Boldly going

When I was in school we read about Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, Henry Hudson and even Francis Drake, but I don't remember James Cook being mentioned at all. Yet he may have been the greatest sea explorer of all, as Tony Horwitz makes clear in his 2002 book Blue Latitudes.

The Pacific Ocean was still largely unknown by Europeans in the 19th century. Sure Europeans like Magellan had been there, sailing across it, but until Captain Cook no European had actually looked around, visited the numerous islands, looked for the Northwest Passage from that side of America or given names to so many geographical features.

Cook's three long voyages took him from near the Arctic Circle  to Australia, covering more than 200,000 miles. He and his sailors met people from numerous strange cultures, leading in most cases to the eventual spoiling of these cultures. For this reason Cook is controversial throughout the Pacific to this day. There are those who honor him, but mostly there are those who revile him, not so much for the kind of man he was — mostly he was honorable, Horwitz finds — but for the negative consequences of his discoveries.

Horwitz decided to retrace Cook's voyages, traveling to the Aleutians, Australia, Hawaii, Tahiti, New Zealand, Tonga and elsewhere to see how Cook is remembered. His narrative switches back and forth, from Cook's journeys as described by the captain and members of his crew to his own observations centuries later. Roger, a traveling companion more interested in drinking and women than Cook's journeys, adds humor to the narrative.

Roger's interest in drinking and women corresponds with that of Cook's men. They consumed large quantities of alcohol on those voyages, and despite Cook's efforts he was never successful in keeping them away from Pacific women. It didn't help that in these cultures sex was freely given, or if not free was eagerly exchanged for the price of a nail. It's a wonder there were any nails still holding the ship together after leaving places like Tahiti and Hawaii.

It was in Hawaii that Cook met his end. He had been becoming increasingly irrational and erratic on his third voyage, probably the result of an illness. At first he was treated like a god, but gradually that relationship changed. When natives stole a boat one morning, Cook responded violently, resulting in his own death, as well as that of others on both sides.

Explorers, Columbus and Magellan among them, are not as honored as they once were. Cook was never particularly honored even when the others were, but he covered more miles than most of the rest of them put together. Horwitz makes clear that Cook explored the Pacific as no one had ever done before, whatever one thinks of the results of his discoveries.