Description:
Situated on Crows Hill (Cook’s Lookout), a prominent headland, and reached by road with parking areas, walkways and site lighting.
Designed around a future sculpture in bronze, a statue larger than life which will depict Cook at the appropriate age while in Newfoundland in the act of gazing into the heavens through a quadrant.
Two bronze plaques now refurbished and reinstated along with five new interpretive panels which chronologically detail Cook’s arrival in the new world.
History:
James Cook charted this coast in 1767, and named many places in the area.
Plaques originally erected in the 1970s. Placed there as a result of the persuasion of Dr Noel Murphy, a retired physician who was also Mayor of Corner Brook for 12 years.
Originally developed by Parks Canada as a National Historic Plaque site.
A bronze statue of Cook, sculpted by Luben Boykov, was later added.
Inscription:
On one plaque:
CAPTAIN JAMES COOK, R.N.
LE CAPITAINE JAMES COOK
From 1763 to 1767 Captain James Cook, R.N., directed a
survey embracing the greater part of the coast of New-
foundland. The charting of this coastline was the first
scientific, large scale, hydrographic survey to use precise
triangulation to establish land outlines. It produced a
collection of charts which remained standard for a century.
The choice of Cook to carry out Pacific exploration was
the result of his success in Newfoundland. Cook’s visit to
this area on his ascent of the Humber as far as Deer Lake
was part of the first serious attempt to delineate the in-
land topography of Newfoundland.
De 1763 à 1767. le capitaine James Cook, de la Marine
royale, procéda au levé topographique de la plus grande
partie du littoral de Terre-Neuve. La cartographie du
relief cótier de cette grande region constitua le premier
levé scientifique de grande envérgure par triangulation.
On en tira une série de cartes qui firent autorité pendant
un siècle. Au cours de ses travaux, Cook remonta la
riviére Humber juaqu’au lac Deer. A cause de son succés
à Terre-Neuve, il fut chargé de sa premiére expedition
dans le Pacifique.
Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.
Commission des lieux et monuments historiques du Canada.
Government of Canada . Gouvernement du Canada
On the other plaque:
-is a chart of the
West Coast of Newfoundland.
Surveyed by Order of Commodore Palliser,
Governor of Newfoundland an Labradore &c &c.
By James Cook, Surveyor.
GPS Coordinates: 48.9542, -57.9627
References:
Cook’s Log, page 1576, vol.22, no.1 (1999)
Cook’s Log, page 26, vol.31, no.3 (2008)
Cook’s Log, page 34, vol.35, no.4 (2012)
Image gallery (click to enlarge)