To Go Upon Discovery: James Cook and Canada, from 1758 to 1779

Olaf Uwe Janzen is an associate professor of history at Memorial
University, reviews editor of The Northern Mariner, and the editor of
Northern Seas.

Best known to Canadian readers as an author of naval fiction, Victor
Suthren turns his attention in this book to history. His purpose is to
examine the “Canadian” career of cartographer and explorer James
Cook, and to demonstrate that the years Cook spent in the coastal waters
of Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Newfoundland between 1758 and 1767 were
instrumental in cultivating his skills as a master surveyor,
cartographer, and naval commander—skills that led to his appointment
to command the three exploratory expeditions into the Pacific for which
he is most widely known.

The argument is presented convincingly, but readers should recognize
that, notwithstanding the debt he acknowledges to the Public Record
Office and the National Archives of Canada, Suthren bases his
interpretation almost entirely on secondary sources—and, too often,
not the best or the most recent. Thus, his account of the campaign
against Quebec in 1759 draws heavily from Gordon Donaldson’s
derivative account; works by naval historians like Julian Corbett,
Gerald Graham, Julian Gwyn, and others were not used. This may explain
the presence of comments and conclusions that recent revisions have
qualified or challenged, as when Suthren accepts without qualification
the view that Louisbourg was the “key to the continent” and served
the French navy as a base (a term never defined or demonstrated), or
concludes that Cook named the islands in Newfoundland’s Bay of
Islands.

Greater familiarity with the literature might also have avoided the
consistent misspelling of the name of William Whiteley, to whose
publications Suthren turns for material in his treatment of Cook’s
Newfoundland service. Such inaccuracies are a shame, for Suthren
presents a good tale from an intriguing Canadian perspective. And by
bringing to bear his gift as a storyteller and his extensive experience
at sailing traditional sailing vessels, Suthren makes Cook’s nautical
world come alive. One can only wonder how much better this book might
have been had its author utilized better resources.