
Juan de Fuca - brudgers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_de_Fuca
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kibibyte
Well I certainly fell down the Wikipedia rabbit hole. That article lead me to
the article on the strait named after him, through which I discovered that we
(the US) and Canada still have active border disputes. --
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_areas_disputed_by_Cana...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_areas_disputed_by_Canada_and_the_United_States)

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daleharvey
One of the more interesting disputes -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_War_(1859)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_War_\(1859\))

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akulbe
Nice! I never thought I'd see mention of something close to home on HN.

I grew up in Port Angeles. Ocean in your front yard, mountains in your
backyard, rivers, lakes, hunting. The works.

It was a beautiful place.

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rpastuszak
Ha,did a bit of digging and found this nearby (Little James Island):
[https://www.google.com/maps/@47.9117387,-124.6449377,3a,75y,...](https://www.google.com/maps/@47.9117387,-124.6449377,3a,75y,267.24h,89.2t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNn0xUGdQutNlSlgCOXQIoOsndu8gtr87ANOYNH!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNn0xUGdQutNlSlgCOXQIoOsndu8gtr87ANOYNH%3Dw203-h100-k-no-
pi-0-ya107.170586-ro-0-fo100!7i4608!8i2304)

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steve_adams_86
I've lived on the strait named after him my entire life and didn't know about
him and his controversy. There's also a wonderful hiking trail named after him
(mentioned in the article) which is well worth visiting if you're ever on
Vancouver Island. It takes most people a couple days, but it's beautiful, not
too difficult, and not too busy.

So fascinating to think people explored these waters in hopes that it would
connect to the Atlantic. Not even close.

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tjr225
Imagine their disappointment when they got to Olympia and found hordes of
crust punks and crystal healers...

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imgabe
Interesting, but is there some context for why this is being posted, or was it
just a random Wikipedia article that seemed neat?

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brudgers
The eponymous straight is a major seaway. It's Spanish origin challenged my
naive model of US historical geography when I was alongside it a few weeks ago
-- I generally associate Spanish with the coast further south. At the time my
wikipedia connectivity was limited. Yesterday, I mentioned having been there
and was reminded of my curiosity. Partly what made the article intellectually
interesting to me is the contemporary interest in discrediting Juan de Fuca's
account. Partly it is that Juan de Fuca was Greek rather than Spanish. And
partly it is the proximity of the straight to Seattle and Vancouver without a
well known "Amerigo Vespucci" story of it's name.

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davidw
There were a lot of people cruising around the Pacific coast.

In terms of Spanish names, there are also:

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Blanco_(Oregon)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Blanco_\(Oregon\))

* Heceta Head - named for [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_de_Heceta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_de_Heceta)

The Russians had forts as far south as California.

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lainga
And any resident of BC or northern Washington will be familiar with San Juan,
Galiano, Valdes, and Gabriola islands; the Fidalgo, Haro, and Rosario straits;
and Spanish Banks off English Bay, where Galiano's expedition met George
Vancouver's, and agreed to split the naming of features in the area equally
between them (as they were allies against France at the time).

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davidw
I think one of my favorite "how the ...?!" geography names is the Owyhee River
area of south east Oregon. It's a high, dry steppe where nothing much grows
except sagebrush, and hardly any one lives.

Owyhee, though, is a different spelling of Hawaii, and the river was named for
some Hawaiian explorers who set out to explore the area and were never seen
again.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owyhee_River#Naming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owyhee_River#Naming)

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niftich
So, while probably being a skilled navigator, he was either a serial
bullshitter who may or may not have been before the King of Spain and may not
have actually seen features that were later ascribed to the area, or a man
wronged probably by the viceroy who may have colluded with others to get him
excluded from the archives. Both possibilities are fairly bizarre.

Then there's Englishman Charles William Barkley (1759 – 1832) who ran an
unlicensed, regulation-dodging trading tour out of one ship registered abroad,
in collusion with some top executives at the monopolist competition! He was
the one who named the strait after Juan de Fuca, so clearly the English were
much more fascinated with him than the Spanish.

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taneq
It seems obligatory here to mention Peter Watts' _Rifters_ trilogy, the first
book of which is set in and around a geothermal power station on the sea floor
near the Juan de Fuca Ridge.

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cdubzzz
Somewhat related — a recent short video about Puget Sound:
[https://youtu.be/EJrrRPHa6-c](https://youtu.be/EJrrRPHa6-c)

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brudgers
At 2:41 the video shows what is probably Vancouver's map labeling the straight
"supposed Straight of Juan de Fuca." What I find interesting is that
Vancouver's exploration was 200 years after Juan de Fuca reported being
there...about as much time had passed between Juan de Fuca and Vancouver as
has passed between Vancouver and us.

Even more strikingly (at least to me) is that at the time of Vancouver's
expedition, clear determination that California was not an island by Juan
Bautista de Anza [1] was about as recent as the founding of Google is to
us...and a person was still likely to have a map showing that it was. [2]

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Bautista_de_Anza](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Bautista_de_Anza)

[2]: [https://exhibits.stanford.edu/california-as-an-
island/featur...](https://exhibits.stanford.edu/california-as-an-
island/feature/history)

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fastaguy88
And then, of course, there is the book:

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007JKSHZ4](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007JKSHZ4)

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chipaca
Could somebody correct the title?

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aaronbrethorst
Should be "Juan de Fuca", not "Jaun de Fuca"

