Juan de Fuca - Voyages To The North

Voyages To The North

According to Fuca's account, he undertook two voyages of exploration on the orders of the Viceroy of New Spain, Luis de Velasco, marqués de Salinas, both intended to find the fabled Strait of Anián, believed to be a Northwest Passage, a sea route linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The first voyage saw 200 soldiers and three small ships under the overall command of a Spanish captain (with Fuca as pilot and master) assigned the task of finding the Strait of Anián and fortifying it against the English. This expedition failed when, allegedly due to the captain's malfeasance, the soldiers mutinied and returned home to California. (Note that in this period, Spanish doctrine divided control of ships and fleets between the military commander, who was an army officer, and the sailing and navigation commander, who was a mariner.)

In 1592, on his second voyage, Fuca enjoyed success. Having sailed north with a caravel and a pinnace and a few armed marines, he returned to Acapulco and claimed to have found the strait, with a large island at its mouth, at around 47° north latitude. The Strait of Juan de Fuca is in fact at around 48° N, although Fuca's account of sailing into it departs from reality, describing a region far different from what actually existed there. The Strait follows directly into Puget Sound, Washington, beginning at around 47° 59' N and continuing as far south as 47° 01' N at Tumwater, Washington. During the voyage, Fuca also noted a "high pinnacle or spired rock", which may have been Fuca Pillar, a tall, almost rectangular, rock on the western shore of Cape Flattery on the northwestern tip of Washington beside the Strait of Juan de Fuca - although Fuca noted it being on the other side of the strait.

Despite Velasco's repeated promises, however, Fuca never received the great rewards he claimed as his due. After two years, and on the viceroy's urging, Fuca travelled to Spain to make his case to the court in person. Disappointed again and disgusted with the Spanish, the aging Greek determined to retire to his home in Kefallonia but was in 1596 convinced by an Englishman, Michael Lok (also spelled as Locke in English and French documents from the period), to offer his services to Spain's archenemy, Queen Elizabeth. Nothing came of Lok and Fokás' proposals, but it is through Lok's account that the story of Juan de Fuca entered English letters.