Context: Captain Cook, Resolution Cove, April 1778. Citation: Doe, N.A., Kayaking to Resolution Cove SILT 10, 2014. <www.nickdoe.ca/pdfs/Webp311c.pdf>. Accessed 2014 Jun 13. NOTE: Adjust the accessed date as needed. Copyright restrictions: Copyright © 2014. No reproduction without permission. Date posted: June 13, 2014. Author: Nick Doe, 1787 El Verano Drive, Gabriola, BC, Canada V0R 1X6 Phone: 250-247-7858 E-mail: [email protected] Kayaking to Resolution Cove …the tale of a visit by two Gabriolans to Resolution Cove in Nootka Sound on August 15–17, 1995, and their discovery of the exact location of Captain Cook’s observatories, and of several of the viewpoints of the artists on the 1778 expedition. Nick Doe with Jenni Gehlbach In the last days of March 1778, the British Spain (Alejandro Malaspina), the French naval ships Resolution and Discovery under Revolution, Malaspina’s political troubles, the overall command of Captain James and the subsequent Napoleonic wars of the Cook, anchored in a small cove on the west early-19th century detracted attention from coast of Vancouver Island.1 They were not the work of the continental Europeans. the first ocean-going vessels to have visited Even today, the part played by the Spanish Canada’s Pacific coast. A Spanish vessel, scientists on the coast is not widely known.3 the Santiago, had anchored off the entrance Cook’s visit, unlike the later one of Captain to Nootka Sound in 1774, and another, the Vancouver, was still within the European Sonora had made a fleeting passage in 1775, Age of Enlightenment, and it is not difficult, but on neither of the previous occasions had more than two-hundred years later, to sense the visitors made even a brief landing, far the enthusiasm and the curiosity with which less had an opportunity for making, as artists and scientists took out their notebooks Captain Vancouver was later to put it, and began their sketches and observations, “…miscellaneous observations as would be “…free from the notion that ancient very acceptable to the curious…”. authority alone was sufficient to describe or The events of Cook’s sojourn in Nootka explain the natural world”. Sound from March 31 to April 26, 1778, are well-enough known, although inevitably Resolution Cove comment has tended to focus on what was If the original intent of Cook’s landing at only the second contact between Europeans Resolution Cove was to recuperate from his and any of the Nuu-chah-nulth. Thanks to Pacific crossing from Hawaii and his the work of John Webber and William Ellis, subsequent battle against westerly gales, Cook’s visit is as well illustrated as it is well 2 vicious squalls, and the rain and fog of the documented. Oregon and Washington coasts, he could Although there were similar expeditions scarcely have made a better choice than from France (Compte de la Pérouse) and Nootka Sound. He was greeted cordially by the Mowachat and Muchalaht who traded 1 Beaglehole, J.C. (ed.), The Journals of Captain freely with the crew, and there was an ample James Cook— The Voyage of the Resolution and supply of freshwater and building materials Discovery 1776−1780, pp.294–334, Hakluyt Society, Cambridge University Press, 1967. to replace the Resolution’s rotted mizzen- 2 Joppien, Rüdiger & Smith, Bernard, The Art of Captain Cook’s Voyages— The Voyage of the 3 Engstrand, Iris H.W., Spanish Scientists in the Resolution and Discovery 1776-1780, pp.80–98 and New World—The Eighteenth Century Expeditions, Volume 3 (catalogue) pp.433–469, Yale University Seattle and London, University of Washington Press, Press, Volume 3 (text), 1988. 1981. SILT 10, June 2014 1 Kayaking to Resolution Cove Nick Doe & Jenni Gehlbach mast and to refurbish the fore-mast, neither winds before, early one morning, making a of which was in any condition to be used for “now-or-never”, rather lively passage across the planned voyage to Alaska in search of a the entrance of the sound to the Hesquiat northwest passage. Peninsula, just south of Burdwood Point. Although the cove, which Cook knew just as Another few days were spent on this seldom “Ship Cove”, offered an indifferent visited, invigoratingly surfy coastline, before anchorage—it is rarely used today—he was we grabbed another brief break in the somewhat protected from both the deep- sometimes-rainy, sometimes-sunny, but ocean swells and the sometimes over- frequently blustery weather, and headed zealous attentions of the inhabitants of the back north toward the shelter of the Zuciarte settlement at Yuquot, now more general l y Channel, Bligh Island, and Resolution Cove known as Friendly Cove (Figure 1). (Figure 2). A 