AN ACCOUNT OF A VOYAGE TO THE NORTH WEST COAST OF AMERICA IN 1785 & 1786.
Vancouver & Toronto / Seattle: Doulas & McIntyre / University of Washington Press, 1982. First Edition (& 1st printing). Original cloth and boards, black lettering on spine panel. 8°, 319 pp. Maps & Illustrations, Notes, Vocabulary of the Language at Nootka Sound, Bibliography, Index. A fine copy in dust jacket, the jacket with one small tear neatly mended on the verso. Item #314401
¶ Edited by Robin Fisher and J. M. Bumsted. In 1786 Alexander Walker, a young ensign of the Bombay Army, participated in one of the earliest private trading voyages to the Northwest Coast of North America. Commanded by Capt. James Strange, this expedition hoped to collect scientific information and establish a permanent shore facility, as well as trade for sea otter pelts with the Indian inhabitants. Although their more grandiose plans did not come to fruition and Walker was not left on the Northwest Coast in charge of a small military garrison as originally intended, he did manage to make copious observations about the aboriginal inhabitants and their customs, particularly during a ca. one month’s stay in Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island in July 1786. Only the journals of the Cook expedition in 1778 provide an earlier, equally detailed, ethnographic account of this area. Like Cook, Strange sailed his ships north to Prince William Sound, Alaska, after their stay at Friendly Cove, where Walker collected further ethnographic data on the Chugach. In his later life as a miIitary officer and administrator in India and St. Helena, Walker maintained his interest in what today would be clearly labelled anthropology and continued to edit and prepare his Northwest Coast manuscript for publication. Unfortunately he never finished this task and after his death in 1831 the journal lay unnoticed until its acquisition by the National Library of Scotland in 1952. First published here, this is the long overdue culmination of the effort, thought, and ambition of a man dead for over 150 years.
Price (CAD): $40.00