The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake: 1577-1580 » (Reprint)

Samuel Bawlf is a geographer and former minister in the government of British Columbia. He has sailed the Pacific coast from southern Alaska to San Francisco and enjoys a lifelong passion for maritime history.

When Sir Francis Drake returned to England in 1580, many questions concerning his momentous voyage were left unanswered—his journals were impounded and his men were forbidden, on pain of death, to divulge where they had been. Drawing on newly uncovered evidence, geographer and maritime historian Samuel Bawlf masterfully reconstructs Francis Drake's historic round-the-world expedition, exploring the drama surrounding the voyage and offering intriguing insights into life at sea in the sixteenth century. But it is Bawlf's assertion of Drake's whereabouts in the summer of 1579 that gives the book even greater originality: from an intensive study of maps of the period, Bawlf shows with certainty that Drake sailed all the way to Alaska—much farther than anyone has heretofore imagined—thereby rewriting the history of exploration in North America.

The Los Angeles Times

Bawlf concludes: "Beyond any question, Sir Francis Drake's secret voyage to the northwest coast of America must be regarded as one of the greatest in the history of global exploration." It certainly will be, if other historians generally come to accept Bawlf's conclusions. If not, his will have been at least a brave attempt at historical reconstruction. — Anthony Day