before Cook sailed north out into the Bering Sea on July 2nd.
North across the Arctic Circle.
Cook departed from Samgoonoodha Harbour on Unalaska Island on July 2nd 1778 and sailed out into the Bering Sea. After several weeks' frustration in not being able to sail north, thereby losing valuable summer time for exploring above the Arctic Circle (should he reach there), Cook seemed to be back on track. He saw he could sail northeast and set a course following the coast so that for a week he traced the north side of the Alaska Peninsula. On the 9th the ships arrived at a river mouth and shallows and, as the coast turned west, Cook followed suit. Cook used the name Bristol for the river and the bay into which it flows but the river is now called the Kvichak.
The ships continued past the Walrus and Round Islands and sighted Calm Point on Hagemeister Island on July 13th before stopping near a headland. Cook sent Williamson ashore to climb it, Cape Newenham, from where he could see the coastline, stretching to the north. Cook attempted to sail north into Kuskokwim Bay but shoals prevented him doing so and he turned west past Nunivak Island.
On July 29th the Resolution and the Discovery neared the island of St. Matthew in the Bering Sea. While Cook did have maps on board he was not happy with their accuracy and mistakenly called the island Bird Island. The ships then headed northeast but there was sadness on August 3rd when the surgeon, and one of Cook's favourites, William Anderson, died. Shortly after, another island was sighted that Cook, unsure of his position, called Anderson Island (it was Bering's St. Lawrence Island). Sailing on, they approached the Alaskan shore and anchored near a small island on the 5th. Going ashore, they found a sledge, which gave the island its name, Sledge Island.
Following the coast northwards past Cape Rodney and King Island the ships came to Bering Strait on August 8th. Cook called the westernmost point of America (unseen by Bering) Cape Prince of Wales before passing the Diomede Islands to reach the Asian Coast. The ships worked southwest to an inlet, St. Lawrence Bay, where Cook landed for a few hours and met some of the local Chukchi people. Returning to sea Cook sailed back through the Bering Strait on August 11th past the East Cape (Cape Dezhneva) of Asia into the Chukchi Sea and the Arctic Ocean. He headed northeast to Alaska and came to the coast again near the Mulgrave Hills.
In increasingly cold conditions they sailed north and round Cape Lisburne hoping to find the Northwest Passage but on August 18th near Icy Cape and at 70°44'N ice fields stopped their progress. Cook turned and, for ten days, he sailed west across the Arctic Ocean but the ice prevented any attempts to go any further north. Cook had not found the Northwest Passage but he was probably the first person to have crossed both the 70° lines of latitude.
Back to Unalaska.
On the 29th Cape Shmidta on the Asian mainland was sighted and Cook turned south to return to the Bering Strait, keeping close to the coastline. He had decided that the summer was nearly over and conditions would only worsen and not allow any more exploration. They noted the lagoons and capes along the North side of the Chukotskiy Peninsula before they rounded East Cape on September 2nd. Keeping close to the Asia shore the ships passed St. Lawrence Bay and Cape Chukotskiy before heading southeast. On the 5th they came to St. Lawrence Island but once again Cook did not equate it with Bering's island or even with his own Anderson Island of a month earlier. He now called it Clerke's Island.
Sailing on, Cook headed east, possibly to have a final search for the Passage in that part of the Alaskan coast he had not already investigated. On September 8th the ships passed to the south of Cape Darby and entered a large bay. This was Norton Bay, the inner part of Norton Sound. Cook anchored in two places, near Capes Darby and Denbigh, and he went ashore. He sent parties to explore possible "passages" such as Koyuk River. They met local people at Shaktoolik.
By now Cook despaired of the Russian maps he was using and decided to sail south to winter in the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands. He sailed south on the 17th round Norton Sound and past Cape Stephens and Stuart Island into waters that shoaled. Cook decided to give them a wide berth and sailed west thus avoiding the shallows off the Yukon Delta that protrudes out into the Bering Sea. He sighted a point to the south and named it Point Shallow Water (probably Cape Romanov).
On September 20th they were off St. Lawrence Island yet again and also sighted the Punuk Islets off its eastern cape. They tried unsuccessfully to land. Three days later they were back at St. Matthew Island (Cook now called it Gore's Island) where they saw and named the nearby Hall Island and Pinnacle Rocks.
