Almost inevitably, the starting point for an account of “The British Contribution to the Hydrographic Surveying of Canada” must start with Captain Cook. B.C. — or before Cook — most other British visitors to Canadian waters had produced “maps” rather than “ charts” . It is harder to decide on a finishing point : although the Canadian Parliament attained authority in 1867 over certain navigational matters and the Canadian Hydrographic Office was formed in 1883, it was not until 1908 that the first Canadian ship Lilloet was available to take over the surveying task and HM ships continued to survey off British Columbia until 1910, off Newfoundland till 1912 — indeed, HMS Challenger was surveying off Labrador from 1932 to 1934. The paper considers the subject in the four sections of Canada’s roughly rectangular boundaries
