Resolution Cove

 place with historical importance, cove, historical marker, historic landmark, historic site

 Upload a photo

Resolution Cove represents the beginning of British Columbia’s post-contact history. Bligh Island is named for Captain Bligh, the British Navy captain who sailed here with Captain James Cook in 1778 (and gained later fame for his crew's mutiny while commanding the HMS Bounty). Captain Cook first took his ships HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery into a small cove on Bligh Island after a storm for repairs. While anchored in the cove – which he named Resolution Cove after his flagship – he made formal contact with natives in the village at Yuquot, or Friendly Cove.

While the British anchored their ‘floating islands,' the First Nations people shouted from their canoes: “itchme nutka, itchme nutka," meaning “go around, go round” to a better anchorage at Yuqout, but Cook misinterpreted their shouts, believing they were calling out Nootka as the name of the area. Despite this initial misunderstanding, he and his men stayed for more than a month here, becoming the first documented Europeans to set foot in British Columbia.

After repairing ships’ masts and spars with Douglas fir wood; brewing beer using Sitka spruce needles, hops and molasses; and trading metal objects for sea otter skins, they sailed for home by way of Alaska and Asia.

In China, they made a small fortune selling the luxurious sea otter pelts acquired at Nootka and, when news of this new source of trade reached others, European and North American traders converged on Nootka -- three hundred thirty ships between 1785 and 1825 – and nearly exterminated the sea otter on this coast. Two plaques in the cove commemorate Cook’s visit.