Page:The Pacific Monthly volumes 1-3.djvu/23



Vol. I

HE earlier exploration of the northwest coast of America was made first in the interests of commerce. The wonderful discovery of Columbus produced such an excitement of adventure that in the thirty years succeeding that momentous event the whole world had been circumnavigated by Magellan, and the entire eastern coast of America, from Greenland to Cape Horn, explored, and the Pacific ocean discovered and navigated. The investigation of our subject carries us backward over the lapse of time and through the vistas of many years while tracing the trackless pathways of the intrepid navigators of old.

The only monuments and mile-stones left to mark those devious paths are the great capes, islands and rocks along the shores, the rivers, waterways and sounds, and, towering above them all, the glistening ice-clad peaks, set like jewels on the mountain summits, piercing the sky, and often visible from the decks of their small but venturesome vessels.

The northwest coast of America was discovered by that marine marauder, Sir Francis Drake, who made a landing in latitude 48 degrees, on the coast of Washington, in the year 1558.

The mythical Juan de Fuca, said to be a Greek pilot with one of the Spanish navigators, made a survey of the coast as far as latitude 55 degrees north, and, at all events, the great strait between Washington and British Columbia bears his name.

Among the early navigators who visited the coast were La Perouse, Mofras, Cook, Meares, Portlock, Viscaino, Lesiansky, Heceta, Quadra, Vancouver, and many others. Many of these expeditions were sent out for purposes of trade and barter in furs with the native tribes, or in the vague hope of conquest or gold.

That greatest of navigators, Captain James Cook, in the year 1778, while attempting to realize the dream of explorers and crowned heads, the discovery of a northwest passage through the continent of America, as a short route to the East Indies, sailed along the coast, and named the most prominent capes as far as Cook's inlet, in Alaska, in 60 degrees north latitude. In 1792-4, Captain George Vancouver, of the British navy, in two vessels, the Discovery and the Chatham, made a complete survey of the coast, from California to Alaska, and in his endeavors to find the hypothetical northwest passage pushed his surveys into every inlet penetrating the continent, until satisfied that a passage did not exist. To him, more than to any other of the old navigators, we owe the prominent names of the coast, from Puget sound, through the devious passages of British America and Alaska, to Cook's inlet. In naming the many places he visited, the noble families of princes, dukes, ambassadors, lords of the navy, brother officers and friends have all been remembered and their names perpetuated for ages to come.

Vancouver had been a midshipman under Captain Cook in his first voyages, and was a very industrious and most accomplished navigator. Vancouver did not discover the Columbia river, but, having