The discovery and early development of Alaska required four major conditions: 1) a government or commercial enterprise interested in exploration for territorial expansion or trade; 2) a navy with ocean-going vessels and trained personnel; 3) reliable maps, and 4) the scientific knowledge to undertake a mapping expedition by sea without land based support.

By the mid-18th century, three European countries met some or most of these criteria: Spain, Russia and England. Spain, having colonized as far north as San Francisco, was already finding it difficult to maintain its supply and communication lines with the old world. Furthermore, following the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, Spain had moved into a period of isolationism and did not participate in the exchange of scientific ideas or maps with the rest of Europe. As a result, it did not learn in a timely manner of ongoing Russian and British explorations. By contrast, the government of Russia's Peter the Great, as a result of its war with Sweden, had recently developed an ocean-going navy and trained personnel. Because of wartime expenses, Peter was looking for new, unclaimed lands as a source of furs and minerals to replenish his treasury. Similarly, England, an established naval power, was engaged in a period of rapid commercial expansion. Both countries supported efforts of their scientific communities in mapping and developing the technology to accurately determine positions at sea.

The mid-eighteenth century was an exciting time of discovery. So much that we now take for granted was unknown at that time. Although the English colonists on the Atlantic coast were mapping lands adjacent to the eastern seaboard, no European had yet crossed the American continent. The North Pacific, which lay far to the north of the southern sea routes, remained one of the great areas of uncertainty on emerging world maps. One of the chief remaining mysteries was the size of the Earth-a measurement that map makers of the period tended to underestimate. The Pacific Ocean was seen as a relatively narrow body of water bordered by Asia, Japan and Kamchatka on the east and by three variously and imaginatively placed islands on the west. These were marked as a large island to the north and California to the south with a mythical Juan de Gama Land somewhere in between. Map makers disagreed on or were vague about whether Asia and North America were joined somewhere in the northern North Pacific.

As a result, Peter the Great's instructions to Danish explorer Vitus Bering were vague and based on misinformation concerning both the size of the Pacific Ocean and the location of land masses. Although traditionally, the purpose of Bering's first voyage is said to have been the discovery of the large northern land mass, modern scholars believe that the more likely purpose was to look for a land bridge joining Asia and North America.

Bering's expeditions required considerably more logistical effort than Captain Cook's later explorations from England. On departing Moscow, Bering had to first cross and map Siberia, a task comparable to the Lewis and Clark expedition. It took him three years to cross Siberia (1725-1728). On arriving in Eniseisk, a seaport on the Kamchatka Peninsula, he discovered that no one had ever heard of Juan de Gama land. Here, he built the St. Gabriel, a vessel capable of coastal cruising. In 1728, Bering sailed north. When the land turned west instead of east, he turned back. Clearly, there was no land bridge in that direction. In 1729, he sailed west for three days looking for Juan de Gama land, which was supposed to be one hundred and fifty to two hundred miles offshore. Encountering fog, Bering turned back when Alaska was still another hundred miles away.

Neither the politicians nor the scientists were happy with Bering's failure to establish the existence of a land bridge or to find Juan de Gama land. However, as Russia continued its eastward expansion, the treasury continued to be depleted, and Bering remained the most experienced navigator to lead another expedition to find Juan de Gama land. Bering's instructions from the Admiralty College were to sail SE to 46° latitude in search of Juan de Gama land; and then if nothing were found, he was to sail northeast until reaching America. On reaching America he was to follow the American Coast to 65° N., then turn west and measure the distance between America and the Chukotsk Peninsula. He was to return to Petropavlovsk harbor by the end of September.

Commander Bering on the St. Peter and Captain Chirikov on the St. Paul left Petropavlovsk on June 4, 1741. After ten days of sailing east in search of Juan de Gama land, Bering and Chirikov agreed that Professor Delisle de la Croyere's Juan de Gama land was a myth. Both captains turned northeast. On June 20th, they became separated in dense fog and continued their explorations separately. On July 5, after sighting driftwood, the St. Peter altered course to the north. On July 16, Georg Wilhelm Steller was the first to sight land. Everyone saw land on July 17. The ship's log reads, "Soon after midday, at half past twelve, we saw land with high mountains, and their range was covered with snow." On July 19th, a party went ashore on Kayak Island, just to the east of Prince William Sound. Naturalist Steller recognized that this was not on the Asian continent when he spotted a black-headed blue jay that now bears his name.

On July 20th, almost six weeks after leaving Petropavlovsk, Bering headed back to Kamchatka. On their homeward voyage, however, they discovered the Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Islands blocking their way. Winter storms set in before they could reach Kamchatka. Bering was shipwrecked; he and 19 of his men died. The survivors managed to build a small boat from the wreckage of the St Peter, and in August of 1742 sailed on to Petropavlovsk with news of Bering's discovery of Alaska.

