Robin Inglis - Vancouver Spanish Pacific Historical Society Discussing the role played by small boats in cartography

Small boats - Essentially, most of the exploration of the big expeditions, not the fur traders, the big expeditions, was done by small boats. In particular Vancouver stands out among all the other ones. He would anchor his ships in a particular place and then the small boats would go out, and that is particularly clear in the Gulf of Georgia for example. His boats come into the Straight of Juan de Fuca, there at Point Discovery at the south end of the Straight of Juan de Fuca. And the small boats did the islands, the San Juan Islands. Then the ships moved up to Birch Bay, Vancouver then. The small boats when into Burrard Inlet, into Howe Sound, into Jervis Inlet, and then of course they moved off up to Desolation Sound. Then the small boats went out, all the way around the top of the various islands right out to Johnstone Straight. And they went right up Knight Inlet, Bute Inlet, Lutber Inlet, so all that was done by small boats. And it's remarkable, they went very, very early in the morning, almost 4:00 in the morning until 8:00 at night. So it was a long day for those men, and the weather was never as great as we think. We think of summer days, but in fact there was a lot of rain, as we know, on the coast. And so it was an incredible activity they took.