José María Narváez was only 23 when he became the first European to navigate the Georgia Strait, but most people are unaware of this, says a Steveston-based writer.
In Jim McDowell’s latest book, Uncharted Waters: The Explorations of José Narváez, he provides a biography of Narváez’s contribution in charting what is now called the Salish Sea. In the book, McDowell explains how Narváez became the first European to explore Juan the Fuca Strait in 1789 and how, two years later, he proved there is a waterway separating what is now called Vancouver Island and mainland British Columbia.
He was also the first European to sail into the Burrard Inlet, Fraser River and Boundary Bay, in search of the elusive Northwest Passage. The Spanish names he gave to various landmarks were changed after the British explorers arrived, 11 months later, using his maps. Isla Zepeda became Point Roberts and Isla de Langara became Point Grey.
“He never received much recognition because it is the dominating country that writes the history,” McDowell said, adding Narváez was a first mate, not a captain, and Saturna Island was named after his schooner, the Santa Santurnina.
“It was actually the Spanish who gave [Captain George] Vancouver Narváez’s charts. Vancouver immediately started renaming all the places as he explored the area.”
Narváez spent 21 days exploring this coast, which didn’t give him much time to see if the various waterways would lead to the Atlantic Ocean. In July 1791, he wrote in his log that the entire area, now known as Delta, was almost covered in water, peppered with little islands. McDowell deduced that it was a grey July when Narváez arrived and the Fraser River was overflowing with snowmelt runoff, flooding Delta.
Unchartered Waters is actually McDowell’s second book about Narváez. In 1998, McDowell published José María Narváez: The Forgotten Explorer, in the United States, but that book focused on Narváez’s transcribed journal, detailing his voyage to the Aleutian Islands in 1788.
McDowell decided to revisit Narváez because there was more to the man’s life. After charting the west coast, he sailed to the Philippines, while serving in the Spanish Navy and he later settled in Guadalajara, Mexico, became an elected official shortly after that country’s independence from Spain.
“Narváez was forgotten, overlooked and taken for granted as someone with no significance here,” McDowell said.
“History is about shifting perspectives. Getting readers to look at a different point of view.”
And it seems McDowell succeeded in doing that. Earlier this year, Unchartered Waters won the 2016 Independent Publisher silver medal award for best regional, non-fiction.
Unchartered Waters is McDowell’s fifth book, which is available at local bookstores and online at ronsdalepress.com. His previous books include, The Story of Warrior-Businessman Yoshiro Fujimura, Hamatsa: The Enigma of Cannibalism on the Pacific Northwest Coast, and Father August Brabant: Saviour or Scourge?
Prior to writing books, McDowell was an educator in the United States and a freelance writer and journalist in B.C. for 20 years.
