In 1774, Spanish Captain Juan Perez sailed north from San Blas under orders from Spain to claim the coast against the Russians. He discovered Nootka Sound on the west shore of Vancouver Island and traded with the natives of the Queen Charlottes. On August 11, 1774, he sighted a snow peak towering high and afar from a rock-bound coast and named it Sierra Nevada de Santa Rosalia. Four years later, British Captain John Meares became the second explorer to observe the peak, naming it Mt. Olympus and putting it on the map forever.