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Historian traces 1753–1853 evolution of the Northwest Passage at Lacey Museum talk
Summary
Historian Dave Nicanry outlined three centuries of changing maps and motives—from 18th-century speculative charts and Cook’s Arctic setbacks to fur-trade mapping, Mackenzie and Vancouver surveys, and 19th-century railroad surveys—during a Lacey Museum public lecture.
Dave Nicanry, a historian and former director of the Washington State Historical Society, gave a public lecture at the Lacey Museum on the evolution of the Northwest Passage as a cartographic concept from about 1753 to 1853. Nicanry opened by tracing the idea back to post‑Columbian European ambitions for a shortcut to Asia, noting that early explorers including Baffin, Frobisher and Hudson repeatedly failed to find a navigable ocean‑to‑ocean route because of ice and uncharted land.
Nicanry highlighted an illustrated 1753 chart that depicted a large western inlet—what mapmakers called the “Bay of the West”—and explained how Enlightenment‑era cartographers used the notion of equipoise or counterpoise (mirroring large bays on opposite sides of a continent) to project such features. He said Russian…
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