Later in Macau and Canton, Cook's men discovered a potentially lucrative trade in the sea-otter pelts they had obtained on the NW Coast. He spent nearly a month at Nootka Sound before continuing northward to Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. Cook was to search for a Northwest Passage and to explore the unknown coastline. In 1777-78, James COOK crossed the Pacific via the Sandwich Islands to the NW Coast. The challenge to Spain came from Britain rather than Russia. Spain dispatched another major expedition in 1779, but government secrecy prevented information on the NW Coast from reaching the public. Bodega y Quadra reached about 58☃0´ N lat and discovered Bucareli Bay, Prince of Wales Island. In 1775 a new expedition under Bruno de Hezeta and Juan Francisco de la BODEGA Y QUADRA sailed northwards to investigate the Russian presence. He touched at Haida Gwaii and at Nootka Sound (Vancouver Island) but did not land to take possession for Spain. In 1774 Juan PÉREZ HERNÀNDEZ reached about 55° N. Rumours of this activity impelled the Spanish Crown to order voyages northwards from Mexico. Russian expansion into Siberia resulted in expeditions by Vitus BERING to Bering Strait (1728) and in 1741 by Bering and Aleksei Chirikov to the Northwest Coast around 55° N latitude. Although one Spanish transpacific galleon crashed at present-day Nehalem Bay, Ore, in the latter 17th century, none of its crew survived to carry word back to Mexico.ĭuring the 18th century interest grew in the unexplored North Pacific. Until the 18th century, however, Spain was occupied with its earlier conquests and remained content to claim rather than to explore the coastline. In 1602 Sebastian Vizcaíno discovered Monterey Bay for Spain and sailed to about 43° N lat. In 1579 Francis DRAKE may have reached 48° N lat before returning southward to the approximate latitude of present-day San Francisco and then crossing the Pacific, but his exact northernmost location remains a matter of conjecture. Apocryphal voyages by Lorenzo Ferrer Maldonado (1588), Juan de FUCA (1592) and Bartholomew de Fonte (1640) confused cartographers, who prepared charts bearing no resemblance to reality. Distance, the limitations of shipbuilding technology and Spain's jealous control over most of the North and South American littoral prevented intrusion by all but the most hardy. Despite the attractions of the North Pacific as the western end of a possible NORTHWEST PASSAGE, the region remained isolated. The NW Coast was one of the last temperate ocean frontiers to be explored and settled by Europeans. Warmed by the North Pacific Current and deluged along most of its length by heavy annual precipitation, the NW Coast produces dense coniferous forests and abundant vegetation. Along this narrow coastal belt the Indians developed high levels of civilization based upon the sea's plentiful resources. Modern anthropologists identify the native culture of the NW Coast as that, within rough limits, between Yakutat Bay, southeastern Alaska, and Trinidad Bay or Cape Mendocino, Calif. The Northwest Coast was the name given by 18th-century navigators and traders to the great arc of Pacific coast and offshore islands stretching from present-day northern California to an ill-defined point along the Alaska coast - at Prince William Sound or even Cook Inlet.
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