4- Friday, March 22, [985 - North Shore News

Capilano College
vest

mo @6«-:she Meares precedent

ccounts of the struggle between Mac-Blo other ships in hiv small feet
and tie Indians and tree-lovers at Meares [ited their cannons in es-

Island have

managed to overlook ihe

historical grandeur of the place.

The island is named afier
Captain John Meares, the
first white man to actually
acquire territory on the West
Coast.

He arrived in the wake of
Capnuin Cook, one of the
first of subsequent waves of
Englishmen out to make
their fortunes on the far side
of the New World. Most of
them, having read Cook's
accounts of the abundance
of sea otters, were after furs.

At that time, much further”

north, the Russians were
penetrating what is now
Alaska, practising genocide
on the native Aleut Indians,
turning them first into
slaves, and sending hunters
in three-seat kayaks called
baidarkas as far south as the
lower Inside Passage, to the
very edge of the lands of
such West Coast tribes as the
Nootka.

It was a time—like
now--of deep changes. John
Meares might not have left
his: mark on history other-
wise. As it was, the Spanish
as well as the Russians were
vying earnestly for control
of the region.

They were challenged, of

course, by James Cook.

Chief Maquinna, the
moustached, long-haired
leader of the Nootka, had
welcamed Capt. Ceok, but
had not viven anything away
except the chance to ambush
and destroy the invaders,
hiding all the evidence. |
mean, in restrospect. if you
had been an Indian then,
knowing what everybody
knows now, isn’t that what
you would have done? I sure
would have.

Belatediy, the re-run of
that batde is upon us.

While Maquinna made no
gift of land to Cook, he did
give some kind of a grant, or
title, to a patch of
beachfront property in
Nootka Sound to John
Meares a few vears fater.
Meares thus became the the
first European to acquire
legal tithe anywhere west of
the Rockies.

It was from this lot, a
choice beach near a steep
cliff, that Meares eventually
launched the North West
America, the first sea-poing
vessel other than an Indian
canoe, kayak or baidarka, to
be built on the Coast. The

cement. Chief Maquinna
himself! was on hand to
witness the big event.

mihe one portrait that ex-
ims of fim, John Meares
looks far too sensitive for
the dife of a  brigand/
diplomat threading his way
under the Union Jack along
the dangerous waters of the
Pacific Northwest, subject
rot only to the risks of
whirlpools, fogs, reefs, rocks
and possible attack by In-
dians, but having to go
eveball-to-eyeball with tough
veterans of the Spanish
Main.

It was 1789, the year after
the North West America had
been launched from Meare's
little piece of dream water-
frontage, when Captain
Estevan Jose Martinez arriv-
ed with his own gunships to
make the point that
whatever piece of paper
Meares might think he had,
courtesy of Maquinna, Spain
wasn’t interested.

The Spanish Crown laid
claim to Nootka Sound by
virtue of prior discovery,
since Juan Perez had recon-
noitered with the Santiago in
1774, even if he hadn’t actu-
ally landed.

Meares was out the door.

MEARES: page 8

tomorrow's

‘Weaitesday, March 270n.

» 25rd Street & Lonsd e’Ave., North ncouve

Barbai ENihofs dramatic reconstruction

ACTS OF GOD OR MAN?
7:05 pm on Stereo Theatre

i2Ba,

«CGS CBC Stereo 105.7 FM

“3 sf ad
‘This program will be re-broadeast on CBC Radio 690 AM on April 7 at £05 pm