Images of Pre-Discovery Alaska in the Work of European Cartographers

Abstract

European pre-discovery maps of the area now known as Alaska concern four interlocked issues: (1) an extension of knowledge of California and the northwest coast of America; (2) the nature of the Arctic; (3) what lay north of Japan; and (4) the relationship between America and Asia - how wide was the Pacific? A picture of the general outline of Alaska became clear to European geographers during the last half of the eighteenth century. Many questions concerning the arctic coast lasted well into the nineteenth century, and questions regarding arctic islands were not settled until the twentieth. This paper ends with the year 1728, however, well before Europe actually found out through the work of Du Halde (1735) about the voyage of Bering and Chirikov. ... The maps that have been chosen for study are those which demonstrate concepts of the region where the North Pacific and the Arctic meet and which would clearly have influenced the concept of this region. .. In compiling a carto-bibliography of Alaska for publication (Falk, 1983) I have found roughly 550 relevant pre-1728 maps which are still available for study either in the original or in facsimile. I will not list each map; they can be found in the carto-bibliography. Instead, I have organized these maps in terms of broad concepts and will discuss important examples.