The Atlas of North American Exploration from the Norse Voyages to the Race to the Pole by William H. Goetzmann and Glyndwr Williams (review)

The Atlas ofNorth American Explorationfrom the Norse Voyages to the Race to the Pole William H. Goetzmann and Glyndwr Williams. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1992 224 pp., maps, illustrations Reviewed by James W. Scott Professor, Department of Geography and Regional Planning Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225 T h e COOPERATIVE EFFORTS of two of the world’s leading historians of exploration—University of Texas historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Goetzmann and University of Lon­ don historian and former Hakluyt Society president Glyndwr Williams—have culminated in the publication of an atlas of explora­ tion that is as exemplary cartographically as it is masterful historically. Organized in five sections of varying lengths, and spanning ev­ ery era from the Norse voyages of the 9th century to the North Polar explorations of the early 20th century, the atlas describes and as­ sesses every major exploration undertaken during each of these. In so doing, every geographical region of North America is considered in terms both ofits discovery and exploration by Europeans or Ameri­ cans and the impact of these “discoveries” on the native Americans of the continent. 162 SCOTT: Review of The Atlas ofNorth American Exploration 163 A short introduction titled “America: Found, Lost, and Found Again” by David Beers Quinn, doyen of British historians of explo­ ration, sets the scene for the sections that follow. The first of these, titled “A Continent on the Edge of the World,” considers two main themes: “The Atlantic Coast Revealed” and “The Spanish Border­ lands.” John Cabot, Ponce de Leon, Verrazano, Cartier, Frobisher and Davis, and Hudson and Baffin are the explorers dealt with under the first of the two themes. Cabeza de Vaca, Hernando de Soto, Coronado, Francis Drake, Vizcaino, and Onate are those of the sec­ ond, not to mention the “apocryphal voyages” of Maldonado, Juan de Fuca, and de Fonte. Part II, titled “The Opening ofthe Continent,” likewise deals with two major themes: “Rugged and Laborious Beginnings” and ‘The Quest for the Western Sea.” The first theme covers Franco-Spanish rivalry in Florida in the late 16th century, the lost colony of Roanoke, the Newfoundland fishery and island settlement, the founding ofNew France, exploration of the New England coast, and Captain John Smith’s colony of Jamestown. The second theme deals with such topics as Champlain’s travels up the St. Lawrence to the Great Lakes, Jesuit missionaries in the Great Lakes and beyond, the journeys of Jolliet and Marquette to the Mississippi, La Salle’s journey beyond to the Gulf of Mexico, the initial exploration of Hudson Bay, and the journeys of Dulhut, Noyou, and Kelsey toward the prairies. “Expanding the Frontiers” is the title of Part ID, which also looks at two themes. The first, ‘To the Mountains and Beyond,” looks first at expansion inland from three different places—the Northern Colonies, Virginia, and SouthCarolina—andthen assessesthe extensionofknowl­ edge in the SouthernColonies in the 18th century. The race for the Ohio, theexplorationoftheAppalachianMountains, andthoseofDanielBoone in the Trans-Appalachian West and the travels of Jonathan Carver are also covered. The second theme—“The Trans-Mississippi West”—en­ compasses the travels of La Salle in the Gulf of Mexico, European beginnings in Louisiana and Texas, Bourgmont’s explorations along 164 APCG YEARBOOK • VOLUME 55 • 1993 the Missouri, and the travels of the Verendryes in Mandan territory and those of the Mallets to Santa Fe. Part IV, titled “Ocean to Ocean,” covers no fewer than six themes: the Northern Fur Trade, the Pacific Northwest, Jeffersonian path­ finders, fur trade and empire, the “Great Reconnaissance,” and the so-called “Great Surveys.” In the first four of these we can follow the travels and explorations of such “giants” as Samuel Heame, Sir Alexander Mackenzie, Simon Fraser, David Thompson, Father Kino, Vitus Bering, Captain Cook, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, as well as those of the Astorians, the “Mountain Men” and other fur traders, and of Pike and Long to the “Great American Desert.” In the fifth section of part IV the early surveys of John C. Fremont and others and the Congressional Railroad Surveys ofthe 1850s are dealt with, while in the sixth and final section the “Great Surveys” of Clarence King, George Wheeler...