The Secret Voyage Of Sir Francis Drake 1577-1580

Ready for a little history?  From time to time a person needs to read something thought-provoking to keep the old brain cells working.  I sat down the other day with something that sounded a little dry but, hey, the word “secret” was in the title.  How could I go wrong?  If I found it too dry, I could just quit reading and move on to something else.

Samuel Bawlf, a former minister in the government of British Columbia, is also a geographer and has written The Secret Voyage Of Sir Francis Drake 1577-1580 (2003. ANF 910.41 BAW).  He was intrigued by the puzzle surrounding the veil of secrecy that Queen Elizabeth I imposed on all information regarding his three-year voyage.

Bawlf’s extensive research using contemporary accounts and maps, shows that Drake sailed all the way to Alaska searching for the western entrance to the Northwest Passage.   Apparently, he had allotted only a few weeks to get back to England from the Spanish-held west coast of North America, and this timeframe could only have been achieved by sailing east. Bawlf believes he arrived too late in the season and encountered ice, but still had traveled further North than anyone previously imagined.

His writings indicate, according to Bawlf, that he chose Vancouver Island (Nova Albion) to be the site of England’s first colony.  Drake called the settlement at 50 degrees latitude the Bay of Small Ships.  Bawlf believes this site is modern day Comox.  He includes original maps and modern maps as well as excerpts from contemporary writings to bolster his claim. 

Why did Elizabeth I want to keep this secret?  Did she think everyone would want to move to Comox and inflate the property values?  No, the answer is more mundane.  She wanted to keep peace with Spain and did not want to seem to be trampling all over their explorations.

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Taken with permission from Gloria Novak’s “Good Reads at the Library”