b. 1753-08-08
d. 1840
Traders such as James Charles Stuart Strange were inspired to form expeditions of
their own after Captain King published the report of
Captain Cook’s third Northwest Coast trading expedition in 1784.
1 Strange was tempted by the seemingly effortless and lucrative business, and he enlisted
the help of
David Scott, an independent merchant in India.
2Strange and
Scott fitted two ships,
Captain Cook and
Experiment, and sailed out of India for for the northwest Pacific coast in 1785; their journey
was ill-fated.
3They were unable to purchase many of the goods that they had intended to sell, the
Experiment was holed and needed to stop for repairs, and many of the crew members came down
with scurvy.
4 Strange fell far behind schedule, and did not arrive in
Nootka Sound until June of 1786.
5Strange had arrived too late in the season to acquire many furs, and he soon realized
that he was working with with wise and seasoned traders who would not easily part
with their pelts.6 The expedition, clearly a financial failure, also failed to contribute much in the
way of exploration or knowledge.7
Strange eventually retired to Scotland, where he died in 1840.8
- 1. Robin A. Fisher, Strange, James Charles Stuart, Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.
- 2. Barry M. Gough, Distant Dominion: Britain and the Northwest Coast of North America, 1579-1809 (Canada: University of British Columbia, 1980), 57.
- 3. Robin A. Fisher, Strange, James Charles Stuart, Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.
- 4. Ibid.
- 5. Ibid.
- 6. Ibid.
- 7. Barry M. Gough, Distant Dominion: Britain and the Northwest Coast of North America, 1579-1809 (Canada: University of British Columbia, 1980), 58.
- 8. Robin A. Fisher, Strange, James Charles Stuart, Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.