Nootka Sound Feature

Nootka was the home base of avarice and slaughter as the sea otter was rendered extinct by traders. It gained further infamy with the enslavement of John Jewitt in 1803. Since the author's discovery of Nootka Sound some 15 years ago she has lived off the local waters and been fortunate to witness the return of the sea otter. She shares her experiences with the reader and describes the routes and sights that new visitors can enjoy.-- Backroad jaunts in pristine wilderness

122 pages : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 22 cm

Account by botanist on expedition of Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra of the Nootka Indians on Vancouver Island, their environment and adaptation to it. Introduction by Iris Wislon giving historical and anthropological background. This volume, long out of print, is now reissued in a new edition with the approval and support of the hereditary chiefs and elders of the Mowachaht, one of the Nuu-chah-nulth tribes. Included are Mozino's catalog of flora and fauna, his dictionary of the Nootka language, and reproductions of the drawings made by Atanasio Echeverria, the artists who accompanied the expedition

liv, 142 pages, 24 pages of plates : illustrations ; 22 cm

The Adventures and Sufferings of John R. Jewitt, Captive of Maquinna, originally published in 1815 and expertly annotated and illustrated by Hilary Stewart in 1987, is a classic maritime captivity narrative set on the rugged coast of Vancouver Island. The book recounts the harrowing two-year ordeal of an English blacksmith who survived an 1803 attack on his trading ship and was integrated into the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation under Chief Maquinna. Ultimately, enhanced by Stewart’s detailed ethnographic drawings and historical context, it serves as an invaluable firsthand account of early European contact and traditional Indigenous life in the Pacific Northwest.

192 pages : illustrations ; 24 x 27 cm

Derek Pethick’s The Nootka Connection: Europe and the Northwest Coast, 1790–1795 chronicles the intense diplomatic, naval, and commercial maneuvers between Great Britain and Spain following the Nootka Crisis, which transformed the Pacific Northwest coastline into an arena of competing imperial claims. Centered on the pivotal diplomatic anchorage of Yuquot (Friendly Cove) and radiating through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Strait of Georgia, and Haida Gwaii, the volume documents how British and Spanish naval expeditions systematically superimposed European toponymy and sovereign boundary lines over the maritime territories of the Nuu-chah-nulth, Coast Salish, and Haida nations. Pethick details the delicate frontier logistics of this naval presence, demonstrating that sustained reconnaissance by commanders like George Vancouver and Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra remained profoundly reliant on negotiated trade alliances and navigational intelligence provided by hereditary leaders such as Chief Maquinna and Wickaninnish. Ultimately, the work captures the transitional era when multilateral imperial treaties and maritime fur trade corridors laid the foundational cartographic framework that paved the way for Euro-American colonial settlement across the Pacific slope.

281 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

John R. Jewitt and Richard Alsop’s The adventures and sufferings of John R. Jewitt provides a vital firsthand ethnographic and spatial record of early nineteenth-century maritime commerce and sovereign Indigenous power along the exposed outer coast of Vancouver Island. Following the 1803 capture of the American trading ship Boston at Friendly Cove (Yuquot), the narrative documents the sophisticated political economy, hereditary governance, and seasonal riverine-to-maritime migrations of the Mowachaht Nuu-chah-nulth under Chief Maquinna. Jewitt’s survival as an enslaved blacksmith hinged upon a precarious, negotiated interdependence, where his specialized metalworking skills were mobilized to fabricate weapons, harpoons, and trade goods that directly augmented Mowachaht regional prestige and marine resource harvesting. Ultimately, the chronicle captures an era when Indigenous nations maintained absolute maritime and territorial jurisdiction over Pacific coastal waters, dictating trade logistics decades before colonial authorities attempted to superimpose permanent administrative infrastructure onto the region.

1 online resource (iv, 237 pages)