King's Lynn was then a busy seaport, and John Jasper had many contacts in maritime and official circles. In 1772, When Cook was preparing to sail on the second of his three great voyages to the Pacific, no doubt it was through those contacts that Jasper was able to bring young George to Cook's attention and have him appointed to the Resolution. It was a much sought after position and meant that Vancouver would receive a rigorous training in seamanship, navigation and surveying under Cook and also under William Wales, a noted astronomer, who was serving on the Resolution. A decade later, when Vancouver was naming a point on the British Columbia coast after Wales, he noted in his journal that it was to Wales' "kind instruction" that he was indebted "for that information which has enabled me to traverse and delineate these lonely regions."

The chief purpose of Cook's second voyage was to ascertain whether a legendary antarctic continent actually existed. After summer exploration of the Antarctic region, and winter exploration of the South Pacific, in July 1775 the Resolution was back in England. But almost immediately Cook began planning for a third voyage, one that would take him on a search for the long sought for Northwest Passage. He once again sailed in the Resolution, with Vancouver appointed to her smaller companion, the Discovery.

The Resolution and Discovery returned to England in October 1780, and Vancouver applied for and passed examinations that qualified him for promotion to lieutenant. His first appointment was to the sloop Martin. Early in 1782 she was sent to the West Indies Station, where Vancouver was to spend the better part of five years. His last and most important spell of duty there was in the Europa, flagship of Commodore Sir Alan (later Admiral Lord) Gardner, in whom he found a friend and influential patron. It was also in the Europa that Vancouver met four young men who were to figure in his own survey of the Northwest Coast—Peter Puget, Joseph Baker, Joseph Whidbey and Zachary Mudge. Vancouver himself rose to be 1st Lieutenant (second-in-command) of the Europa, and his friendship with Gardner became doubly important when, not long after the ship returned to England, Gardner became a member of the board of admiralty

Meanwhile developments were taking place in the maritime fur trade that were to have important consequences for George Vancouver. Russian fur hunters were advancing through the Aleutian Islands toward the mainland of Alaska and its panhandle; farther south, British and American traders were gathering furs along the Northwest Coast. Spain, which claimed exclusive sovereignty over the coast from California to Cook Inlet, became anxious and sent expeditions north from Mexico to explore and to gauge the seriousness of the threat offered by the fur traders. In 1789 Spain decided to occupy Nootka Sound and a fortified post was built there. It was commanded by Estéban José Martinez, an ardent nationalist, who seized three British ships that entered the harbor and imprisoned their crews. The ships were controlled by a partnership that included John Meares, who had himself traded on the coast in 1788.

The first inkling of these events reached London in January 1790. In April Meares, who had hurried home from China, gave an exaggerated account of the damage suffered. Britain demanded satisfaction from Spain (whose claim to sovereignty of the coast was not recognized by Britain) and war became likely. Vancouver had been appointed second-in-command of a projected surveying expedition, but preparations for it were suspended when war threatened. Recalled to combat duty, he was appointed to the Courageux, a unit in a powerful squadron that became known as the Spanish Armament, Significantly, Gardner was her captain.

A convention with Spain signed in October ended the war threat and sharpened the focus of the expedition. Vancouver was recalled to London and in December was appointed its commander. He was given three assignments: first, to meet a Spanish commissioner at Nootka and settle the damage claims arising from the 1789 seizures; secondly, to make a detailed survey of the coast from California to Alaska; and, thirdly, to try to ascertain once and for all whether an entry to a Northwest Passage (or a navigable passage that extended far inland) actually existed. The voyage was clearly intended to supplement Cook's voyage of 1778 and to fill in the gaps in his charts occasioned by the bad weather that had driven him offshore.

Vancouver's ships were the Discovery, 337 tons (not Cook's ship of the same name—a new vessel specially purchased and outfitted), and the much smaller Chatham. They sailed from Falmouth on April 1, 1791, and followed Cook's route to the Northwest Coast—the Cape of Good Hope, Australia (the southwest corner of which Vancouver was the first to explore), New Zealand, Tahiti and Hawaii. It was a year-long voyage; the ships reached the coast of California in April 1792 and entered the Strait of Juan de Fuca in June.

The Spanish commissioner Vancouver was to meet at Nootka was Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, commander of the forces based on San Blas, Mexico. No stranger to the Northwest Coast, Quadra had made a remarkable voyage of discovery north to Alaska in 1775 in the tiny schooner Sonora. The Daedalus, a transport, bringing supplies and additional instructions from the admiralty, was to meet Vancouver at Nootka. Naturally he was anxious to see the instructions before opening negotiations with Quadra, and to allow time for a late arrival of the Daedalus he decided to spend some weeks in exploration.

The admiralty thought the survey of the coast could probably be completed in two seasons, but due largely to Vancouver's attention to detail, it actually required three. His survey plan has been aptly described as being "rendered infallible by its simplicity"—he would endeavor to trace every foot of the continental shore, a strategy that would be time-consuming, but which should prevent any bay or inlet of consequence from being overlooked.

The 1792 season (the most interesting of the three from a regional point of view) was shortened by the necessity of meeting Quadra, but Vancouver nevertheless made important discoveries. The first of these was Puget Sound, the entrance to which the Spanish had noted but not entered. Vancouver was surprised to find it required a month to sort out its maze of channels and islands. He also noted the survey could be carried out only by the ships' boats; even the Chatham, let alone the Discovery, was too large for the task. This determined the basic pattern of the Vancouver survey: the large ships would anchor in a suitable haven and the boats would then fan out to examine the adjacent coastline in detail.

