Did Drake visit the Canadian Coast?

Another topic. Kinda interesting to speculate....

Don't know if this is well known, but there is a theory that Drake visited the Canadian West coast well before any other Europeans.

A recent find adds more fuel to the fire.

How the discovery of a 460-year-old English shilling in B.C. could help rewrite the early history of Canada | National Post

Fascinating story, thanks for sharing. I will try to read more about this, for those who want to know more about Drake:

Francis Drake - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Back before the little ice age closed the NW passage in the 1500s, some theorize the Vikings did the west coast of Canada. Billy Proctor's museum has some old Scandinavian writings on stone that he found on the West Coast of VI.

Lots of fun to talk about the PNW with the Logs of the Russian, Danish and English sailors from the 1700s great reads. In 1592 Drake presented the Queen with his text "Sir Francis Drake Revived" which details all his voyages and chasing down of the Spanish vessels he was instructed to find, plunder and sink. That text had him ending up in N California before he headed south again and then across to the Philippines. He was very good at plundering the Spanish who were busy plundering Peru and Chile.

[FONT=verdana,arial,tahoma]Drake may have been there in 1597, but by then half of Europe already gotten there[SIZE=+1]![/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=verdana,arial,tahoma][FONT=verdana,arial,tahoma][SIZE=+1]

[/SIZE]Around 1000 AD, Vikings landed in what's nowNewfoundland and Labrador.

In 1360 the Church of Rome sent Norwegian Paul Knutsson to reclaim Greenland from the Norse. Records indicate that Knutsson also sailed westward into Hudson Strait and Hudson Bay and then south into James Bay and also up the Albany River all the way to Lake Nipigon, north of Lake Superior. In 1398 Micmac (Indian tribe) legends began to talk of red-haired, green-eyed men with beards (Lief Ericsson?) who had arrived centuries earlier and taught the Micmac how to fish with nets.

The next to show up was John Cabot in 1497, who went ashore, probably on Cape Breton Island, and claimed "Terre Nova" in the name of King Henry VII

By 1504, a small fish-processing village had been established at present-day St. Johns, Newfoundland. The harbour and the processing plant were used by all the major European countries who fished the Grand Banks. In fact, St. John's Harbour became a focal point for ships leaving and arriving in the New World. There was so much European fishing traffic that [FONT=verdana,arial,tahoma]in 1506 Portugal [/FONT]began to levy [FONT=verdana,arial,tahoma]taxes against all the fish caught in the Grand Banks[/FONT]
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Verrizano got there in 1523 and Jacque Cartier--who actually coined the name Canada--in 1534...he made at least 3 more trips by 1542.

So by the time Drake may or may not have shown up, the sea routes between Europe and Canada were already busier than the DC Beltway at rush hour!
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This is referring to the west coast. Unless my geography lessons were a bit off, Newfoundland, the St Lawrence, and James Bay are east coast

Greetings,
Mr. nm. Correct but what's 3000 or 4000 miles more or less? James Bay would be more north coast (OK, access is from east coast). There is some speculation the Chinese also visited the west coast of NA as well but no evidence as yet.

nmuir said:

This is referring to the west coast. Unless my geography lessons were a bit off, Newfoundland, the St Lawrence, and James Bay are east coast

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I know which coast Vancouver is on. You're forgetting that there was a lot of "overland" exploration, mostly via water, but a considerable amount of portaging too, especially among the explorers who landed a lot further south on the east coast. They did a considerable amount of westward exploring and more than one of 'em did get to the Pacific. Most of 'em were Spanish, or sailed for Spain. Juan de Fuca was a Greek navigator named Apostolos Valerianos who sailed for Spain under a Spanish name. De Fuca sailed up the west coast of North America from Acapulco Mexico to Vancouver Island in 1592, which would have put him there at least 5 years ahead of Drake. DeFuca is widely considered to be the first European to see that area. He was looking for the "northwest passage" to the Atlantic and thought the Strait that was later named for him was it. However, his discovery of the strait wasn't believed by most people until Capt Vancouver retraced his route in the late 1700s.

In addition to all this, we have an increasing amount of archeological "evidence" that may or may not support theories that both the Vikings and the Welsh explored North American from coast to coast east-west, and north-south from the Gulf of Mexico to the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Then there are the stories of the Chinese and Japanese explorers reaching NA and exploring up and down the whole west coast.

Happy New Year, y'all!

RT Firefly said:

There is some speculation the Chinese also visited the west coast of NA as well but no evidence as yet.

Click to expand...

There is a story on Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands on the north coast of BC, Canada) about long, long, ago, when uknown men in black landed on the beaches who ate maggots (rice?). The locals were so shocked they ran into the forest and dodn't look back...or so the story goes...

Ask Lewis and Clark how easy it was to get from the east coast to the west coast by water or land...

Until I was about 19yrs old I carried a British penny dated 1501 in my pocket. I lost it on a beach near Toronto. Wonder what the historians will make of that when it's found.

Look's like Peggie's our history prof.

And after these explorers came west overland they could have borrowed Indian canoes or built their own boats like the gold rush guys did on Dease Lake on their way to the Klondike. And gone north on protected waters as we do in our pleasure boats. All one needs is a kayak to go from Puget Sound to SE AK.

But if all these white men were exploring North America as Peggie suggests why didn't some stay? Answering my own question the war between the white men and the red men may have started a long time before we thought. And in the beginning perhaps the red men were victorious.

Murray do they call Queen Charlotte City Haida Gwaii City yet?

