Sailing with Vancouver: A Modern Sea Dog, Antique Chartes, and a Voyage Through Time

Ann Turner is the financial and budget manager of the University of
British Columbia Library.

What better way to understand and appreciate the accomplishments of
Captain George Vancouver than to retrace his voyage of exploration in
the “Inland Sea” (his name for the waterway comprising Puget Sound,
the Strait of Georgia, and Queen Charlotte Strait)? Vancouver was there
with his two ships Discovery and Chatham to survey and chart the
coastline and to find the Northwest Passage, if one existed. Sam
McKinney, a marine researcher and journalist, went there in his own
small sailboat to follow the same route at the same time of year, guided
by Vancouver’s own chart and journals, observing what Vancouver might
have seen en route, and experiencing conditions at sea and ashore as
Vancouver and his crew would have done. His own excursions to the
communities that now occupy the shoreline were to bring him up to date
with developments over the past 200 years as he followed in the wake of
Vancouver’s ships from the entrance to Juan de Fuca Strait to Cape
Caution on the mainland opposite the north end of Vancouver Island.
Along the way he considered whether he would have wanted to be part of
the original expedition, and why. The answer is yes, and his voyage of
historical and self-exploration makes interesting and thoughtful
reading. A glossary of “Seascape Names” in British Columbia and
Washington State gives the derivation of many place names in the area
and their history.