Cook in Alaska

I recently had an opportunity to pop up to Anchorage visit one of my sisters. It was the first weekend of April, spring had just about started to think about beginning in Alaska. The weather was clear and beautiful, I saw the Northern Lights, but more importantly I took my camera along and visited some Cook related sites: Resolution Park and the Anchorage Museum.

In 1778, Captain Cook was looking for a "Northwest Passage" connecting the Atlantic and Pacific. At that time, the only way to sail from Europe to China and India was either around Cape Hope (at the southern tip of Africa- a long voyage), or the quicker around the Horn of South America- a perilous journey at best, not at all suited for trade.

Here is a map dated 1714 of the Northwest coast- notice that not much was known!

Quoted from Museum Display:

Native trade existed across the Bering Strait for many centuries before the first Europeans arrived in the 17th century. In 1648 a Cossack named Simon Dezhnev sailed through the Strait, proving that Asia and America were separate continents. Peter the Great, who transformed Russia into a modern European state, sent Vitus Bering to explore the area. Bering confirmed Dezhnev's findings in 1728. In 1732 navigator Mikhail Gvozdev discovered the American mainland. Bering headed east again, with Alexei Chirikov second in command. After exploring northeast Siberia, they build two vessels and set sail in 1741. Their ships became separated; Chirikov reached Prince of Wales Island, and Bering sighted Mount St. Elias and Kayak Island. During the return voyage many men died of scurvy. Bering's St. Peter was wrecked on Bering Island where he died. The survivors reached Kamchatka the next year, with valuable sea otter pelts collected during their voyage. When the news reached Siberia, fur hunters rushed to the Aleutian Islands, pushing eastward toward the mainland.

Spain was alarmed, and sent exploratory expeditions north from San Blas, Mexico. Juan Perez saw the southern tip of Alaska in 1774. The next summer, Juan Bodega y Cuadra sailed as far as present Sitka. In 1779 Bodega and Ignacio Arteaga reached Cook Inlet. A final voyage was made by Alessandro Malaspina in 1791. The first British expedition to the North Pacific was that of Captain James Cook, searching in 1778 for the fabled Northwest Passage. He also visited Russians at Unalaska and traded with natives, obtaining furs that spurred interest among British merchants. France sent a scientific expedition in 1786 under Jean de La Perouse, which made observations in and near Lituya Bay. In 1793 and 1794 George Vancouver charted the Northwest Coast accurately for the first time. By 1800 trading vessels of many nations were active in Alaskan waters.

Resolution Park is situated at the edge of "downtown" Anchorage, near the Captain Cook Hotel, overlooking the Cook Inlet with Mt. Susitna in the background. There is a statue and a couple of plaques, and a walkway to the shore (which was closed when I was there in April- still lots of snow and ice.)

Two events destined to change the history of the world took place in the first week of July 1776.

On the fourth day of July, the Representatives of the United States of America, in general congress assembled at Philadelphia, declared their independence from Great Britain, setting out upon a course of constitutional government which would carry a new concept of personal and political freedom from the east coast of North America to the western shores of the continent.

In the same July week, Captain James Cook, Royal Navy, took command of two ships in Plymouth Harbor, England. He sailed forth with orders to chart the vast reaches of the Pacific Ocean and to find a northwest passage from Europe to Asia around the top of the western hemisphere.

His voyages of discovery and scientific survey ranged from the Antarctic to Australasia; from the South Seas and Hawaii to Arctic Alaska. Captain Cook opened the world of the Pacific to the modern era of global navigation and commerce.

On the first day of June, having sailed north along the American coast in search of the northwest passage, the ships "Resolution" and "Discovery" commanded by Captain Cook, lay at anchor in the bay below.

Having charted the waters and coast of the main channel, Captain Cook dispatched two boats to examine the arm leading toward the east, and called it River Turnagain, convinced now that no passage to the Atlantic existed here.

Documents claiming possession of the land in the name of the King, together with some coins, were sealed in a bottle and buried at Point Possession, 20 miles south of this park on the Kenai Peninsula.

The majestic waterway, stretching from this point 150 miles to the open sea, was chosen by the admiralty to commemorate England's greatest navigator, and thenceforth bears the name Cook Inlet.

Anchorage Bicentennial Commission
1976

That's what it says on the plaque- I have a couple bones to pick with the grammar and spelling!

And here is the man himself!

James Cook was born in Yorkshire, England, on October 27, 1728. He was apprenticed to serve on sailing ships built in Whitby, near his birth-place, to carry coal along the English coast. At age 26, he joined the Royal Navy, took part in actions against France and, through his natural flair for mathematics and science, was promoted "King's Surveyor" and given command of vessels performing survey work on the coast of Newfoundland. Chosen as commander to lead an expedition of discovery to the Pacific Ocean, he sailed on his first voyage of exploration (1768-71) to find the continent of Australia as well as Tahiti, New Zealand and New Guinea where he charted coasts and waters previously unknown to the Western World. On his return, he was honored by a grateful nation, made a Fellow of the Royal Society, and received by the King.

His second voyage (1772-75) to Antarctic and the South Pacific added the Friendly Isles, New Caledonia, Easter Island, Cook Island and New Georgia to the map.

In 1776, Captain Cook set out on his third voyage, aboard his flagship "Resolution", to find a north-west passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic. He surveyed the coast of northwest America and Alaska, but, failing to find the passage to the Atlantic, turned south from the Bering Strait and sailed to the Sandwich Isles where, on the Island of Hawaii he met his death on February 14, 1779.

James Cook, a farm hand's son who became a Captain in the Royal Navy and gold medallist of the Royal Society, lives in history as the greatest explorer-navigator the world has known. His real memorial is on the map of the world.

This monument, created by Derek Freeborn after the statue in Whitby, where James Cook began his career as a seaman, was donated by The British Petroleum Company as a contribution to the Bicentennial celebration of the United States of America.

Here is the plaque on the statue, text at left.

That about wraps it up for the Alaskan part of Cook's legacy. The bottle of coins buried at Point Possession has never been found (that's what we're looking for)!