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Explorers of Canada, Part XXVI: George Vancouver

© David Newman

George Vancouver gave his name to Canada's third largest urban centre, to a large British Columbian Island and to a town in the United States. George Vancouver himself was an explorer of the West Coast of North America, where he left his trace.

George Vancouver was born at King's Lynn in Norfolk, England, on June 22, 1757. When he reached the age of fifteen he enlisted into the Royal Navy at the rank of sailor. He sailed on the second and third voyages of the famous Captain James Cook, in the Pacific Ocean, during the seventies (1770s!). He later made a trip to the West Indies under Admiral George Rodney as a midshipman.

His naval and military past (there was some sort of fighting in the West Indies at the time, which he took part in) established he was ready to do his own thing. In 1790 he was asked by the British Government to settle the dispute at Nootka Sound (British Columbia) which the Spaniards and the English both claimed. That and look for a something called the North West Passage. He became Commander of the British ship Discovery.

He eventually convinced the Spanish to give it back. He began to chart the waters of the Pacific (well, actually the coastlines). During his charting he was the first to prove that Vancouver Island was actually an Island. He finished charting the Pacific coast after three years and concluded that the North West Passage didn't exist (he wasn't the first to lay that claim or the counter-claim, and not the last either).

During this time he also had the opportunity to discover the Columbia but refused to believe American Captain Robert Gray who had tried to get to a great river (but a sandbar blocked him). Later Robert Gray manged to pass the sandbar and named the river after his ship and claimed it for the young United States.

Yet a few days after being told about it by Gray, Vancouver received Gray's charts and sent the Chatham (the Discovery couldn't get past the sandbar) down the Columbia, and his lieutenant named Point Vancouver and Mount Hood.

Vancouver published, in 1798, his charts and his accounts in his book A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean, and Round the World. (Long titles were the style in the day; see other explorers to know what I mean.) The American team of Lewis and Clark stole (well, copied) the charts for the trek across the continent.