James Cook's expedition, 1776–78
| Dates | Explorer | Ships | Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1776–78 | James Cook | Discovery,
Resolution |
• Charted much of the Pacific Coast of North America
• Murder of Europe’s most celebrated explorer |
Background to the voyage
By 1775 James Cook, the most celebrated European navigator of the 18th century, had retired from exploration and held the post of captain at Greenwich Hospital. However, he was persuaded that the prize of the North-West Passage might be claimed by approaching the problem from the Pacific (west) coast.
Hearne’s overland journey had established a passage could not lie through the North American continent, but might lie around it. In addition the publication of a Russian map by Jacob von Stählin showed Alaska as an island (with a wide strait between it and America through which ships could sail north).
Cook’s journey was, in many ways, one of the greatest journeys of exploration ever made. During it he discovered the Hawaiian Islands and charted swathes of the North American Pacific coastline, but the North-West Passage was not to be found and Cook himself would never see England again.
No strait to be found
Hoping to find the strait indicated by the Russian map Cook, along with Captain Charles Clerke, took the Discovery and Resolution up the Pacific coast of North America. However, the strait could not be found. This is unsurprising to us now, as we know no such waterway exists. In his journal Cook wondered what could induce von Stählin ‘to publish a map so singularly erroneous?’ He continued: ‘Indeed, it is a map to which the most illiterate of his illiterate seafaring countrymen would have been ashamed to set his name’.
Cook's death
The expedition carried the ships round the Alaskan peninsula and through the Bering strait where they turned east, the crew optimistic they would sail from here to the Atlantic. It was not to be. In mid-August they were halted by impenetrable ice (at Icy Cape) and were forced to turn back. By October they had reach Hawaii where, in an argument with the natives, Cook was murdered on St Valentines Day, 1779. Captain Clerke took command of the Discovery and Resolution and returned to the Arctic to continue the search for the passage. He too would never see England again and died of consumption. A Lieutenant Gore finally brought the ships home.
George Vancouver's voyage, 1791–95
One of the men on Cook’s final voyage, George Vancouver, would lead later attempts to find the North-West Passage, approaching from the Pacific. On a voyage lasting from 1791–95 Vancouver surveyed many channels and inlets on the west coast of today’s Canada. Upon finding no navigable waterways at temperate latitudes (i.e. those not hampered by ice) he was forced to conclude that if any passage did exist it must be much further north, and thereby, by virtue of polar ice, an impractical proposition. The search for the Passage was, to many, effectively over.
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