Third Voyage
July 12, 1776 - October 1780

Route map Copyright/Source

The purpose of James Cook's third voyage was to find the fabled Northwest Passage. Many explorers had tried unsuccessfully to find the Passage from the Atlantic side. Cook's expedition, however, would approach it from the Pacific side.

Cook was now 47 years old and had some health problems. He had never explored Northern waters and had to rely on inaccurate maps drawn by Russian explorers. He took two ships, HMS Resolution (from his second voyage) and HMS Discovery.

The ships left England and crossed the Pacific Ocean by way of New Zealand and Tahiti. The expedition, quite unexpectedly, came upon a group of islands no European had previously visited. Cook called them the Sandwich Islands. Today they are called Hawaii.

The Nuu-chah-nulth Nation (Nootka)

Cook headed north and arrived at the northwest coast of the United States in 1778. He travelled up the coast to what would later be called Vancouver Island (named after George Vancouver, who was a midshipman aboard the Resolution). The island's geography and inhabitants were very different from any that Cook had previously encountered. Eagles soared over snow-capped mountain peaks and dense forests of giant timbers. Cook anchored in a small cove, later called Resolution Cove. Over 30 canoes carrying the local people, the Nuu-chah-nulth (Cook called them the "Nootka"), greeted the foreigners.

An Aboriginal of King George's Sound Copyright/Source

The Nuu-chah-nulth were curious about the newcomers anchored in their waters. They thought the white visitors were fish who had been transformed into men and had the faces of dog salmon. The story of Cook's visit has been handed down from generation to generation. Here is the story, told by West Coast Native person Gillette Chipps:

	"They say Indian doctors go out there singing a song, find out, try to find out what it is. Rattling their rattles around the schooner, go around, all see a lot of white men…. Pale face white man, they said it was the dog salmon and oh that's a spring salmon…. Red-faced men, big nose, and so they said it was coho. That was when the first white man appeared in Nootka Sound in the schooner." Gillmor, Don and Pierre Turgeon. Canada: A People's History. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2000, p. 32.

The Nuu-chah-nulth began trading animal skins, especially those of the sea otter, for metal items such as copper kettles, buttons, and tin canisters. Cook and his men were made welcome and shown around the village of Yuquot in nearby Friendly Cove.

In April 1778, the ships headed north in search of the Northwest Passage. Cook sailed through the Bering Strait and into the Arctic Ocean, but with each attempt to find the Northwest Passage, a massive wall of ice blocked his way eastward. He decided to head south to the Sandwich Islands for the winter months. He would try again, he thought, in the spring.

In January 1779, Cook arrived in Hawaii and anchored at Kealakekua Bay. A flotilla of over 1,000 canoes greeted the ships. The local inhabitants welcomed Cook ashore. They treated him as a god, and his crew as supernatural beings. "The very instant I leaped ashore," Cook wrote in his journal, "they all fell flat on their faces, and remained in that humble posture till I made signs for them to rise." (Suthren, Victor. To Go Upon Discovery. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2000, p. 198.)

The Death of Cook

The ships set sail again. However, after only two days, Resolution's foremast broke during a severe gale. The ships soon returned to Hawaii for repairs. This time, the Hawaiians did not welcome them. The islanders and the visitors became suspicious and disrespectful of one another. Misunderstandings arose.

By then, Cook was showing signs that he was not his normal calm self. He may have been suffering from a parasitic infection that he got in one of the islands he had visited. He had bad moods and sometimes reacted badly to difficult situations. On the night of February 13, 1779, the islanders took Discovery's cutter, a small but important boat. Cook went ashore with an armed party to seize the chief and hold him hostage until the boat was returned. A scuffle broke out, and, in the chaos, Cook was clubbed and stabbed to death.

Both the crew and the islanders were shocked and saddened by Cook's death. The ships set sail a week later for the Northwest Passage without their leader. Again, they were stopped by ice. They returned home to England in October 1780, after being away for over four and a half years.

Cook was buried at sea. A plaque (now under water) at Kealakekua Bay marks the spot where he died. Around the world are other memorials to the explorer http://pages.quicksilver.net.nz/jcr/~cookmem.html, including statues, monuments, plaques and columns.