A Voyage to the North West Side of America

Book excerpt: James Colnett, a veteran of James Cook's second voyage to North America, was an early participant in the maritime sea otter trade. Between 1786 and 1789 his two-vessel expedition traversed the Northwest Coast from Prince William Sound to Vancouver Island and wintered on the Hawaiian Islands. Along the way, he and his crew had some remarkable encounters with Native peoples of the Northwest Coast and the Hawaiian Islands: they were the first Europeans to encounter the Tsimshian and the southern Heiltsuk peoples as well as the first to land on the southern Queen Charlotte Islands. Colnett's journal of this expedition is published here for the first time. Editor Robert Galois provides extensive annotations, along with an introductory essay addressing the geopolitical context of the voyage and the intellectual background that shaped the writing of the journal. Galois supplements Colnett's writings with extracts from a second journal -- also previously unpublished -- by Andrew Bracey Taylor, third mate on one of the ships under Colnett's command. Also included are illustrations from Colnett's journals and a variety of maps, both contemporary and historical. This fascinating and informative account offers a new understanding of the early European presence in the Northwest and of Native responses to these developments. It will interest historians, geographers, and ethnographers of the Northwest Coast and beyond.