Greetings,

crop circles and random monoliths suggest the earlier transcontinental travel of hairless bipeds. (Just suggesting)

RT Firefly said:

Greetings,
There is some speculation the Chinese also visited the west coast of NA as well but no evidence as yet.

Click to expand...

Given that Asians migrated to the new world at least 40,000 years ago, possibly as much as 60,000 BP; and given that the geographical distribution of a 9th base-pair deletion in mitochondrial DNA demonstrates a coastal (water based) migration path that reached at least as far as modern day Ecuador; it hardly requires a great stretch of the imagination to imagine that far more technologically advanced humans made essentially the same journey in the last thousand years.

Greetings,
Mr. A. Welcome aboard. Whoa! THIS thread is going places.....

An interesting read is "Canada's Forgotten Highway" by Ralph Brine, which covers a 1967 Centennial canoe trip from New Westminster to Montreal. The author writes equally about the geography and history along the way in an enjoyable fashion, covering much of what has been discussed in this thread.

Conrad said:

An interesting read is "Canada's Forgotten Highway" by Ralph Brine, which covers a 1967 Centennial canoe trip from New Westminster to Montreal. The author writes equally about the geography and history along the way in an enjoyable fashion, covering much of what has been discussed in this thread.

Click to expand...

A friend of mine (and fellow Nordic Tug owner) was on the Eastward Ho trip chronicled in that book.

Greetings,
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2014-01/12/content_17230939.htm

See The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake 1577-1580, by Samuel Bawlf.

An interesting thread.........finally!

So we have Juan de Fuca finding the straight in 1592 Juan de Fuca - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This is the border between US and Canada

Alexander Mackenzie 1st overland in Canada 1793 Alexander Mackenzie (explorer) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (the terminus being as popular a cruising destination as can be, what with it up a remote inlet).

The theory about Drake, as best articulated by Sam Bawlf (not me!), is that Drake made it up the Candian Coast to the Queen Charlottes / Haida Gwaii, and perhaps beyond, but that it was kept secret (insert Elizabethan conspiracy theory here).

I am sure there are crop circles to be found somewhere in here too...

There is also those that believe the Knights Templar visited North America back in the 1100's so there ya go. This is all based on the history books that have been fed to us. I trust these books about as much as I trust the bible...

nmuir said:

So we have Juan de Fuca finding the straight in 1592 Juan de Fuca - Wikipedia....

Click to expand...

Glad that passed the spam filter.
Actually, there is a report Drake was spotted here last week. Maybe it just a Duck.

Tad Roberts said:

See The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake 1577-1580, by Samuel Bawlf.

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My kids bought me that book years ago. Why? Because it has a boat on the cover and daddy like books with boats on the cover. Any hoo, I read at least half of it and couldn't quite believe the premise, as much as I wanted to.

Northern Spy said:

A friend of mine (and fellow Nordic Tug owner) was on the Eastward Ho trip chronicled in that book.

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Dave Chisholm, one of the inveterate paddlers, is a friend of mine. Small world!

manyboats said:

But if all these white men were exploring North America as Peggie suggests why didn't some stay? Answering my own question the war between the white men and the red men may have started a long time before we thought. And in the beginning perhaps the red men were victorious.

Click to expand...

That's not the reason. The European explorers didn't come to NA to colonize...there was no profit in colonization yet. They were primarily looking for routes to China that didn't require sailing around either of the horns...the fabled "northwest passage" Once they found this side of the planet, they started looking for valuable goods that could be exported back to Europe. Gold was at the top of their wish list, but there was soon a very brisk--and very profitable--trade in fish and crops never before seen in Europe--corn and tobacco among others. And contrary to popular belief, American colonies were founded on economics, not quests for religious freedom.

Most of the European--mostly French and Spanish, but some English too--exploration of what's now the US took place before 1600, but while they got busy colonizing what became Canada as early as the 1400s,, colonization of what became the US didn't begin in earnest till 1600. There was a little bit before then...St. Augustine FL was the earliest European settlement, in 1565...followed by Jamestown in 1607. The Mayflower was actually headed for Jamestown, which was well established by 1620, but they ran into weather that forced it northward to land on Cape Cod. It was September and by then winter was hard approaching, so they didn't have much choice but to stay there. Rhode Island and Connecticut were founded in 1636...Delaware in 1638...and y'all can do your own research find out when the rest of the colonies were first settled.

This HAS been fun...sure beats the socks off another toilet thread!

HeadMistress said:

That's not the reason. The European explorers didn't come to NA to colonize...there was no profit in colonization yet. They were primarily looking for routes to China that didn't require sailing around either of the horns...the fabled "northwest passage"

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Viking 1: Hey Sven, what do you think of this new continent we found?

Viking 2 (Sven): Well Ole, it's nice and all that, but...

Ole (Viking 1): But what Sven?

Sven (Viking 2): Well it's no China!

Ole: That's for sure. Let's get in our boats, go back to Scandahoovia and not tell anybody.

Sven: OK. Good idea. Just let me finish carving the word "Croatoan" on this post first.

Sven and Ole high five.

Fade to black.

End scene 1.

Greetings,
Scene 2 (500 BC)

Asian mariner 1: Hey Shou, what do you think of the new continent we found?

Asian mariner 2: (Shou): Well Zhao, it's nice and all that, but...

Zhao (AM 1): But what Shou?

Shou (AM 2): Well, it's no China!

Zhao: That's for sure. Let's go back home and not tell anybody....

LOL. Exactly! I was just writing that scene!

(meanwhile somewhere on the Pacific Coast)

Except I had them dropping a coin on the ground.

It was September and by then winter was hard approaching, so they didn't have much choice but to stay there.

Great choice , starving and freezing in far colder weather .