Cook comes to Canada

Captain James Cook first came to Canada during the Seven Years War, arriving at Halifax, Nova Scotia aboard the Pembroke and taking part in the blockade of Louisburg, where he met army surveyor-engineer Samuel Holland and learned surveying, chart making, and the use of the plane table. In 1759, Cook and Holland charted the St. Lawrence River during the British advance on Quebec, and after Quebec fell Cook continued developing his skills in Halifax before joining the effort to retake St. John’s, Newfoundland from the French. After the 1763 Paris Treaty recognized British sovereignty over Newfoundland while preserving French fishing rights in part of the region and granting St. Pierre and Miquelon to France for its fishermen, Cook was assigned in his first official role as Surveyor to chart Newfoundland. Over the next five years, from 1763 to 1767, he surveyed the island from north to south and then along the west coast, producing remarkably precise coastal charts and detailed logs of conditions and supplies that remained useful for hundreds of years and helped secure navigation and regulate fishing. His work established the precision of land surveying as an integral part of coastal chart making, and his scientific interests expanded to include astronomy, including an observation of a solar eclipse in the Burgeo Islands that brought him to the attention of the Royal Society. In 1768, instead of returning to Newfoundland, Cook was chosen to lead the voyage to Tahiti because his naval, surveying, and astronomical abilities and his Newfoundland experience made him the ideal candidate, and he went on to explore Tahiti, Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii.

Newfoundland and Labrador · Canada