They pressed on and after four gruelling months in Arctic waters Cook arrived back at Unalaska on October 2nd. They entered Unalaska Bay on the north coast where the Russians had a post at Dutch Harbour/Unalaska but Cook left straight away without attempting contact. He moved back to Samgoonoodha at the eastern end of the island. Work began refitting both ships. Notes in Russian were received and on the 8th Cook sent John Ledyard to Unalaska to make enquiries. Ledyard returned with three Russians with whom communication was possible if difficult. Another Russian, the Factor Gerassim Gregoriev Ismailov, came with charts from which Cook made copies, especially of the Aleutian Islands. Cook pointed out the errors in Muller's and Stahlin's maps that he had been using. Ismailov gave Cook letters of introduction to the Governor of Kamchatka while Cook wrote a letter to the Admiralty, which he asked Ismailov to forward across Russia (it reached London!).
South to Hawaii.
Ismailov left on October 21st and Cook sailed on the 26th. Cook sailed west to check his recently acquired information but terrible weather and high seas stopped him. He could just see Umnak Island when, on the 29th near Bogoslof Islet, Cook turned and, having passed Unalska Island again, sailed through Unalga Pass out into the Pacific. The ships headed south and on November 26th, after an uneventful passage, they were off the coast of Maui in the Hawaiian Islands.
The Resolution and the Discovery sailed along the north coast of Maui to stand off Kahulu from where many canoes came to visit the ships. After moving east to be near the northeast point of the island, Cook was visited by Kalani'opu'u, the King of the Island of Hawaii, and by Kamehameha, the future King of the whole Hawaiian chain.
Cook decided to visit Hawaii Island and as he approached Opolu Point on December 1st he could see the snow-covered volcano of Mauna Kea. For unknown reasons Cook now began a slow clockwise circumnavigation of the island without trying to land, even though the ships were leaking. The nature of the coast made it hard to land and strong winds made it difficult for the ships to stay together. They had reached Cape Kumukahi, the easternmost point on the island, by December 19th only to be forced back north. Working their way south they rounded the south of the island in early January 1779, passing Ka Lae on the 5th. Reaching the West Coast they sailed north before Cook asked Bligh to sound a large bay that might prove an anchorage. Bligh reported favourably, and on January 17th the Resolution and the Discovery anchored in Kealakekua Bay. The ships' crews were all very tired and more than ready to go ashore. They had not understood why Cook had skirted the island for six weeks without landing.
The reception by the Hawaiians remains a topic for speculation and debate by American academics. They continue to argue as to whether Cook was regarded as a God by the Hawaiian people. Certainly the ships were greeted by a flotilla of over 1000 canoes and Cook was welcomed ashore by Chiefs Palea and Kanina and the Priests Koaa and Keli'ikea in a ceremony at Hikiau Heiau. Cook arrived at the time of Makahiki, a part of the year associated with the Hawaiian God Lono, and, while people accorded Cook a special status and treated him with reverence, the debate exists as to whether Cook was actually equated with Lono.
Land near the heiau was acquired for an observatory and as a work area for repairs. Relations were most cordial and trade was brisk. On January 25th King Kalani'opu'u appeared (Cook had met him off Maui) and settled at Kaawaloa across the bay. Gifts were exchanged the next day near the heiau at Napoopoo.
Things began to deteriorate on February 1st. Relations were seriously harmed by members of crew not respecting local religious sensibilities when, collecting firewood, they took fence posts and wooden carvings from the heiau. Then William Watman, a sailor, died and was buried near the heiau, showing the mortality of the Europeans.
Cook realised it was time to leave and did so on February 4th. They were escorted by canoes and the Priest Koaa came on board to sail with them. Before they had cleared the north of the island gales began and Bligh took Koaa ashore in Kaiwaihoe Bay. The gales continued and broke the Resolution's mast, forcing Cook to return, reluctantly, to Kealakekua Bay where Kamehameha received him on the 11th.
Their reception this time was not so warm. The British had already overstayed their welcome and King Kalani'upu'u made known his displeasure at the return. Relations were now strained and incidents began to happen. Thieving became more frequent and shore parties were harrassed. After one incident Cook went ashore at Kaawaloa early in the morning of February 14th, intending to take the King hostage. Before Cook could return to his ship a fight broke out on the foreshore in which he, four marines and several Hawaiians died.
Charles Clerke assumed command of the Resolution with Gore switching to take charge of the Discovery. Everyone was in a state of shock but Clerke quickly decided to take no reprisals, instead concentrating on recovering the remains of Cook and the marines. Cook had been dismembered and his body parts distributed to various people so their retrieval took time. The Priest Koaa acted as an intermediary and, on the 20th , some parts of Cook were handed over. The parts included the hand burned 16 years earlier in Newfoundland, which acted as a proof of identity. Cook was buried in the waters of Kealakekua Bay on February 21st and the ships sailed the next day. Relations between the two sides were largely restored.