The Hunt for Sir Francis Drake’s Fair and Good Bay

• Event Date: 10-12-2019
• Time: 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
• Presented by: Melissa Darby
• Where: Community Room of the West Linn Library

Melissa Darby unravels the mysteries surrounding Drake's famous voyage and summer sojourn to the Oregon Coast.

“Darby’s book is a masterpiece of detective work into the various claims for the landing location of Drake and the Golden Hind in the summer of 1579. With similarities to the Cardiff Giant and Piltdown Man hoaxes, Darby’s work uncovers a potential scientific conspiracy by one of Califor- nia’s most renowned historians. She masterfully weaves a tale of political intrigue, fraud, and ego into an academic treatise that reads more like a historical mystery novel. Sometimes truth can be stranger than fiction!”
—Todd Braje, professor of anthropology, San Diego State University

“Thunder Go North embarks on a fresh investigation into a centuries-old ‘vexed question’: Where was Francis Drake’s 1579 landing place on North America’s Pacific Coast? Author Melissa Darby presents a compelling case that Drake most likely came ashore on the central coast of Oregon—far to the north of Drake’s Bay, near San Francisco, the allegedly ‘long-settled’ answer to that question. Darby’s conclusions cannot be ignored by Drake scholars or others hoping to unlock this nearly 450-year-old puzzle. In ad- dition, Thunder Go North reveals the incredibly tangled web of intrigue, duplicity, and hoax that has bedeviled past historians’ efforts to answer the ‘Where did Drake land?’ question.”
—Jeff LaLande, historian and archaeologist

Challenges the long-held belief that Drake’s party landed in California

In the summer of 1579 Francis Drake and all those aboard the Golden Hind were in peril. The ship was leaking and they were in search of a protected beach to careen the ship to make repairs. They searched the coast and made landfall in what they called a “Fair and Good Bay,” generally thought to be in California. They stacked the treasure they had recently cap- tured from the Spanish on this sandy shore, explored the country, repaired the ship, and set sail for home.

Thunder Go North unravels the mysteries surrounding Drake’s famous voyage and summer sojourn in this bay. Comparing Drake’s observations of Native houses, dress, foods, language, and lifeways with ethnographic material collected by early an- thropologists, Melissa Darby makes a compelling case that Drake and his crew landed not in California but on the Oregon coast. She also uncovers the details of how an early twentieth-century hoax succeeded in maintaining the California landing theory and silencing contrary evidence. Presented here in an engaging narrative, Darby’s research rewrites the history of this event.

Melissa Darby is a visiting research scholar in the Department of Anthropology at Portland State University and a private consultant in cultural resource management.

Lewis and Clark National Historical Park, Fort Clatsop is pleased to announce an additional In Their Footsteps free speaker series event. On Sunday, August 18, at 1:00 PM Garry Bush will present The Life and Times of Pomp: Jean Baptiste Charbonneau.

As an infant, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau accompanied the Corps of Discovery to the Pacific. He grew to be a fur trade legend. After traveling in Europe, he was involved with the Santa Fe Trail, the Mexican War, and the California Gold Rush. Garry Bush will share the epic story of Sacagawea and Toussaint Charbonneau’s well-traveled son, “Pomp.”

Garry Bush is a retired high school teacher from Lewiston, Idaho who enjoys living history. He has been giving presentations about both Jean Baptiste Charbonneau and Toussaint Charbonneau for many years.

Other upcoming In Their Footsteps speaker series programs include:

• Sunday, September 15 – John Colter’s Impact on American History by Christopher Hodges
• Sunday, October 20 - Ever Wild, A Lifetime on Mount Adams by Darryl Lloyd
• Sunday, November 17 - Courageous Tales of the Corps of Discovery by Ian Sampson
• Sunday, December 15 - Historic Winter Transportation by Richard Brenne

This third Sunday of the month forum is sponsored by the Lewis & Clark National Park Association and the park. These programs are held in the Netul River Room of Fort Clatsop’s visitor center and are free of charge.

For more information, call the park at (503) 861-2471, or check out www.nps.gov/lewi, or Lewis and Clark National Historical Park on Facebook.

Tour the Oregon Vault (Oregon Historical Society's artifact warehouse) on May 29, 2019.

Important change!!!
We are now meeting at the party room at Wall St. Pizza at 12 noon on Wednesday, May 29th for a no host lunch and refreshments. Directions to the Oregon Vault will be handed out at lunch.  You must come to the lunch to get the directions as the Oregon Historical Society does not advertise the location of the vault to the general public. Participants need to RSVP Glen Kirkpatrick at:  glen9774@gmail.com.