Thompson, Ron.
The Wind From All Directions.
Double Dagger.
2024.
ISBN 9781990644900.
330 pages.
This book is a work of fiction but, like many books of its type, there is an element of fact underpinning it. It is often not easy to discern fiction from fact, and anyone without prior knowledge of the Nootka Sound Incident of 1789 will most probably have great difficulty here. Should it matter? It may be argued that the purpose of the novel is to tell a story and, if the bending of the truth helps to drive the narrative along, then so much the better.
Artistic licence is the prerogative of the author.
The events described here take place over a short period in 1792 in Nootka Sound on the outer coast of Vancouver Island in what is now Western Canada. Representatives of the British and Spanish governments had been sent to the inlet to complete the implementation of resolutions that had been reached earlier in Europe. War that had nearly been initiated by the somewhat “hot-headed” behaviour of two naval officers in the inlet in had been avoided.
Estéban José Martínez had arrived at Nootka on 3 May, 1789, as the new Spanish commander, with instructions to implement Spanish authority over the sound and the region. James Colnett, a British fur trader, arrived two months later in Argonaut on 3 July to discover that the Spanish had established a post. Initially, relations between Colnett and Martínez were cordial, but they soon deteriorated into a violent argument. Martínez had Colnett arrested and Argonaut was seized. Diplomacy and tact were sadly lacking, and both men were at fault. It may have rested there, but another Briton, John Meares, complained to the British Government, and the Nootka Sound Incident snowballed. The British Channel fleet was mobilised, but hasty negotiations managed to avert war between Britain and Spain.
Britain emerged largely successful. The inlet was no longer deemed Spanish territory, and Britain would have free access to Nootka and the region. The two countries agreed to send representatives to Nootka to see that the results of the negotiations were carried out.
Britain appointed George Vancouver, a Royal Navy captain and protégé of James Cook, for the task. Vancouver had no experience of any sort of diplomacy, so was a poor choice. However, the Admiralty had plans for a surveying expedition to the Northwest Coast (a task for which he was eminently suitable), and saw the chance to “kill two birds with one stone”. The Admiralty then saddled him with a tribe of spoilt, privileged, young midshipmen who made Vancouver’s life a misery during and after the voyage—they included a grandson of a former Prime Minister, offspring of Admirals, and young men with close links to aristocracy.
For their part, Spain appointed Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, a naval officer based at San Blas (in present-day Mexico). Bodega y Quadra had experience on expeditions to Nootka and further north to Southeast Alaska.
On 28 August, 1792, Vancouver entered Nootka Sound to find Bodega y Quadra waiting for him. Thompson’s book covers the next six weeks during which the two men undertook long talks. However, neither man felt sufficiently empowered to make decisions, so very little was achieved especially as the Spanish procrastinated, being reluctant to hand over anything to the British. The men did become firm friends, so much so that Vancouver proposed that the large landmass he had just shown to be an island should be called Quadra and Vancouver's Island. Unfortunately for Bodega y Quadra, his name was subsequently dropped and given to another much smaller island in the Strait of Georgia.
All the while, the Nuu-chah-nulth, the local people of the inlet, looked on—largely ignored by both the European contingents.
Given that very little exciting was happening between Vancouver and Bodega y Quadra, Thompson fills his book with sub-stories involving the aforementioned British midshipmen, a few junior Spanish sailors and some Nuu-chah-nulth young people. The book finishes as Vancouver takes his ships from Nootka Sound on 12 October, 1792.
I began by stating that a purpose of a novel is to tell a story. Thompson does that but it is not much of a story.
John Robson
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 10, volume 48, number 1 (2025).