When Captain Cook set out to seek a western entrance to the fabled North West Passage, his instructions allowed him no more than the briefest contact with the coast of northwest America. The burden of that survey was to fall on George Vancouver, one of his midshipmen. Vancouver was sent with two ships to explore the coast and to claim land for Britain. His remarkably accurate survey of the coast was to set a standard that lasted over a century, and he returned with new lands discovered and the sovereignty of Hawaii in his pocket. He returned to a land at war and was soon forgotten in all but his native Kings Lynn. But his name has been immortalized on shores far from home.