The First British Ships Entered Western Canada
On March 31, 1778, in the course of his third voyage of exploration
to the Pacific, Captain James Cook entered a large bay on the
western coast of a huge island in what is now British Columbia.
Finding that the bay formed a good natural harbor, he anchored his
vessels, H.M.S. Resolution and H.M.S. Discovery, in a cove there
and sent some sailors to search for fresh water. He named the bay
King George's Sound, in honor of the British King.
A few aboriginal people approached his vessels in canoes and cried
out, "Itchem nutka, itchem nutka!" meaning, "Go around!" Not
realizing that they were directing his ships to another, more
sheltered cove, Cook assumed they were telling him the name of the
area. He therefore changed King George Sound to Nootka Sound, the
name it goes by today.
Captain Cook and his men spent an entire month in Nootka Sound,
re-supplying their boats, and making observations about the new
area and the natives, both of which they found congenial. Aboard
Cook's ship was a 21-year-old midshipman named George Vancouver.
Fourteen years later, as leader of another voyage of exploration,
Captain Vancouver returned to the area and circumnavigated and
mapped the huge island. It now bears his name.
While other European navigators had reached the Pacific coast of
Canada before Cook's 1778 visit, it was that visit, and Vancouver's
subsequent mapping expedition that brought the area into the realm
of Britain's expanding colonial empire.
OUR GREAT CANADIAN WEST
The First British Ships Entered Western Canada
On March 31, 1778, in the course of his third voyage of exploration
to the Pacific, Captain James Cook entered a large bay on the
western coast of a huge island in what is now British Columbia.
Finding that the bay formed a good natural harbor, he anchored his
vessels, H.M.S. Resolution and H.M.S. Discovery, in a cove there
and sent some sailors to search for fresh water. He named the bay
King George's Sound, in honor of the British King.
A few aboriginal people approached his vessels in 
canoes and cried
out, "Itchem nutka, itchem nutka!" meaning, "Go around!" Not
realizing that they were directing his ships to another, more
sheltered cove, Cook assumed they were telling him the name of the
area. He therefore changed King George Sound to Nootka Sound, the
name it goes by today.
