James Cook

Bad weather forced his ships south to about 43° north before they could begin their exploration of the coast northward. Despite this evidence to the contrary Alexander Dalrymple and others of the Royal Society still believed that this massive southern continent should exist. Cook's two ships spent about a month in Nootka Sound from 29 March to 26 April 1778 in what Cook called Ship Cove now Resolution Cove at the south end of Bligh Island about 5 miles (8 km) east across Nootka Sound from Yuquot a Nuu-chah-nulth village (whose chief Cook did not identify but may have been Maquinna).

He left a legacy of scientific and geographical knowledge which was to influence his successors well into the 20th century and numerous memorials worldwide have been dedicated to him. He saw action in the Seven Years' War and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec. Cook was killed in Hawaii in a fight with Hawaiians during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific in 1779.