Captain James Cook:

On July 12, 1776, just eight days after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, two modest sized sailing vessels weighed anchor in England's Plymouth Harbor bound south around the Cape of Good Hope for the west coast of America. The ships were the research vessels, Discovery and Resolution dispatched by His Majesty, King George III, to seek the Northwest Passage above the American continent so the British might engage in fruitful trade with the far east. Captain James Cook, armed with Bering's map and new, more accurate chronometers for determining longitude, was selected to lead the expedition. The ships' rosters read like a future dictionary of Alaskan place names: Cook (Inlet), Bligh (Island), Gore (Point), Billings (Glacier), Dixon (Entrance), Portlock (Harbor), Vancouver (Cape). And it is little wonder that these men's names appear on our maps, for this voyage of exploration was to illuminate much of the northwest coast of America and to discover Prince William Sound. Vancouver, Dixon, Billings, and Port­lock all led later expeditions to further explore or develop the Sound.

It was not until May 12, 1778, two years after his departure from England, that Captain James Cook first dropped anchor in Prince William Sound. The trip had been long and arduous, and the Resolution had sprung a leak in her starboard buttock in a storm off Vancouver Island. Cook was seeking calmer waters and a suitable place to careen the Resolution for repairs when he sighted beyond a prominent cape a wide passage leading into the interior. He named the Cape "Hinchinbrook," after Viscount Hinchinbrook, the father of his patron, John Montagu Earl of Sandwich. The island forming the west side of the passage he dubbed "Montagu Island" and the vast Sound beyond "Sandwich Sound."

Unfortunately, the good Earl enjoyed a rather unsavory reputation back home in England because of his extreme addiction to gambling. It is said that he was so loathe to leave the gaming tables at meal times that he was in the habit of grabbing any nearby food, jamming it between two pieces of bread and consuming it on the spot-hence the origin of the "sandwich." The editors of Cook's maps changed "Sandwich Sound" to "Prince William Sound" after Prince William IV-a rather frivolous and senile prince who ascended the throne at age 64 and was popularly known as "Silly Billy." Although Cook named many geographical features after the expedition's patrons and expedition members, he also established the practice of using native names for preexisting settlements such as "Nuchek" for Port Etches. According to Chugach historian, John Johnson, "Nuchek " is an Alutiiq word meaning "last land before the open water (p.379)."

Cook brought his vessels to anchor just inside Port Etches at what is presently known as English Bay and there made first contact with the inhabitants. He immediately recognized that the Natives here resembled the Esquimax (Eskimo) of Hudson Bay more than the Indians of Vancouver Island. Cook made extensive notes on their appearance, dress, boats, and weapons. John Ledyard noted, "Their skin-canoes, their double bladed paddles, their dress and appearances of less note are the same as on the coast of Labrador and in Hudson's-Bay (p.80)."

The Natives already had in their possession iron spear tips and sky-blue trading beads, most probably of Russian origin. It is not known whether the Russians visited the Sound before Cook or whether the Natives traded for these beads and iron artifacts with tribes further to the south and west. Certainly, the thirty-seven years between Bering's first visit to nearby Kayak Island and Cook's voyage allowed sufficient time for a visit of wayward Russian traders. But since there is no record, we must award the European discovery of the Sound to Captain Cook.

Deeming English Bay to be unsuitable for effecting repairs, Cook sailed into what he called (and is still called) "Snug Corner Cove" at the mouth of Port Fidalgo. Here, he beached the Resolution for repairs but not without some difficulties. In setting out the kedge anchor one of the crew members caught his leg in the buoy rope and was dragged straight to the bottom but was rescued suffering only a fractured leg. A band of Natives from nearby village of Tatitlek seeing nobody on the Discovery but a watch, boarded her and tried to make off with the ship's boats before being discouraged by the crew issuing from below.

As the weather was fine and the repairs on the Resolution not quite finished, Gore and Bligh (of later Bounty fame) were sent out in the long boats to ascertain if this could be the fabled Northwest Passage. The results of their brief explorations, however, were inconclusive; so the repairs made, Cook weighed anchor and with the larger ships headed in a northerly direction. Encountering the shoals off Bligh Island and seeing nothing but high snow-capped mountains ahead, he concluded that this could not be the Northwest Passage and directed his course south to anchor in Montague Straits just to the south of Green Island (which he also named). Cook then exited the Sound through its western entrance and headed toward the inlet that would soon bear his name.

Cook's cursory visit to the Sound was not the end of the story. When Gore navigated the ships back to England following Cook's death in Hawaii, he stopped in China and discovered the extravagant prices the Chinese were willing to pay for the sea otter pelts obtained in Prince William Sound. The news of this potentially profitable trade soon reached England to set off a minor British "fur rush." Cook's crew members, Meares, Colnett, Portlock, and Dixon, all returned to the Sound to pursue the sea otter trade.