Created by Christian Egan
Charting First Encounters maps twenty-three points where George Vancouver’s expedition encountered Indigenous peoples, communities, and constructions over two weeks in early May, 1792. Given the archival absence of textual Indigenous sources, Vancouver’s writings provide the first recorded account of Puget Sound’s native cultures. The project uses data extracted from chapters IV and V of Vancouver’s A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World that was then analyzed and visualized in ArchGIS to show how native populations adapted their habitation strategies to adapt to the topography and ecology of the Peugeot sound.
