Talk:Vancouver Expedition

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Contents 1 Sources 2 Was Towereroo really brought to England from Cook's expedition as claimed in this article? 3 Northwest Passage and Isla Grande 4 Dates

[edit] Sources

After contributing to a dozen pages touching on the Vancouver Expedition (e.g. Vancouver himself, Quadra y Bodega, Peter Puget, Josephs Baker & Whidbey, and of course the good ships!) I realized that the expedition itself is noteworthy enough to get an entry that ties it all together. This is intended as a start. Much of this content comes from the Naish book, although another good source is the website of Robson, John editor of The Captain Cook Encyclopaedia: http://pages.quicksilver.net.nz/jcr/ rewinn 08:38, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Was Towereroo really brought to England from Cook's expedition as claimed in this article?

Was Towereroo really brought to England from Cook's expedition as claimed in this article? The Wiki Towereroo page says differently: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towereroo 124.191.120.85 (talk) 16:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Good point. I'll put in something vaguer. Thanks! rewinn (talk) 05:42, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Northwest Passage and Isla Grande

I re-worded this. The Northwest Passage exists and is usable today, but certainly was not usable in Vancouver's time. The Isla Grande internal link seems to be about a different, real island. Any ideas how to fix this? Sounds like a new article, but I don't know anything about Isla Grande. Pustelnik (talk) 17:24, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dates

I've begun reading the book "A Discovery Journal" by John E. Roberts (2005) and am a little confused about dates. Here's an example. This wikipedia page says: "Discovery and Chatham proceeded to North America. On April 17 they made landfall at about 39°N and started a detailed survey northward." Early in Roberts's book, on page 10, he notes that the journals kept by Vancouver and his officers record land first sighted on April 18 -- and goes on to explain the difference between nautical and civil time keeping (at least in 1792). On ship a day began and ended at noon rather than midnight. The first 12 hours of a ship's log or journal are, in civil time, the day before. Since land was sighted before noon, the April 18 date was later adjusted to the civil time date of April 17. However, Roberts goes on to say that the true date was Monday, April 16 -- because Vancouver was making a eastward circumnavigation of the world, resulting in the gaining of a day. Today we place the date change at the International Date Line, which Vancouver had crossed before reaching North America, so by today's standards the "true day" was April 16. But in 1792 there was no International Date Line, and the extra day was apparently not noticed or confirmed until Vancouver reached St. Helena in 1795. At that point the journals dropped the extra day. What confuses me is that the various ships Vancouver encountered in the Pacific Northwest, not to mention the Spanish post at Nootka Sound, should have used dates without the extra day Vancouver had acquired. But as far as I can tell so far, there wasn't a discrepancy. The Spanish report on the voyage of Galiano and Valdés (who did not circumnavigate) give June 21 as the day they met Vancouver, as do the journals of the Vancouver expedition (corrected for civil time but not circumnavigation). So.. this leaves me a little confused. Perhaps as I continue reading it will make better sense, but I thought I'd post here and ask whether anyone has an insight into this. Perhaps the Spanish account, which apparently is not always clear on dates, has been "calibrated" to the Vancouver account? Also, if it is true that all the Vancouver dates are a day later than "true", according to modern reckoning, does this matter? Which day was the 200th anniversary of Vancouver's sighting of North America, April 17, 1992, or April 16, 1992? I realize this might be a rather picking and perhaps unimportant question, but I was wanting to compare the expeditions of Vancouver and Galiano, not to mention the many others Vancouver encountered in the PNW, and it seems that getting the dates calibrated is important. Pfly (talk) 06:01, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I think I've figured out that this book gives the "true" dates, along with Vancouver's semi-corrected dates (always one day ahead). That solves that. I'll edit the info about the day the expedition reached North America. There's no reference cited for this bit of info, but if it conflicts with other sources we can look into it more. Pfly (talk) 23:13, 7 June 2008 (UTC)