20th-century approach Approaching the cove Our own visit to Resolution Cove began—if Figure 3 shows the kayaker’s view of the trips like this can be said to have a defined approach to Resolution Cove from the open beginning—in Gold River. There we ocean. The low-lying forested land ahead is rendez-vous’ed with the m/v Uchuck III, the southernmost shore of Bligh Island. The which sails every week between Gold River channel on the right is the Zuciarte Channel and Tahsis with supplies for logging and which divides the Clerke Peninsula of Bligh fishing camps around the sound. In August, Island from Vancouver Island proper. All of there’s always someone wanting to go out the mountains in the background are at the to, or return from Yuquot, so the ship swings head of the sound on Vancouver Island. around the south end of Bligh Island instead If we were looking for an early indication of going straight through the Hanna Channel that we were headed to the right place, we to Tahsis. We arranged to be dropped off— sadly missed the mark. Although we did not literally—near Friendly Cove.4 realize it until much later when we were After a visit to the church (originally back home, the triangular-shaped peak on Catholic, but now an Aboriginal cultural the skyline, just left of centre in the centre in the making), lighthouse (manned), photograph, together with the mountains and and the old and historic Mowachaht village ridges to its right were the model for several (now mostly without houses and uninhabited works by both John Webber and William except for a caretaker family), we made Ellis. What fooled us, was the exaggerated camp in Santa Gertrudis Cove for a few vertical scale in the artists’ work. The mountains are much further away than they days. There, among other activities, we 5 carefully observed the daily pattern of the appear to be in their drawings. Added to this is the fact that you can’t actually see these mountains from everywhere within the 4 To discharge kayaks at sea, the Uchuck crew puts cove, and then only if the weather is fine. the loaded kayak, complete with paddler, on to a pallet, which they then swing over the side and down into the water with the ship’s derrick. Experienced paddlers of course always remember to smile for the 5 cameras up on the deck while simultaneously freeing Joppien, Rüdiger & Smith, Bernard, ibid, p.82 and themselves from the pallet and wrestling with the pp.434–436. swell. 2 SILT 10, June 2014 Nick Doe & Jenni Gehlbach Kayaking to Resolution Cove Figure 1: The location of Resolution Cove on a modern chart (CHS 3664). The change in name from Ship Cove to Resolution Cove was made by the British Hydrographic Office ca. 1849. Nootka Sound, which Cook called “King George’s Sound”, is about half-way between the entrance to the Juan de Fuca Strait and Cape Scott at the northern end of Vancouver Island. Resolution Cove is just around the eastern side of the southern tip of Bligh Island at latitude 49°36.4'N, longitude 126°31.9'W. It is three and a half nautical miles from Friendly Cove (Yuquot). SILT 10, June 2014 3 Kayaking to Resolution Cove Nick Doe & Jenni Gehlbach Figure 2: Resolution Cove from Thomas Edgar’s log. Several charts and sketches of Nootka Sound from the Cook expedition have survived,1 the most interesting of which for our purposes is a small sketch of Resolution Cove found in the log of Thomas Edgar, sailing master of the Discovery.2 A computer-enhanced version of this is shown here. It is oriented to magnetic north, and so must be rotated 19º49′ clockwise (according to Cook) to compare it with a modern chart. Annotations in the original are W. point, Watering place, Observatory Rock, Watering place, and N. point. 1. David, Andrew (chief ed.), The Charts and Coastal Views of Captain Cook’s Voyages, pp.151−162, Hakluyt Society, 1997. 2. PRO Adm55/21, f.153. Shown in David, Andrew, ibid, p.162. 4 SILT 10, June 2014 Nick Doe & Jenni Gehlbach Kayaking to Resolution Cove Figure 3. The kayaker’s view of the approach to Resolution Cove from the open ocean. The low- lying forested land ahead is the southernmost shore of Bligh Island (Clerke Peninsula). The channel on the right is the Zuciarte Channel which divides Bligh Island from Vancouver Island. All of the mountains in the background are on Vancouver Island at the head of Nootka Sound. Figure 4. Approaching the southwest point of Resolution Cove. It was known to some of Cook ’s crew as the (geographic) South Point, and by others as the (magnetic) West Point. SILT 10, June 2014 5 Kayaking to Resolution Cove Nick Doe & Jenni Gehlbach Figure 5. William Ellis, Mountainous Landscape, Ship Cove.