Captain Cook - Lookout in Corner Brook (Newfoundland)

 

If you stay overnight in Corner Brook (Newfoundland), you can't help but visit the Captain Cook Lookout. I must admit that my own experience of James Cook was very Pacific centered, as I had read George Forster's "Around the World," who had accompanied James Cook, and also the logbooks of James T. Kirk himself, or rather, Captain James Cook [1] that is. What initially amazed me most was the accuracy of the map of Newfoundland; this was later clarified, but without taking away the magic of the first encounter with the map.

Corner Brook is a small town with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants, and the number has been shrinking for years. It is located near the Bay of Islands at the mouth of the Humber River, which is called Maqtukwek in Mi'kmaq [2]. The town serves as an administrative center and, of course, offers shops, a university, colleges, schools, and a hospital. "Corner Brook is home to the Corner Brook Pulp & Paper Mill (owned by Kruger Inc.), which is a major employer for the region." This isn't the place to write about it, but I'll take it on.

Captain James Cook (1728–1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer [3]. His fame stems from his three voyages to the Pacific and the Southern Seas, but from 1763 to 1767, he mapped the coast of Newfoundland. I love maps, atlases, my father's map collection, old maps, new maps, and of course, Google Maps. It's amazing how accurate his maps were, because without today's technology, this would have been a difficult task. Keep in mind that he was cruising a rocky coast in a sailboat. Therefore, it's not surprising that he used Newfoundland pilots because of the rocks and hidden dangers. This, and the length of the exploration, in no way diminishes the enormous achievement.

From the lookout, you can see Crow Gulch and, of course, Corner Brook. I also have photos from there of the Corner Brook Pulp & Paper Mill, the vicinity of which I had previously visited; I'm sure I'll write about it. In addition to numerous information panels, there's a larger-than-life statue. I think it's only right to remember James Cook, since he's one of those people to whom the phrase "to boldly go where no man has gone before" applies.

Links and Annotations:
[1] Georg Forster: Reise um die Welt.Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Mein 1983.  ISBN: 3-458-32457-7.
James Cook: Entdeckungsfahrten im Pacific 1768-1779. Horst Erdmann Verlag, Tübingen und Basel 1971.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corner_Brook 
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cook 
 

.