Page 86 - Purple Butterfly Book 2

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He was born the 27th of October, 1728, in the village of Marton, Yorkshire. When he was 16, he moved to a nearby fishing village named Staithes, where he started working in a shop as a grocer. Some people say that it was there, looking out at the shop window towards the sea that he first began to feel the wish to be a sailor. A year and a half later, realizing that he didn’t want to work in a shop, he left to the port town Whitby, where he met John and Henry Walker. The Walkers bought and sold coal and owned several ships. (The Walkers’ house is today the Captain Cook Memorial Museum).
Cook started working as a merchant navy apprentice on one of their ships, the Freelove. He spent a couple of years there, and some more time on a few other ships, sailing between London and the Tyne. As an apprentice, he started learning the basics of cartography, which would help him lead his own ship in the future, which are algebra, trigonometry, astronomy, geometry, and, of course, how to navigate a ship.
After his apprenticeship had been finished, Cook started working on trading ships that sailed through the Baltic Sea. By 1755, he had joined the Navy. He worked on many ships for the next couple of years. He fought in the Seven Years’ War, and during that time mapped much of Quebec and Newfoundland. Because of this, the Admiralty and the Royal Society decided to hire him as the commander of HM Bark Endeavour for the first of what was to end up being three of the most famed voyages through the Pacific.
During these three journeys, he sailed thousands of miles through mostly and more accurately uncharted areas of the globe. He mapped the land from New Zealand to Hawaii in greater detail than anyone had ever done before. Through his travels, he mapped many islands and coastlines for the very first time. He was the first recorded European ever make contact with the Hawaiian Islands or the eastern coastline of Australia. He was also the first recorded person to sail around New Zealand.
During all of this, he showed an astounding combination of impressive cartographic skills, physical courage and the rare talent of true leadership. He was the sort of man that people would willingly follow into deadly situations because they knew he would get them out safely. Even though he was killed by Hawaiians in his third and last voyage, he was so looked up to by them that they gave him the funeral rituals that were only used for chiefs and the highest elders. He left behind a legacy of geographic and scientific knowledge that changed the future and influenced many later generations to follow his example. He was, truly, a great man, and a great captain.
CARTOGRAPHy CONTEST!
Next, you will imagine you are a sailor in 1775 and you were assigned by Captain Cook to make a map of his next journey.
First, you will need to decide the route the ship will be taking.
Then, choose the materials you will use for your map. Remember, it is important to be creative.
unit
The best map wins!
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