On October 26, Cabox Geopark in Western Newfoundland commemorated the 250th Anniversary of James Cook’s ‘Chart of the West Coast of Newfoundland’. Considered by many to be Cook’s finest map, the chart was published a year after his last survey in Eastern Canada, after being selected to command a voyage to the Pacific Ocean to witness the transit of Venus and search for the fabled southern continent.
The 20th Anniversary Captain Cook Hockey Tournament wrapped up March 4, 2018 at the Civic Centre in Corner Brook, Newfoundland. Held during the 250th anniversary of Cook preparing his ‘Chart of the West Coast of Newfoundland’, the 24 teams vied for bragging rights and commemorative James Cook 250 maps of the island of Newfoundland.
During summer 2017, the International Appalachian Trail Newfoundland & Labrador in conjunction with Cabox Aspiring Geopark commemorated the 250th Anniversary of British navigator, surveyor, cartographer and explorer James Cook’s survey of Western Newfoundland, his fifth and final year of Newfoundland surveys and tenth and final year in Eastern Canada.
When James Cook surveyed the coasts of Newfoundland in the 1700s, his crew would go ashore and make spruce beer.
The drink not only quenched the sailors’ thirst, spruce beer was credited in part for Cook’s high success rate at preventing scurvy. Two hundred and fifty years after Cook put Newfoundland on the map, the Western Newfoundland Brewing Company is making a spruce beer of its own.
He’s regarded as one of history’s greatest navigators, but events to mark the 250th anniversary of Capt. James Cook’s time mapping the coast of Newfoundland have gone largely unnoticed. A group in Corner Brook is trying to change that. Here’s that story, as seen on the Tuesday edition of the NTV Evening News Hour.
James Cook spent five years mapping out much of the coastline of Newfoundland and parts of Labrador. This year marks the 250th anniversary of his last year doing his cartographic work, with that final year of 1767 spent surveying and charting the western Newfoundland coastline. This summer, events will mark Cook’s final year in the Newfoundland and Labrador area.