George Vancouver

George Vancouver sailed with Captain Cook's second and third voyages (1772-4, 1776-80) making him one of the first European explorers to see the Hawaiian Islands. In 1790, one year after the loss of the American colonies, King George III of England commanded Vancouver to undertake a Voyage of Discovery for the purpose of finding an inland waterway connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

The year 1798 saw the publication of "Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean, and Round the World … Undertaken by His Majesty's Command, Principally with a View to Ascertain the Existence of Any Navigable Communication Between the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans and Performed in the years 1790, 1791, 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, in the Discovery Sloop of War, and Armed Tender Chatham, under the Command of Captain George Vancouver" This "Vancouver Atlas" provided the first complete and accurate documentation of the Hawaiian Islands, Tahiti, New Zealand and the Pacific Northwest, despite the expedition's failure to find the mythic inland waterway.