Birch Bay was one such anchorage, and it was from it that two boats, commanded by Vancouver and Puget, set out on the survey that would include the inner waters of Burrard Inlet. On June 13, 1792, they passed through the First Narrows and spent the rest of the day ascertaining the extent of the inlet. They camped for the night on the shore opposite the entrance to Indian Arm, and left in the morning to resume the pursuit of the continental shore, which they carried as far north as Jervis Inlet and Texada Island.

When returning to the ships at Birch Bay, Vancouver was astonished to find two small Spanish ships at anchor near Point Grey, and he was chagrined to learn that in 1791 a schooner commanded by José Maria Narvaez had traced the coastline some distance beyond the point at which he himself had turned back. In spite of this disappointment, cordial relations were soon established between the British and Spanish commanders, who agreed to cooperate in continuing the survey.

All went well until the ships reached the northern end of Georgia Strait, where they encountered islands and channels that must have reminded Vancouver of Puget Sound. The crisis came when they were faced with the formidable Arran Rapids, at the entrance to Bute Inlet. Fortunately Vancouver had been sending Lieutenant James Johnstone on scouting expeditions that had extended far beyond the point reached by the ships. On the last of these Johnstone had reached Queen Charlotte Strait, and he was convinced that it had an outlet to the ocean. Vancouver decided to follow a route suggested by Johnstone's surveys, which took the ships through Discovery Passage, Johnstone Strait and Queen Charlotte Strait. When he reached the Pacific, Vancouver made a second major discovery—he had established the insularity of Vancouver Island. He then turned northward and carried the coastal survey as far as Burke Channel. Presently a trading ship brought word that the Daedalus had arrived, and he sailed for Nootka immediately.

Vancouver and Quadra became friends, but they were unable to resolve the difficulties that had arisen from the 1789 seizures. The Daedalus had not brought Vancouver the promised additional instructions, and Quadra was handicapped by uncertainties about the desirable extent of Spanish sovereignty and the future of Nootka. All they could do was agree to refer the points at issue back to their respective governments in Madrid and London. There were no personal hard feelings; a permanent souvenir of their friendship might have resulted when Quadra asked Vancouver to name "some port or Island after us both" and Vancouver responded by naming "our place of meeting" Quadra and Vancouver's Island; but this unwieldy name was soon shortened by popular usage to Vancouver Island. It was one of more than 400 place names bestowed by Vancouver in the course of his voyage, a high proportion of which still survive in their original or a modified form.

Vancouver sailed south to California, where the Discovery was the first foreign vessel to enter San Francisco harbor, and thence to Monterey, where he enjoyed a last visit with Quadra. The Chatham joined him, and they sailed for the Hawaiian Islands to spend the winter in the milder climate.

The spring of 1793 found the ships back on the Northwest Coast, ready to resume their survey. They met in Burke Channel, worked their way northward, explored Observatory Inlet and Portland Canal, and ended the season by circumnavigating Revillagigedo Island, in Alaska. This last survey nearly ended in disaster, as the ship's boat commanded by Vancouver was subjected to much the most dangerous attack by Indians suffered by the expedition. It was beaten off with casualties limited to two men wounded, but Vancouver admitted frankly that he had failed to take proper defensive precautions. In his own words, relations with the Indians had been so uniformly friendly that "apprehensions of any molestation from them were totally done away with."

The end of the survey season found the ships heading once more for California and then Hawaii, Vancouver liked the islands and the islanders liked him. He developed two ambitions: first, to try to induce the various chiefs to refrain from the inter-island warfare that caused death and destruction, and secondly, to persuade the chiefs to cede the islands to Great Britain. His first ambition was never realized, but in 1794 Kamehameha and the district chiefs of the island of Hawaii did cede the lands within their control. This interesting agreement was never followed up in any effective way in London; Britain was preoccupied by more pressing matters closer to home, notably the Napoleonic wars.

For the third and final survey season Vancouver decided to work southward instead of northward. This survey, which was entirely in what is now Alaska, began in Cook Inlet and ended in a bay near the southern tip of Baranof Island, which Vancouver named Port Conclusion. The return of the last of the ships' boats was celebrated in a modest way, but one hardly in keeping with the conclusion of one of the greatest surveying ventures which, incidentally, had proven once and for all that the Northwest Passage did not exist within the vast extent of coastline it had examined.

After a call at Nootka the ships began the long homeward voyage, which was made by way of California, Valparaiso, Cape Horn and St. Helena. There the Chatham was detached on special duty, and it was the Discovery travelling with a convoy she had encountered, that reached the Shannon, in Ireland, on September 12, 1795, and the Thames a month later. The Chatham joined her there in November. Since leaving Falmouth in 1791 the ships had sailed about 105,000 kilometres. Of the 180 men who sailed with the expedition, all but five returned safely—a remarkable score for the time, and one that reflected the efforts Vancouver made to care for his crews.

Vancouver's health was failing and he soon retired to Petersham, on the outskirts of London. The admiralty instructed him to prepare his journal for publication—a formidable assignment in which he was assisted by his brother John. The published version, half a million words in length, was within a hundred pages of completion when Vancouver died on May 12, 1798, at the early age of 40. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Peter's, Petersham, and over the years has not been forgotten. A wreath from the mayor and council of the City of Vancouver is laid on the grave each year on the anniversary of his death.

Appropriately the city has arranged to have the grave cared for by the Petersham and Ham Sea Scout Group.