Captain James Cook (1728-1799). 1778 Great Britain's explorer, Captain James Cook, reached Nootka Sound and became the first white man to set foot on British Columbian soil. On December 30, 1776, Cook and Clerke sailed away from the island for New Zealand. This was Cook's last contact with the Antarctic region. Cook was advised to wait until the summer of 1778 before starting his search for the Northwest Passage. On January 18, 1778, Cook made his last great discovery...the Hawaiian Islands. For the following month, the two ships sailed north up the west coast of America. Several unsuccessful attempts to locate the passage were tried along the coasts of Canada and Alaska. After sailing through the Bering Strait and crossing the Arctic Circle, Cook abandoned his search and turned both ships south for the Hawaiian Islands. In the spring of 1778 Captain James Cook, R.N., became the first known European to set foot on what is now British Columbia. Permanent European settlement, long delayed, was brought about by the gradual overland penetration of the fur trade companies towards the Pacific Coast. On March 13, 1843, Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company James Douglas, accompanied by the pioneer Roman Catholic missionary Father J.B.Z. Bolduc, anchored off Clover Point in the "Beaver." The next day he selected the site for Fort Victoria. By mid-June Chief Factor Charles Ross was busy at work constructing the new post. The positioning of the statue of Captain Cook in the inner harbor of Victoria, facing the Empress Hotel, underscores his centrality to a European understanding of the land that Victoria was constructed on.